Chapter 6 #2
He catches me looking and pushes it away, giving me a satisfied smile and a nod of thanks, then shares a look with Liam.
“Just anything, Mom. This is amazing. Thank you.”
“I’ve decided to close the café for a few days. I need some time to put up a sign on the front door, and then we’re going to the clubhouse.”
Liam drops his fork right into the congealing pile of syrup on his plate. “What?”
“I have questions. I need answers. I’d like to talk to the guy who is going to be doing the hacking, and to the club’s president as well.”
“You can’t just go talk to Tyrant!” Liam gives me a worried look. “You’re going to go all mama bear on them. It won’t just be humiliating, it’ll make us both seem extremely—”
“I just want to talk.” I don’t cut Liam off often, but I can see how panicked he is. “I’d like to express myself as just my opinion, not as someone who is trying to lay out rules and dictate lives. I realize how pathetic and terrible that would sound, and that’s not who I want to be.”
“That’s not who you are,” Liam agrees. “You’ve always tried hard to consider both sides of an argument, and you taught me to do the same.
” He speaks to Cruz now that the immediate crisis of having me chew his sort of boss a new asshole has passed.
“You should see how many philosophy books my mom’s read.
She has a ton, but she’s read way more. Her book tracking app is insane.
She reads like five hundred books a year. ”
“Some people say audio books don’t count,” I protest. I whip around so Cruz can’t glimpse my scarlet face.
I love giving compliments, but I’m the classic case of not being able to take them.
“Anyway, Cruz thought it would be a good idea for us to talk it out at the clubhouse. Maybe I’ll feel better when I know what the plan is to keep you safe.
I’ll hopefully be able to make a decision about whether the café should be open or not.
I’d like to have more details, and… maybe a timeline. ”
Liam shoots out of his chair. He wraps his arms around my back. “Sorry. I’m so… sorry. I didn’t think about you having to close the café. You think that it wouldn’t be safe for the people who come here?”
“I just want to be sure.”
“Cruz should show you some self-defense moves. I think between gaining some confidence in being able to fight off any random douchebags, and seeing the clubhouse, you’ll feel…
” he trails off. “I don’t know. But if you meeting some of the people there and realize that they’re basically just regular guys who love bikes and found family, maybe me prospecting there won’t bother you so much.
This is day two, I realize that, and it’s not all going to come at once, but I want this.
” He guides me around so that we’re face to face. “I really do, Mom.”
All the doubts that have remained clenched around my heart, done up with hard, steel chains of worry, don’t just fall away or cease to exist, but my chest squeezes.
I can be above prejudice, ignorance, and admitting I was wrong, if I have hard evidence.
I don’t tell Liam that he’s young and he might be wrong, that I’ve made mistakes, and I can recognize paths and patterns.
That wouldn’t be true, and it would likely border on arrogance.
I give him the only truth I have, as his mom.
“I want the best for you, but my best and your best might be different versions. Maybe they’re different versions of the same thing.
” I talk into Liam’s shoulder, because he’s so much taller than I am.
I haven’t missed how much he’s been working out in the past five months either.
He’s much broader than he used to be. It’s a crazy thing, when your son goes from being a little boy to a fully grown man.
“I’m never going to stop worrying about you, but I want to respect that you can make your own decisions and allow you to do that.
I don’t want this to turn into a pride thing for me, or having to be right.
I would never let that come between us.”
Cruz’s deep breaths fill up the kitchen. Liam’s are much shorter and more violent. I know that he’s struggling with his emotions.
“Thank you,” Liam finally says, voice rough and raw. “Thank you so much, Mom. For everything.”
I hear the apology coming and quickly pull back and shake my head. I pat Liam’s shoulder. “Let me make those coffees and get the sign on the door, and we’ll go. I think we all have questions, and even if we don’t get all the answers, maybe a few is better than nothing.”
A few would definitely be better than another sleepless night with a thousand burning questions running careening around on the inside of my skull.
Also? The sooner we figure this out, the sooner we can go back to an approximation of a normal life.
I ignore the twinge of disappointment in my chest when it comes to the pretty obvious base level of attraction that I haven’t wanted to admit to.
Yeah. The sooner this is all figured out, the sooner all temptation to make bad decisions with entirely inappropriate men will be gone too.