11. Daisy
DAISY
“I’m not sure what I expected a motorcycle clubhouse to look like,” I admit. “I mean, I’ve watched Sons of Anarchy but wasn’t sure how realistic that was.”
“Honestly, that show got a lot right and some things wrong.” Vandal leads me down a corridor behind the bar. “This is our medical bay.”
I peer in. It looks like a budget hospital. There are shelves with boxes all neatly labeled, and a large medical table lies in the middle of the room. “What did it get wrong?”
Vandal huffs. “Too much drama and not enough business for one. It’s not all chaotic bar fights and impulsive murders. Violence tends to be strategic because law enforcement heat is bad for everyone. Plus, we can barely stand being caged in a car, so who wants to spend time in a prison cell?”
I glance up at him. “That’s a lot more information than I was expecting you to give me.”
“You asked, so I answered. Never gonna lie to you, Daze.” He pushes a set of doors open at the end of the hallway. “This is the kitchen.”
“Wow, this is a big kitchen. I love making bulk batches of food for the freezer, but our kitchen’s too small. What else did the show mess up?”
“Presidents don’t survive by being emotional and reckless. They’ve got to be colder. More logical. They have to manage all the hotheads.”
He closes the door, leads me back into the bar area, and then takes a right down another corridor that has doors spaced out like a budget hotel corridor. At the end, there’s a door that opens up onto a balcony that wraps around the building and has two sets of stairs down to the lot by a dock.
“Thought you’d want to check on Elsie,” he says as we step outside.
She’s sitting next to Maren and opposite Havoc at one of the picnic tables, slurping cola and ice cream.
I smile and wave back when Elsie grins and waves up at me. “I can’t wait to deal with the sugar crash she’s going to have after this.”
“Kid deserves it for drawing me such a cute picture.”
Just as we’re watching her, the big, bald dude from earlier walks up to us, and in response, something makes me slip my hand into Vandal’s. His is so much bigger, and he closes his fingers around mine, squeezing it even as he greets the man.
“It’s not a family day, V,” he says. “Shouldn’t be kids in here.”
I squeeze my fingers even more tightly around Vandal’s and look to where Elsie is smiling at something Maren says. Her hair is blowing in the gentle breeze, and Havoc is dragging an umbrella over to keep the sun off her.
“Then it’s lucky the kid is outside then, isn’t it, Rusty?” Vandal replies. He grabs his phone and types something quickly. Then Rusty’s phone pings, and I see Havoc grab his from his pocket.
Havoc stands and looks up at us, then laughs.
“Fuck you,” Rusty says as he checks his own, then disappears back down the front of the building.
“What did you do?” I ask.
Vandal turns his phone so it’s facing me and I read what he typed.
Vandal: As of ten minutes ago, it’s a family day.
Havoc: Saw that coming from a mile away.
North: Someone should look up what “abuse of power” means
Sunny: What did I miss?
Knox: For fuck’s sake.
“We should go,” I say. “We shouldn’t be here. It was a bad—”
“I wanna talk to you, but let’s go hang out with Elsie for a little while first. Just so you can see she’s settled.”
Vandal tries to take my hand, but I snatch it away. “Not with Elsie watching. I don’t want her confused by—”
“This?” Vandal gestures between the two of us.
“There is no this,” I say, quickly.
Vandal huffs. “I keep trying to tell myself that too.”
“Vandal,” Elsie shouts. “Come sit next to me. I saved you a place.”
“Thanks for looking out for me, Elsie,” he says as we walk side-by-side. His fingers brush mine, and I swear it’s intentional.
Maren stands to raise a hand to the driver of the airboat that skims across the marsh, sending ripples through the sawgrass. Golden blades bow beneath the water’s surface before springing upright again.
The sun’s rays ice the ripples, and it strikes me how beautiful this spot is. When Maren sits, she switches sides to settle next to Havoc then winks at me.
Vandal lifts one leg over the bench seat followed by the other, and my daughter shifts to her knees so she can face him. The breeze lifts her hair, and she messily shoves it back from her face.
“How’s the Coke float?” Vandal asks Elsie as she tries to lick ice cream from her lips.
“It’s good. Do you want some? I can share.”
“Nah, I’m good. How was camp?”
Elsie puts her hand on the crook of his arm, and I wince when I realize her hand is sticky from whatever she was doing with the floating ice cream before I arrive.
There’s a spoon sitting in a melted puddle, and I can’t help but reach into my purse and pull out a wet wipe to clean both her hand, and the gloop on the table.
Vandal chuckles. “You can leave it, Daze. It gets a lot messier than this when we have a party back here.”
“Can I come to your party?” Elsie asks hopefully.
“Not sure they’re the right kind of parties for little girls,” Havoc says.
Elsie glares his way. “I didn’t ask you, I asked Vandal.”
“Elsie Marie,” I say firmly. “That was rude. Say sorry to Havoc or I’ll take you home.”
Elsie now glares at me.
“Say sorry, Elsie,” Vandal says calmly. “Because I don’t want you and your momma to go just yet.”
That gets her attention, and she turns to Havoc. “Sorry.”
“Apology accepted, Els,” Havoc says. “And we do have some parties that kids can come too.”
Vandal’s hand sneaks beneath the table and gently massages my thigh. I put my hand over his to encourage him to stop, but he simply grips my fingers between his.
Elsie clutches her hands to her chest. “Maybe I can get a new dress with sparkles.”
The very look of joyful, childish, whimsy is like a kick in the chest. I haven’t bought her a dress for fun since we left. Instead, I’ve focused on the practical. It embarrasses me that I haven’t done better.
Even as I watch the way Elsie establishes her friendship with Vandal, I realize I couldn’t even pick her a decent father. From the short interactions I’ve seen of Vandal and Elsie together, it’s crystal clear how useless her father was.
And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit, even to myself, that watching Vandal, with his large, tattooed hands, being gentle with my daughter causes my ovaries to explode.
“You okay with Maren and Havoc, Els?” Vandal asks. “I need to go talk with your mom.”
Elsie sighs like it’s a massive imposition.
“We can take a walk down the dock,” Maren says.
Havoc looks my way. “I’ll keep an eye on her, I promise.”
“Okay,” she says finally. “But come back soon.”
“We should probably be going,” I say, but even I can hear how non-committal I am.
“Just come with me for a second. You’ll be able to see Elsie from where we’re going.
And no one is gonna touch Elsie, I promise.
Maren is the president’s old lady, and Havoc is the club’s sergeant at arms, and if you know anything about motorcycle clubs from what you’ve watched on TV, no one is going to mess with either of them without the most dire consequences happening to them. Elsie is safe—I’d bet my life on it.”
It’s my turn to huff. “If I know anything from Sons of Anarchy, women and kids are collateral. The two lead women—one a protagonist, the other an antagonist—both ended up dead at the end.”
Vandal touches my cheek just for a moment. “Another thing that show got wrong. Just come with me, Daze.”
I know I’m throwing caution to the wind, but I stand anyway.
And this time when he reaches for my hand, I let him take it.
I cast another glance toward Elsie first. She’s chatting animatedly, and from the way Maren shifts her hair to show her something, I’m pretty sure Elsie is telling Maren all about how I won’t let her get her ears pierced until she’s older.
“Fine.”
He leads me back into the clubhouse and down the corridor, before unlocking the third door from the exit.
When we step inside, it’s a mess. There are bottles of alcohol by an overflowing garbage container.
Pill bottles sit haphazard, lids off, knocked over on a small desk beneath the window that has a view out over the water.
The navy bedding is unmade, and there’s a stale scent in the air.
I’m grateful when he opens the window to let some fresh air in, and I can hear Elsie’s laughter.
Vandal doesn’t apologize for the mess. Instead, he straightens the unmade bed and offers me his hand to lead me to sit on the edge of it. Then he pulls out the chair from beneath the desk and sits opposite me, close enough to reach for my hands and hold them tightly.
I’ve never been more torn.
Stay or go.
Because this room is proof of who Vandal is right now. It’s like the universe has put a brilliant, beaming spotlight right here to remind me what I’m getting involved in.
This isn’t some dangerous biker fantasy inspired by a TV show. It’s Vandal’s reality.
And you don’t need a fixer-upper.
Vandal closes his eyes for a second, perhaps to block out the reality. But when he opens them, he studies me carefully. “I haven’t let anyone in here since the accident until today. First Havoc, now you. But this is who I am right now. And it’s a tough thing to admit.”
He leans forward, elbows on his knees. His fingers stay wrapped around mine. “Guess I probably should have brought in one of the cleaning girls before you, huh?”
I look around the room again. “I think the tidiness is only part of the problem.”
He shuffles his feet awkwardly beneath him and knocks over a pile of pill bottles next to the bed. At some point in time, I might look back and think this was the moment I should have left. But I feel for this man.
Outside, Elsie and Maren laugh at something, and Vandal looks in their direction. “Elsie’s easy to like.”
“For some reason, she feels safe around you. And that’s probably a bigger deal than you realize.”
His thumb brushes over my knuckles. “No idea why. I’m not sure I’m that good with kids.”
“The evidence would suggest otherwise,” I say. “I don’t know a single other person who got a gold star from Elsie, including me, and I gave birth to that girl.”
The corner of Vandal’s lips twitches in a smile, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. There’s too much exhaustion and pain in them. “You should stop looking at me like that,” he says roughly.
“Sorry,” I say, looking over to the window.
He grabs my chin between his thumb and finger. “The problem isn’t you looking. It’s how I feel when you do.”
The air between us saturates with something a lot like tension. His gaze drops to my mouth. Mine drops to his. And there’s this awful, beautiful moment where I know we’re both thinking the exact same thing.
It’s bad timing, and this is a bad idea. Between the two of us, there’s too much baggage, damage, and complication.
But then Vandal quietly says, “Tell me to stop."
Do it.
I know I should, but instead, I whisper, “Maybe just this once.”
Something breaks across his face then, not amusement or victory. It’s perhaps something a touch sadder than that. It’s as if he knows what we’re up against but needs to know what he’d be missing when we go our separate ways today.
The approach isn’t rushed. It’s not desperate, filthy, and consuming. It’s slow and careful.
His hand slides up my neck, a rough palm against warm skin, and I melt before I can stop myself. His mouth is softer than I expected, and mine parts instinctively as his breath catches against my skin.
We kiss deep and slowly, as if answering a question as opposed to demanding something. And somehow that makes this infinitely worse. Because I feel all of it.
I feel the loneliness.
The grief.
The desperate wanting.
And the paralyzing fear.
His tongue brushes gently against mine, searching and seeking for answers I’m incapable of providing. But I fall into how it feels, which is impossible to explain. How do you put words to the feeling like your soul just met its match?
His hand moves to my neck, holding me firmly, his thumb stroking along my jaw, and I swear I shiver.
Isn’t this how I’ve always wanted to be held? To feel like I’m cherished while being defiled.
And when he finally pulls back, neither of us moves far.
My forehead rests against his, our breathing unsteady.
Outside, the water laps softly against the dock as life goes on like the world didn’t just tilt sideways.
“This is a bad idea,” I whisper.
“Yeah.” But he moves his hand to my hip, his grip tightening, crumpling my T-shirt instead of letting go.
I close my eyes. “I don't know what this means, Vandal. I don't even know your real name.”
“It’s Gideon Boon. And it doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to.”
The words should make me relieved, but instead they make my chest hurt because I know what he’s really saying.
He expects me to regret this, and he’s giving me an exit before I even ask for one.
I pull back enough to look at him properly. “It’s weird,” I say quietly. “Don’t you think?”
His brow furrows slightly. “What is?”
“The timing of this.”
A muscle shifts in his jaw, but he nods once.
“I spent years,” I whisper, “thinking that if I met someone…really met someone…it would happen at the right time. Like fate would somehow be kind.” I laugh softly, but there’s no humor in it.
“The first time I thought I’d met someone, I was naive, even foolish.
That relationship gave me Elsie, but not a lot else.
But I guess life doesn’t wait until you’ve got money in the bank, and confidence, and a five-year plan, and a kitchen with matching plates. ”
That actually earns the faint ghost of a smile from him, but I continue on before I lose my nerve. “But maybe that's not how any of this works. Maybe people just crash into each other in the middle of their messy lives and bad timing and grief and whatever…this is.”
“Daze…” The short form of my name hangs in the air between us.
“But it’s also kind of wild, that you made such an impact in mine and Daisy’s life in such an infinitesimally small window of time.”
Vandal’s hand brushes slowly across my hip, his expression unreadable now. It’s guarded like the very first time I saw him. “I think that’s the problem,” he says roughly. “I’m not offering myself at the right time. I know you’ve got a kid depending on you. But—”
The sound of boat engines interrupts him.
He stands suddenly and looks out the window. “Fuck,” he shouts.
When I stand to see what he’s looking at, I find four airboats with men dressed in black coming across the water.