Chapter 8 #2
Pumpkin hadn’t been back to the dealership since his accident.
When SJ had first been born, he would work his shifts with a baby carrier strapped to his chest. Some of the women who had accompanied their men into the shop had even slipped him their number.
Something about a man and a baby was irresistible, but all those numbers had ended up in the trash.
Pumpkin hadn’t had sex since the day he’d discovered Cheryl was pregnant with his baby.
It hadn’t been a conscious act. Like, he was trying to make a statement about sex being bad or something.
There had just been so much to do to get ready for SJ, so much for him to learn, that sex had literally been the last thing on his mind.
Then, after SJ had been born, he’d been too exhausted.
There’d been days when he truly didn’t think he was going to make it.
He had no idea what he was doing and he hated constantly having to ask for help…
It just wasn’t him. He was so used to doing everything himself, to stand on his own two feet.
And then, the accident happened.
Darrin cleared his throat. “Are, uh, are you going in?”
They’d just been idling out front for who knew how long.
Pumpkin didn’t actually feel like getting out. No, what he wanted was to go for a ride. To hop on a hog and ride. For hours. To get lost to the road and the wind for a while. He missed it so much that it was like a part of him had been amputated when his bike had been destroyed.
Pumpkin pulled the door handle. His back twitched uncomfortably, but he ignored it. He swung his legs like he’d been trained to, putting both boots flat on the sidewalk before bracing himself on the door to stand.
His knees buckled, and Pumpkin nearly went down.
“Shit!” came from behind him before he heard scrambling.
Pumpkin bared his teeth, trying his damnedest to remain on his feet. It was sheer arm strength holding him up until Darrin got to him and guided him back onto the passenger seat .
“I’ll get your walker—” Darrin started to say but Pumpkin snapped.
“I don’t need my fucking walker!” He just needed his goddamn legs to fucking work! What good was he to either his son or his daughter if he couldn’t fucking walk!
Darrin ignored him and hurried to the trunk. Pumpkin glared daggers at the man as he brought the foldable walker forward.
“I will murder you in your sleep if you bring that thing near me.”
Darrin kept on walking. “I’ll risk it.” He opened the metal walker and placed it in front of Pumpkin.
Frustration, rage, and fuck him, self-pity all battled inside him. Pumpkin couldn’t remember hating anything in his life more than he did that walker. Other than his father, that is, and that was only because the man had made Pumpkin’s mother cry.
But Pumpkin would not wallow. He’d done enough of that in the hospital and rehab when he’d been alone in his room, helpless to move due to his casts.
When the pain had gotten so bad that he’d purposefully hit the morphine button just to make it end, and God help him, because there’d been once when he’d hoped he wouldn’t wake back up again.
Pumpkin had pushed through. He’d endured. He’d worked his ass off to be able to come home. For his son, for SJ.
And now? Now, he had yet another reason to push on. To keep fighting. His daughter .
Pumpkin cleared his throat, gathered his energy, and put one hand on the crossbar of the fucking walker and the other on his car door. It took him a moment to balance, but finally he was steady enough to grab the walker with both hands and take a step forward.
Darrin moved out of his way, his face an emotionless mask.
Pumpkin kept his head high as he passed the prospect. “I’m not thanking you.”
“Never expected you to.”
Pumpkin snorted and kept on walking.
Demo had two offices. As the club’s Treasurer and accountant, he was in charge of all the financials for the varying businesses. Since the dealership was where he was needed on-hand more often than not, this had become his main office and the clubhouse one was now mere convenience.
There was no doubt Demo heard the damn walker on the linoleum floor long before Pumpkin reached his office, but the man still lifted his head like he was surprised to see Pumpkin there.
“Hey, man! I thought you had PT.”
“So did the PT.” Pumpkin got himself over to the side enough where he could close the door.
“Playing hooky. I like it.” Demo smiled at him. He waited for Pumpkin to take a seat in one of the comfortable chairs in front of his desk before asking, “So what brings you to my neck of the woods?”
“I have a daughter.” It felt weird to say out loud, but not because he was so used to saying he had a son. No, the weirdness came from how natural the words came out. Like somehow his tongue had been waiting years to say those words.
Which was fucking ridiculous. He was losing his goddamn mind.
Demo’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Um, I think SJ’s a little young to have figured that out, but hey, full support.”
Pumpkin’s head dropped into his hands. He had no idea if he should laugh or cry at Demo’s words. He ended up with a mixture of the two.
“Hey, whoa!” Demo came around the desk, taking a seat next to Pumpkin. “It was a joke. Seriously, man, what’s going on?”
Pumpkin let out a shaky breath before sitting back up. He squared his shoulders and faced his friend. “I have an actual daughter. She’s five.”
Demo’s jaw dropped open. “What? I… How… I mean, I know how , but… Who ?”
The floodgates finally broke and it all came free.
He told Demo everything he could remember from his patch-in party, how much he remembered really liking the woman he’d been with that night, and how disappointed he’d been that she’d vanished the next morning.
He left off his frustration about his road name and the running pumpkin joke the club kept up to this very day.
How he’d eventually let the idea of finding her go and he’d moved on.
Then all about the restaurant the night before. How he’d recognized her immediately and all the feelings he’d suppressed for years came rushing back. How he’d declared her to be his, even if only in his head. And the triumph he’d felt when he’d been able to get his cut on her.
And then the bookstore.
“I need to find a family lawyer. I need to get my name on her birth certificate,” he finished up by saying. “Who did Paige use when she was dealing with everything with her family and custody of the boys?”
Paige’s mom and stepfather had been threatening to take her sons away before Keys had been able to dig up some of their financial skeletons and made those public.
Demo put his hands up. “Hold on. I think you’re jumping the gun here?—”
“Did you not hear anything I just said?” Pumpkin demanded. He thought of all people Demo would understand. He had been at Paige’s side during the worst of her battle with her family. “I have a daughter who knows nothing about me.”
“Oh, I heard you. The real question is, did you ?”
Pumpkin blinked, not understanding. “Demo, I am not going to let another day go by where my daughter doesn’t know me. Where she doesn’t have a father in her life. I went through that and I will never let any of my children know the pain of thinking their parent doesn’t love them!”
“And I commend you for that. Most men would demand a paternity test or deny the child until proof was right in front of their face.” When Pumpkin winced, Demo’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I did demand a paternity test,” Pumpkin admitted.
“But only because I watched a lot of reality TV while in the hospital and that show, Paternity Court , was on a lot. Along with reruns of Judge Judy . Anyway, they said paternity tests are the best and fastest way to get a father added to the birth certificate. ”
“Well, in my experience, most women view paternity tests as their man doubting their fidelity.”
Pumpkin couldn’t stop the snort that escaped him. “You haven’t seen my daughter. Trust me, proving paternity isn’t about doubting she’s mine. She looks just like my mom.”
Demo nodded slowly. “Okay, I’m just going to come out and say this. Then you can blow up at me and we’ll move on. You’re being an ass.”
Pumpkin’s back stiffened. “What? Me? I’m not the one who hid a pregnancy and a child for six years!”
“Oh, I agree with you there, but you also need to consider things from her perspective. You said you had to convince her at the restaurant last night that you weren’t some drunken womanizer.
You said it took a while too. If she really only remembered as little as you do from the night you were together six years ago, why would she have such a strong opinion about you?
She was just as drunk and it wasn’t like you’d slept with multiple women that night. ” Demo paused, “Right?”
Pumpkin’s eyes narrowed. “Right.”
“Then clearly, she had more information than you do about her. Where did she get it from?”
Pumpkin shook his head. “She probably just assumed that I seduced women like I did her every night?—”
“Man, stop. You said it yourself. You thought her assumption about you was unprecedented because she was the one who left you, not the other way around. So think . What would make her think that about you?”
Pumpkin scratched the back of his head. “What does it matter! I need to get my daughter?—”
“Stop! I get that you’ve had a shock, man,” Demo said sternly, “but that is why we need to hash this out now. You’ve already dug yourself a hole.
I’m just trying to make sure you don’t end up lying in it.
Now, come on, what would make her think you’re some womanizing sleaze with a drinking problem? ”
His head was starting to throb. “I don’t know, man! I am not in the mood for this bullshit right now?—”
“She saw you again!” Demo shouted over his loud voice. “She had to have seen you again to draw that conclusion!”
Pumpkin shook his head. “No, I would have remembered.”