Chapter 29 Dakota
DAKOTA
“Mommy, look!”
The weather has been shifting, but today's warm for the season, and Logan's running around on the lawn next to the church, trying to do cartwheels, since Anne showed him how last night. His legs barely make it to the middle before he ends up in a heap on the ground, but his failures don’t bother him much.
Each time he tumbles into the grass, he laughs out loud and then tries again.
“You're doing good, Lo. You'll get it.”
When do we lose that enthusiasm and willingness to just keep on trying no matter how many times we don't quite make it? Wouldn’t life be better if we kept it up as adults?
At some point life is going to have to find a new normal.
As much fun as Logan is having here, he's still a four-year-old who needs a stable routine, and living inside the walls here isn’t sustainable.
They’re being very nice about it, but this isn’t a safe playground for a little kid and it’s not fair to expect the members to make it one.
Bonnie told me that even she chose to put Anne in boarding school until they moved into one of the houses behind the club.
When can you come back to work? Have you heard any news about when you can arrange a funeral?
I eye the text from my boss. I've already gone over what I’m allowed to take off without some sort of documentation, and I don’t know what to tell her.
I brought up commuting from here instead, but the guys shut that down real quick.
Until we've dealt with Jay or Dillard or whatever his name is, they want me and Logan to stay put.
And they're right. I know they are, but right now I'm feeling trapped between my old life, and a new place that I can’t quite see yet.
“Come on, Paige, just a little jog. You can do this!” A woman with brown hair and glasses who looks to be in her early twenties is jogging circles around a very pregnant woman of about the same age.
She’s dishing out orders like a drill sergeant, even if it's one on the verge of cracking up with laughter. “All the advice says to keep moving.”
“With all the love in the world, Jess, fuck you.” Paige is shorter and instead of mousy brown, her hair is lighter with blonde highlights.
“I can barely walk, never mind jog anywhere.
I don't care what you read. I'm just going to keep waddling and hope something happens. The creation of a new life is a miracle, blah blah blah, but I’m so ready for the miracle to be somewhere outside of my body.”
“That's quitter talk! Drop and give me 50!” Jess loses it and starts laughing.
“Seriously, Jess, I will kill you, and when I explain everything, I don’t think your guys will blame me.”
“Look!” Logan is completely unaware of our newly arrived company, and actually manages to make it almost the whole way around the cartwheel before gravity pulls him back down.
Both women snap their attention our way, and I suddenly realize why Jess seemed familiar. She wasn't wearing glasses when I saw her last, but she was the one I saw at the bar that I asked Bonnie about.
“Oh crap,” Paige says. “I'm sorry. Didn't realize there were little ears here.” She looks past me at Logan, who's getting annoyed that I haven't answered yet.
“Mommy, look!”
“I'm sorry, honey. Let me see.” He does another attempt. “Good job, Lo! You'll get it soon.”
When I turn back, Jess and Paige have come over to me. Jess is holding out her hand. “Hi. I'm Jessica. You must be Dakota.” Guess word spreads.
“And I'm Paige and a half.” She rests her hand on her swollen belly. “And seriously looking forward to ejecting the half. Well, maybe not that specific part of it, but at least looking forward to lying down on my stomach again. Jess has no idea what it’s like to feel like a stranger in your own body. But I bet you know all about that.” She nods towards Logan.
“I actually got to skip straight to the six-month-old. He was my sister's.” I shrug. “Long story.”
“I bet. We hear bits and pieces, but the guys tend to gossip more about each other than us. Right now everyone is waiting for Hellfire and Grimm to either kill each other or kiss.” Jess nudges her glasses up.
“Only you are waiting for them to kiss, Jess.” Paige says with a groan.
“Willow and Grace agree it would make a great enemies to lovers story.” Jessica laughs. “If only they weren’t both so depressingly straight. Let a girl have her dreams, okay?”
Logan finally gets too tired to keep going. He collects Mr. Larson and the helmet and flops onto the grass on his back, waving the toys over his head in some sort of elaborate story.
Paige smiles. “I hope if I have a boy, he’s as cute as yours. What’s his name?”
“Logan.”
“How does he feel being cooped up in here?” Jess asks.
“Honestly? He’s handling it better than I am. He’s totally obsessed with the bikers and doesn’t really understand everything that’s going on.”
“Man, I know that feeling,” Paige says with a laugh. “That’s how we all ended up here. By the time you’ve figured out what’s going on, it’s too late. And now look at me!”
“When’s your due date?” I ask.
“Two days ago. It’s fine, but I'm so sick of waiting. Moving around is supposed to help.”
“You know what else is supposed to help?” asks a gravelly male voice. A big biker with a shaved head and a thick beard comes around the corner. He's followed by Poe, who nods a quick hi to me, and a third biker with a short reddish beard and a pair of startlingly green eyes.
Paige turns to them and puts her hands on her hips. It makes her look a little bit like a teapot with that belly, but if I were the guys, I wouldn't mess with her, because her look is pure steel and you could skate on her voice. “And what, pray tell, might that be, Crank?”
With her back to me, I can't help noticing her jacket reads “Property of Savage, Crank and Poe.” And given two of those guys are Crank and Poe, I can only assume the last one is Savage.
The easy smile that breaks out on Crank's face is completely unbothered. “Orgasms.”
“Sweet baby biker Jesus, save me,” Paige says in what I'm pretty sure is a mix of real and mock resignation.
Savage cocks his head. “We're here to offer up a possible solution to your problem, that's all.”
“A problem the three of you created, I'd like to note.” Paige's lips are twitching, threatening to break up her mask of indignation.
“Pretty sure it was a team effort,” Poe notes. “You were real fucking enthusiastic, if my memory is right.”
I'm really glad Logan's fully distracted right now, because I don't feel like having to explain all this to him.
Jessica leans her elbow on Paige's shoulder. “You do want this process to get started right? They might have a point.”
“I’m a beach ball with legs.” Paige rolls her eyes.
Crank takes her hand to pull her closer. “And you're the sexiest fucking beach ball I've seen in my damn life. Have we been neglecting you lately? Let’s fix that.”
“Go!” Jessica shoves Paige right into her guys' arms with a laugh. “They're ready to help. You need help, and you'll all have a lot of fun. Dakota will keep me company, right?”
I nod.
Next I know, Paige is dragged off laughing by her guys, who look as eager as if she was a supermodel.
Bikers really don't do anything halfway, do they?
I'm still getting used to how up front everyone is about everything.
Up until I got here, the idea of someone threatening me with an orgasm in public would be an embarrassment I'd never live down.
Now? It's just another Tuesday. And I think I prefer it.
“She just needs to relax,” Jess says with a confident nod. “She's so self-conscious about the belly, no matter how much the guys tell her they love it. And how much they show her.”
I chuckle at that, but it makes me wonder how Georgia felt when she was carrying Logan. She didn’t even tell me until after he was born. She must’ve been so lonely.
My thoughts must show on my face, because Jessica's expressive eyes suddenly get very concerned. “Hey, you okay? I hope I didn't say anything wrong.”
“No.” I try to dismiss it with a smile. “I was just thinking about my sister. She didn't have an easy time of it when she was pregnant. She was separated from Logan’s dad, and maybe things would’ve gone differently if she’d had support, you know?”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know exactly. She was… no contact I guess you could say. I only found out recently that Logan’s dad was an Outlaw Son.”
“Really? Who?”
“Ice. He died not long after Logan was born.”
She puts a hand on my arm, lending support. “That sounds really rough. Listen, for what it's worth, the biker life is rough and dangerous, but they take care of their own. No matter what. If his dad was a Son, Logan will always have a place if he wants it.”
I nod. “I've only known Stiff, Jackal and Lash for a couple of weeks, and I already feel like they'd do anything for me and Logan. I'm just doing my best to deserve it.”
“Ain't that the truth?” She laughs while we watch Logan doing somersaults on the lawn, the cartwheels temporarily forgotten.
“They fall fast and they fall hard. It's part of what I love about them. I had a hard childhood, and I didn’t find out until my guys literally kidnapped me and Anne that a lot of what I knew about myself was a lie.”
“That sounds like a hell of a story.”
“You don't know the half of it. Stick around and I'll tell you one day. But here's the thing, you're already doing what you need to do to deserve it. If you weren’t, they wouldn’t waste their time, so it’s just up to you to decide if you’re up for the challenge.” She sounds like she knows from experience.
“I don’t know. We haven’t talked about the future so maybe it’s pointless to even worry about it. It would be easier to walk away when this is done and go back to a life I understand.”
“Easier isn’t always better.”
I laugh.
“What?”
“Jackal would tell me to worry about one step at a time. Right now, all I have to do is stay safe, and trust them.”
“That sounds pretty smart, actually.” Jessica grabs me firmly by my upper arms and pins me down with a gaze so stern it just as well could've been Jackal's.
“They’ll keep doing what they're doing now.
The club is committed to seeing this through, because one brother's promise is every brother's promise.
This isn't a game to them. Trust me on this. They wouldn't be doing all this for you, if you weren’t important. No matter what you decide in the end, you—and Logan—have earned yourself protectors for life.”
Wow. That was more than I expected.
“Maybe I should just talk to them.”
“Smartest thing you've said so far.” She smiles and winks. “And if you stick around? I'll send you an invitation to Bonnie’s Gun Club. We're always looking for new members. Oh, and how do you feel about romance books?”