Chapter Four - Christopher #5
“Dad, you’ve got to make up with her,” CJ urged when that thumping faded into the distance. “This is heading for fucking disaster.”
“I ain’t the kid. She is. She come to me with respect or she suffer the consequences.”
All his motherfuckers stared at him. Even motherfucking Cash and Johnnie had the gall to look at him with disapproval. The younger little motherfuckers also looked as if they wanted to say shit but knew better than to open their fucking mouths.
Except Axel. Always motherfucking Axel. He was getting out of hand, too.
The little fuckhead raised his phone in front of Christopher
“I ain’t interested in takin’ no fuckin’ selfie,” he roared, wondering why Axel had the camera aimed at him.
“Good, ‘cause I don’t want no fucking picture. I want you to look at yourself, Dad.”
Christopher shoved Axel’s hand away so hard the phone went flying.
Glowering, Axel folded his arms. “You see all the fucking hair missing from your fucking head?”
“I can’t miss that motherfucker.” His hair was starting to grow back, but it was still thickest at the top where he hadn’t put Axel’s concoction. “You avenged your ma. What the fuck’s your point?”
“That you’re a stupid motherfucker.” Axel turned to CJ. “Talk to this motherfucker, C. A man don’t got the patience for his level of senileness.”
“Tired fuckin’ line,” Christopher spat, not caring that Axel stormed back to Diesel’s side. “Come up with something new, you lil’ fuckhead.”
“It’s take a big fuckhead to know a little one, Dad,” Axel replied.
“At least the little fuckhead got a brain. You want me to come up with something new? Here goes. You’re a big dummy.
You get mad at all of us for protecting Mom, even though you scream and yell and holler to protect Mom.
And you like it when people say me, CJ, and Diesel are like you.
When Reb’s just like us. Even Mom said it. Why do you get so mad at that?”
“Cuz I ain’t no spoiled bitch.”
“Evidence suggests otherwise,” Axel growled. “’Cause you acted just like Rebel. No, worse, Dad.”
“Don’t fuckin’ talk to me again ‘til you apologize, Axel.”
“I’m talking to you or I’m talking to Mom. You decide.”
“Haven’t you been worried about Mom leaving again, stupid?” Ryder asked.
“She got to know that Dad hurt Reb’s feelings so it won’t get real big and she finds out after,” Axel insisted.
“Say what the fuck you got to say, then shut the fuck up, Axel.”
“If you talk to Reb, you’ll find out how cool she is,” Axel said.
“What the fuck do I have in common with an almost fifteen-year-old girl?” Christopher asked in frustration. “I don’t know about all the shit she like. I ain’t fuckin’ listenin’ to her talk about a motherfucker—”
“Outlaw, you was there for Puff until she was seventeen,” Val said. “She always say how patient you were and how she could talk to you about almost anything—”
“Rebel holdin’ a fuckin’ grudge against me,” Christopher said. “I’m her old man. She should’ve known I’d never cheat on her ma. Every fuckin’ thing I do, she crucify my ass. I ain’t puttin’ up with that.”
“That’s two standings, Dad,” Axel told him.
“How the fuck—?”
“Prez,” Mortician interrupted Christopher.
“You not helping Rebel see you different. Forget Torie and that debacle for a minute. I noticed just around the time Reb turned thirteen, you pulled back a little. You didn’t buy as many fixer uppers for you two to work on.
You didn’t go target practicing with her. ”
“CJ was just startin’ football, Mort.”
“Dad?”
Christopher gritted his teeth at Axel’s call.
“DAD?” the little motherfucker blared.
Instead of answering, Christopher swung his gaze to where Axel stood and lifted a brow.
“Why’d you let me do all those stuffs to you to revenge Mom, but you don’t like Reb being mad at you over Mom?”
“It ain’t got nothin’ to do with protectin’ your ma, boy. It’s cuz of Torie.” He was so tired of saying that bitch’s name. “And Diesel.”
“Diesel’s old like you,” Axel said. “And you don’t spend time with her, so she’d want Diesel to.”
“She don’t want us to spend time with her in the same fuckin’ way, Axel. Fuck. Never mind. Why the fuck am I engagin’ you? You a kid. Protect Megan. Leave Rebel to me.”
“The only girl you have a lot of time for is Mom,” Ryder told him. “Well, after you killed Torie. Before that it was Torie, then Mom, then Jo. If we see how you were ignoring Rebel, I know she does.”
“Outlaw, I just went through some of the worse fucking weeks of my life with Harley,” Mort said, then looked at CJ. “Don’t take this the wrong way, kid. I’m trying to make a point.”
“Okay, Uncle Mort,” CJ said.
“When CJ and Molly became partners, Harley suddenly had to share CJ when she’d always been first and center.
Did she want to control him? Tell him what to do?
Bend him to her will? She did. I’m not taking that away.
But she’d never faced the idea of competing for him with another girl.
Whatever Harley wanted, CJ gave to her. She wanted to do Shakespeare.
He got into Shakespeare. She wanted to have complementary Halloween costumes every fucking year.
He got that. He spent more on a fucking custom-made promise ring for her then some motherfuckers spend on their wedding rings.
So she started acting out and hating everyone.
Now, think about Reb. You completely pulled away from her after that scene at Ryan birthday party.
You’ve wrapped yourself up in all the boys.
The time you once gave Reb, you give to Jo. ”
“Jo a small baby. I ain’t ignorin’ her cuz’ Rebel spoiled.” Christopher wasn’t about to concede to Rebel until she apologized to him for how she’d treated him for weeks.
“Outlaw, you want you daughter to leave?” Val asked. “You want her to find some forty-year-old motherfucker who knocks her up and knocks her around?”
Christopher glanced at Diesel. That motherfucker wasn’t opening his mouth, but he looked furious enough to burst.
“Dad, Diesel’s a grown fuckhead,” CJ started. “If…him and Rebel…he’s grown. That would be on him. Not her. Unless she’s eighteen.”
“Speaking of eighteen, I saw Gypsy earlier,” Johnnie said. “She’s fucking an eighteen-year-old.”
CJ glanced at Rory, and so did Ryan. Meanwhile, Rory choked. Christopher narrowed his eyes.
“The experience an older woman give a young motherfucker invaluable,” Digger said.
Mortician shook his head at his brother.
“What, Mort? You know I’m right.”
“Yeah, but Gypsy,” Johnnie said in disgust. “That eighteen-year-old must be desperate.”
Rory’s face crumpled, and Christopher lifted a brow.
Diesel cleared his throat. “Can I point something out, Uncle Christopher?”
From the tone of that motherfucker’s voice, Christopher knew it wasn’t about Gypsy’s young motherfucker, but Rebel. “You must be lookin’ at her mighty goddamn hard if you noticin’ shit about Reb that I ain’t.”
“Really, Dad?” CJ said, still in that fucking disapproving tone that made him sound worse than a fucking judge.
Christopher scowled, then glared at Diesel. “What, fuckhead?”
“The sincerest form of flattery is imitation,” he said. “You should take it as a compliment that your daughter idolized you enough and you had such a major impact on her, that she emulated you.”
“That’s genetic and it ain’t from me,” Christopher said stubbornly.
“I don’t act like that. Rebel disrespects me.
She wanna fight the minute she lose her fuckin’ temper.
She call me and any motherfucker that make her mad all kinds of fuckin’ names.
She tunnel-visioned. Don’t take no fuckin’ advice.
Think she know it all. Push motherfuckers to their fuckin’ limit.
Challenge motherfuckers. She drink. She smoke.
She cuss. And…and on top of all that, she fuckin’ spoiled and think every fuckin’ thing supposed to go her fuckin’ way.
She think Megan belong to her. And she thinks I fuckin’ cheated.
Mainly cuz she jealous. She think if I don’t spend every fuckin’ day with her, I ain’t lovin’ her no more.
And…and even if I had fuckin’ cheated, that don’t have nothin’ to do with Rebel. She’s still my fuckin’ daughter.”
CJ, Mort, Val…all those motherfuckers…gaped at Christopher like he was a fucking alien. Axel ran to him and snapped a photo, then showed him the picture.
“Delulu, you-you,” he said.
“Prez?” Mort said. “You know you just described yourself, huh?”
Christopher glared at Mort. The motherfucker didn’t back down either. It was a fucking contagious disease.
“Outlaw?” Val said. “The optics with Torie were fucked up to grown motherfuckers. How you think Reb felt?”
“It don’t matter. I don’t answer to her. She answer to me.”
“Right or wrong, half the club thought you and Torie were fucking,” Bishop said, deciding to add his two cents.
Christopher immediately glowered him into silence. The only fuckhead that didn’t work on was Axel.
And Rebel.
“Maybe, Reb’s just hurt,” Diesel said, still defending Rebel. “If you talk to her, listen to her like you do us, you might clear the air.”
“I’m more hurt by the way she been treatin’ me. Megan her ma. She listen to her. I listen to you motherfuckers.”
“Dad?” Ryder called.
“What?” he yelled, fucking overwhelmed. “Fuckin’ what, Ryder?”
“You know how you might do something because somebody told you not to?”
Christopher refused to answer.
“And you know how we call Reb the Blonde Viper?” Ryder pressed.
“What the fuck does that have to do with anyfuckinthing?”
“Suppose when Reb turns eighteen and, uh…?” Ryder nodded to Diesel. “And suppose instead of killing Diesel, you tell Reb she has to choose between you and him. If she wants him, she has to leave. Will you make her go?”
“Fuck yeah! And I’d fuck up Diesel just to fuckin’ show her who the fuck’s in charge. She ain’t fuckin’ disobeyin’ me.”
Axel burst into tears. “But Mom would really leave us if you made Reb go,” he sobbed.