Текст книги "Walk Through Fire"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

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“You do know, Snooks,” I said quietly, “that you teaching her that lesson, one that will be hard to learn, when I came into her life means she’ll associate that hard knock with me.”

“She can’t sort her head out and see that her father’s happy. Fuckin’ unbelievably happy. Straight up, no shit fuckin’ with that, for the first time since she’s been breathin’, know that comes from me havin’ her, her sister, and you, and she doesn’t want that for me and holds a grudge against you, then I failed at teachin’ her to learn that lesson right.”

I couldn’t argue that.

But I wasn’t even thinking of arguing that.

I asked, “You’re unbelievably happy?”

“Baby, are you back?”

Oh God.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Millie, I was given one good thing in my life, the family I was born into. I found one good thing, my Club. I made two good things, my babies. But in all my life, I only earned one good thing. That’s you.”

Oh God.

Feeling so much, I could do nothing but continue to whisper, “Low.”

“I’m gonna fix this, beautiful. I promised myself I’d fix you when I got you back and this is part of that. I’m gonna fix it and I’m gonna do it how I gotta do it. But it’ll get done.”

“I... okay, Logan,” I agreed shakily.

“Want you touchin’ base today. You wanna call, do it. You wanna text, do it. Don’t matter I have the girls and they might hear or see. But I wanna hear from you and know you’re thinkin’ about me.”

“Oh, I’ll be thinking about you.”

He fell silent.

I didn’t.

“I love you, Logan Judd. I earned a lot of things in my life, worked hard for them, but the most precious of those is you. And I’ll say right now that you come with your girls. So I’ll do what I can to help you with Zadie. Do we have a deal?”

I heard the smile in his voice when he replied, “We got a deal, babe.”

“Okay, I’ll share my exciting day with you sometime today and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Right.”

“And, Logan?” I called.

“Right here,” he answered.

“Nothing wrong with dreaming. But you got it right. Best way to dream is do it, then earn it, no matter how that happens.”

“Damn straight,” he muttered, still sounding like he was smiling.

“Okay, have fun with your girls. Love you.”

“Back at ya.”

“ ’Bye, baby.”

“ ’Bye, beautiful.”

We disconnected and that didn’t make me happy.

But we disconnected having a plan. A plan that centered around building a new dream.

Logan had been right. He said if he’d been around when I found out I couldn’t give us a family, he would have helped me build a new dream.

It took time.

But now he was doing it.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Kitties Who’re Really Pretty

High

HIGH STOOD LEANING against the kitchen counter in the RV, watching his girls scarf down cereal in preparation for hitting school.

Yesterday, he hadn’t gotten in Zadie’s face about whatever went down with Millie. He’d just told them their plans with Millie were off.

Cleo looked disappointed but also relieved. She was likely disappointed for him because she’d seen he’d been happy the day before. But she’d been relieved because Millie was right. Even Cleo needed a break.

That sucked and it meant Millie was right about something else.

He was pushing too fast, too soon.

But Zadie had smiled her cat-got-its-cream smile. She tried to hide it but it was clear she thought she’d gotten her way.

His baby girl was not going to get her way.

Though High had no clue how to go about doing it. He just knew he had one shot at giving Millie any kind of family. Maybe not of her blood but something that was still beautiful.

And because of that, he had to pull out all the stops.

“Before you go to school, got somethin’ I wanna tell you,” he said.

Cleo looked from her cereal bowl to him, attentive as usual.

Zadie looked to him, happily encased in the knowledge things had gone her way.

She grinned and asked, “What, Daddy?”

He stayed where he was and replied, “Worried you’re too young to share this with you. Worried you’re too young to get it. But it’s important enough I gotta give it to you.”

Cleo’s attentive look went guarded.

His baby’s eyes narrowed as the first suspicion she might not have gotten away with being a snot started to hit her.

High ignored that and kept talking, hoping the way he was going to share what he had to share would hit somewhere in Zadie she understood.

“Long time ago, I walked into a party and saw the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. Fell in love with her right then and there. Fell in love the minute I locked eyes on her.” He looked between his girls and went on, “Millie did the same.”

Zadie’s mouth got hard.

Cleo stared at her dad.

“For three years we lived happily,” High told them, and looked to Zadie. “But we didn’t live happily ever after.”

When he said no more, Cleo asked quietly, “What happened, Daddy?”

High turned his eyes to his eldest. “We both wanted a family. We both wanted kids real bad. Knew it before I had it with you two that you were the only things I wanted on this earth. My own babies. Kids I could love and help to grow up strong and good. Millie wanted that too. We talked about it all the time. Had names picked out and everything. Out of the blue, she split with me and it was over.”

“That wasn’t very nice,” Zadie snapped.

“It was,” High disagreed. “It was the most generous gift anyone could give seein’ as she found out she couldn’t have babies and she made it so I could go on in my life and have you.”

Zadie blinked.

Cleo’s mouth fell open.

“Best Millie can do is have cats,” High told his girls. “She wanted more. A lot more. We were gonna have tons of kids. Four. Five. Boys. Girls. We didn’t care. Now all she’s gonna have is cats.”

Cleo’s lower lip started trembling so she bit it.

Zadie looked down at the table.

“She makes me happy,” he said gently. “I know she’s just come in to your life but she’s been a part of mine for a long time so I’m gonna share with you that I love her and she makes me happy. I wanna make her happy. And it’d mean a lot if you helped me with that.”

Zadie’s eyes cut to him and declared nastily, “Mom’s our mom.”

“Not sayin’ that she isn’t, Zade,” he told her, expending the effort not to get pissed that nothing but what she wanted was sinking in. “Your mom will always be your mom. She’s not out of the equation. I’m just adding Millie to it. Everyone’s got an endless capacity for love. Which means everyone’s got the shot at receiving an endless supply of love. Don’t matter who you give it to or get it from. Just matters you got a heart big enough to give it and a heart open enough to get it back. I can promise you, Millie’s got that kind of love to give.” He shrugged. “Up to you whether you open yourself up to receive it.” He focused closely on Zadie. “I’ll just say, your old man will be disappointed if you decide not to do that.”

“I like her,” Cleo piped up, and High saw his youngest aim an irritated frown at her sister before he looked to his big girl.

“I’m glad, baby,” he said quietly.

Zadie didn’t say anything, so Cleo looked to her sister.

“Zade?” she pushed.

Zadie hopped from her knees in the seat and grabbed her bowl, muttering, “We’re gonna be late for school.”

She didn’t give a shit about school.

She wanted this conversation to be over.

She took her bowl to the sink.

“Rinse that and put it in the dishwasher,” he ordered.

“Whatever,” she mumbled, dumping the milk in the sink.

“Look at me, Zade,” High demanded.

She gave him a squinty look that told him she had things to do and he was wasting her time.

“First, wipe that look off your face,” he said. She didn’t, so he went on, “Now.”

She huffed and changed her look to a bored one.

High let that slide.

“Your old man loves you,” he told her.

She changed her look to a disbelieving one even though she knew deep down that was not right.

He let that slide too.

“Measure of the love you got for me how you decide to give it back,” he said.

“Measure of the love you got for me you got rid of Mom and found some other woman,” she returned.

He stared straight into her eyes and whispered, “Ouch.”

That got her.

She flinched.

But she didn’t say anything.

“Honest to God, you okay with layin’ that kinda hurt on your old man?”

She stared at him a beat before she turned to the dishwasher, opened it, and shoved her bowl in.

“Now more hurt, you not answerin’, which means you obviously are,” he noted.

She looked back at him. “Just because I don’t like your girlfriend doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Daddy.”

“Hit me, darlin’. Lay it out straight. You won’t get into trouble,” he told her. “Tell me, what did Millie do to make you not like her?”

Zadie didn’t answer.

So Cleo joined the conversation.

“She can’t say anything because Millie’s nice.”

Zadie turned to her sister and hissed, “She’s old and fat.”

“You’re so full of it,” Cleo snapped back. “She’s super pretty.”

Right.

This had to end because now his baby girl was pissing him off.

“She’s two years younger than your mother,” High declared. “And I hope to God you don’t think she’s fat, Zadie, because you think what Millie is is fat, we got more problems, those bein’ about how you think a woman’s body should be.”

She turned to him while he spoke and opened her mouth when he was done.

He lifted a hand before she could say a word because he saw on her face that what she was going to say he wasn’t going to like.

“Enough outta you. There’ll come a time when you look back at this weekend and you’ll wish for it back. I love you too much to let you make that worse.” He dropped his hand and jerked his head to the couch. “Get your books and jacket. We gotta get goin’.”

Zadie stomped to the couch as Cleo got up and dealt with her bowl and High poured himself a travel mug of coffee.

Zadie then stomped right out as Cleo helped him shut down the RV to leave.

He’d shrugged on his cut, nabbed his keys and the mug, and was reaching to the door Zadie had slammed when his big girl looked up at him.

“At least she got kitties who’re really pretty,” she said softly.

Fuck.

His girl.

He put the mug on the counter and reached out to curl his hand around her soft cheek, bending so his face was in hers.

“Comes as a surprise. My girl hides how deep she feels so when she lets that out, comes as a surprise, darlin’. A surprise I love each time I get it. Thank you for that, baby.”

She grinned up at him, pleased at his words but more pleased she did her bit to smooth out a bumpy morning for her dad.

He leaned in and kissed her forehead, then straightened away, grabbing his mug and saying, “Now let’s get you to school.”

*  *  *

After dropping off the girls, High drove straight to Millie’s.

He parked the truck in the courtyard, got out, and moved to her office.

He opened the door and heard the alarm beep even as he saw her on the phone behind her desk, hair piled up at the back of her head, another turtleneck, this one beige. He couldn’t see the bottom through her desk at his angle, but he could see she had on her brown boots.

She smiled huge at him.

He grinned back, turned to the alarm’s control panel, and punched in the code as he heard her say, “I’m so sorry. Someone just came in the door and it’s unexpected but it’s also urgent. I need to call you back. I apologize but I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

He turned to her to see she was up and rounding the desk, coming his way.

He moved hers.

Tight brown skirt that skimmed her knees and hugged her hips.

Brilliant.

“Right. Of course,” she said in her phone, still walking. “Thank you. Talk soon,” she finished as she got to him.

She disconnected and instantly threw her arms around his neck.

“Hey, Snooks,” she whispered as he slid his hands around her waist.

High didn’t return her greeting.

He bent his neck and laid a long one on her. She had the fingers of one of her hands in his hair when he finished it.

“Hey,” he replied.

Her smile was hazy but it was bright.

It faded slightly before she said, “Missed you.”

He gave her a squeeze. “Then good I’m back.”

The smile came back.

“Know you got shit on and I got somethin’ I gotta do with Snap, so I gotta go,” he told her, and watched her mouth with its cute little mole start pouting. “But I wanted to come by, see you, drop some more shit in the house, connect with Chief and Poem, then I gotta take off.”

“More shit?” she asked.

“Don’t got much, babe, but I’m movin’ in. Packed some things this mornin’ while the girls were gettin’ ready, put ’em in the truck. Outside of the stuff that stays in the RV, like plates and mugs, with the bag I got in my car, most of my crap is here.”

“So you’re essentially moved in.”

He studied her, thinking they’d gone over this already, and after the shit conversation he’d already had with Zadie that day, not wanting to have another one.

“That a problem?” he asked.

“If you hadn’t done it, I would have probably taken off work, found Boz’s house, broken into your RV, and done it myself.”

He felt a smile hit his face.

Her lips quirked as she said, “Waking up alone sucks.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Goin’ to sleep without gettin’ off sucks too.”

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and told it, “Men. Sex on the brain.”

“You use your toy while I was away?”

Her eyes rolled back and when he got them again, they were bigger and her cheeks were pink.

Fuck.

He’d been teasing.

But she did.

“You made yourself come without me?” he asked.

“Well...” She trailed off. He gave her a squeeze and she kept going. “I was actually doing that thinking of you. Does that count?”

“Dinner,” he grunted. “Sweater dress. Tonight. And after-dinner plans changed.”

Her eyes got big again. “How?”

“You’ll see.”

She slid her fingers from his hair and wrapped them around the back of his neck. “How, Low?”

He bent in and put his mouth to hers. “Trust me, beautiful, it’ll be a good surprise.”

He felt her tremble in his arms.

“Now gonna let you go ’cause I gotta go. Give me another kiss.”

He watched disappointment hit her eyes that he was leaving before she closed them and pressed her mouth to his, touching her tongue to his lips.

He gave her entry and he gave her time to taste him.

Then he took over before he ended it on some soft, quick kisses, let her go, turned her, and slapped her ass to move her to her chair.

He moved to the door saying, “Later, babe.”

“Later, Low.”

In the opened door, he looked back at her sitting behind her desk. He reached out a hand and tapped the security panel.

“Rearm, beautiful.”

She sighed but nodded and said, “I will. See you later, Snooks.”

He lifted his chin, grinned, and closed the door so he could see to hauling the single bag he had that held the rest of his shit and moving into her house.

*  *  *

High leaned against the side of the truck, watching and not liking what he was seeing.

Snap was standing on the sidewalk with Rosalie.

High remembered Rosalie. She was no less pretty now than when she was Shy’s.

She was also trouble.

They’d come in his truck. Too easy to be noticed on their bikes in their cuts.

Not that anyone had any reason to have an eye on Rosalie. The dope run had gone down that weekend just like she told them it would. That meant no one had a clue she was feeding information to Chaos.

But neither he nor Snap had their cuts on and before he’d dropped Snapper off, they’d done a drive around the upscale pizza joint where Rosalie was a waitress and they’d spotted nothing.

So the face-to-face meet, which was a face-to-face meet for a reason, a reason that was all Snapper’s, could go down.

High watched as Rosalie gave him a number of the reasons why this meeting was face to face. It was winding down and she was smiling up at Snap. She reached out and grabbed his hand, tugged on it playfully a couple of times, then said something to make him smile.

She then took off, aiming her eyes and lifting her hand to wave at High before she aimed another smile to Snapper, turned, and skip-walked, long hair swaying, tits bouncing, to the door of the restaurant.

High watched her go for a beat; then he turned his attention to Snapper and he watched his brother watch her go.

They were watching for two entirely different reasons.

Only when she was out of sight did Snapper move his way.

As his brother moved, High turned to his truck, opened the door, and angled in. He started her up as Snapper hauled his ass in the other side.

High backed out of the parking spot and took them on their way as Snap said, “They’re already planning another run.”

“You need to stop,” High replied.

He did it quiet and careful. But he also did it strong.

“Say what?” Snapper asked.

“Get a burner phone. Give her the number. Talk through that. Face-to-face meets gotta stop, Snap,” High advised.

“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”

High slowed for a light, stopped, and looked to his brother. “She’s got a man.”

He saw the hard hit Snapper’s face.

Snap was a good-looking kid. Tall. Built. Blond. He was young but he had that look about him that all that was just gonna get better with age.

What he wasn’t was Shy. Shy was lanky. Dark. Before Tab, Shy could charm the panties off a bitch in ten minutes flat and he didn’t even have to know her before he did it. He’d been about good times. Getting off. Easy grins. Easier pussy.

High knew Rosalie’s current man. He was lanky. He was dark. He’d been a player before Rosalie. He knew what he had in her, old lady through and through who would stick by his side through thick and thin, all that on top of a great ass, long legs, good tits, thick hair, and a pretty face. So he found Rosalie, his player days disappeared, and he held on.

Snap was intense. High knew his story and he never got where that intensity came from. Before Chaos, Snap didn’t have it bad. He didn’t have it good. He just had a life.

The intensity was always there, though. The brother paid attention, nothing escaped him. It reminded High a lot of Tack back in the day.

He’d shoot the shit. Have a laugh. Unlike Tack, Snapper was serious far more often than he wasn’t and didn’t talk much. But he did read a lot. In his room at the Compound, door open, him on his bed, eyes to a book.

It wasn’t unheard of for a member of Chaos to read. But Snap did it maybe too much.

He might partake of easy pussy if the spirit moved him but he’d had a girl when he’d become a recruit. He’d split with her and got another one where fucking around became something more and it did it fast.

He’d also split with her.

He was now a free agent.

Rosalie was not.

“No reason to put your ass on the line, and more to the point, brother, hers by doin’ shit face to face. Get a burner. Every time you see her puts her out there.”

“No one knows shit about what she’s doin’ for Chaos,” Snapper replied.

“They don’t know but people talk. Could be innocent, one of the other waitresses in that joint sees her with you, sees her man, mentions you. It’s not smart, Snap, and you need to put a stop to it.”

“We’ll meet somewhere no one can see us,” Snapper returned. “She prefers face to face. Doesn’t want to get overheard or have her man see shit on her phone he shouldn’t see.”

“Then she deletes her texts and calls,” High told him.

“I hear you, High, but it’s the way she wants it done.”

“It’s the way you want it done, brother,” High returned quietly.

“She’s stickin’ her neck out for Chaos, We do it like she’s comfortable doin’ it.”

“You’re doin’ it ’cause she’s pretty, she smiles at you, and you’re into her.”

“It’s not that,” Snapper bit out.

High saw traffic moving around him, looked back to see the light was green, and moved his foot to the gas pedal, accelerating.

He did this speaking.

“Rule between brothers but that rule extends between bikers and you know it. Pussy’s claimed, pussy is claimed. You do not go there.”

“Told you it’s not about that,” Snapper replied.

“Got years on you, brother, and I’m not blind. Not sayin’ this shit to piss you off. Sayin’ it to save you a load of hurt. She’s into her man. She’s riskin’ a lot to get him clean. You’re not in that.”

“Straight up and no offense, High, but her man is weak,” Snap returned.

High’s jaw got hard at his words because they spoke to what Snap thought of High because back in the day High had once been like Rosalie’s boyfriend, riding that edge, going for the high, doing this with and without his Rosalie.

But fortunately, Snapper wasn’t done.

“The no offense part is the fact that the Bounties know Chaos history. They know the shit they’re gettin’ into is fucked up and they know just how that shit can fuck up a club because it did that to Chaos. And they’re gettin’ into it. I know a lot of those brothers don’t like it but they sit a table just like us. Gavel doesn’t drop until a decision is voted, so they’re votin’ that shit in. Rosalie doesn’t know how her man is voting. But he’s doin’ that shit and that says a lot.”

“Club goes a way, you’re a brother, you go that way,” High pointed out.

Snapper didn’t say anything and High knew why.

Because that was the straight-up truth.

High kept going.

“Tack wanted me in with you to take your back but more, to take Rosalie’s. That’s my focus. Keepin’ her safe while she does Chaos a good turn. You gotta be all in on that and you gotta be that for her. It isn’t about what she’s doin’ for the Club or what she makes you feel when you’re with her. It’s about her. And that’s the way of it, brother. She’s yours or she’s not, she’s a woman and you’re any kind of man, you look out for her every way you can.”

High turned on his signal and slowed to make a turn as Snapper kept silent.

He’d made the turn, they were cruising, and High said no more. His point had been made. Snap didn’t take it, for Rosalie, High would have no choice but to inform the brothers and Snapper would be removed from her detail.

“I’ll get a burner,” Snap muttered.

High drew in a breath and let it out slowly.

Then he just drove.

*  *  *

After High parked at the Compound, Snap didn’t waste time jumping from the truck and taking off.

High watched him as he angled out, but he looked toward the back of the store when he heard Hound call his name.

“Man inside lookin’ for you,” Hound said, raising a hand, thumb extended to indicate over his shoulder and into the store.

High lifted his chin, slammed his door, and hit the locks.

“Know him?” he asked.

“Nope,” Hound answered.

Hound headed to the garage.

High headed to the store.

He went in, turned right to head up an aisle to the cash register at the front but stopped two aisles in when he saw Dot’s husband, Alan, looking at the fan belts.

He sighed.

Then he moved down that aisle toward Millie’s brother-in-law. Alan caught sight of his movement and gave his attention to High, doing this turning full body to face him.

High stopped a few feet away.

“Alan,” he greeted.

He didn’t get a greeting back.

“Dot says you’re movin’ in to Millie’s,” he stated.

“Not doin’ it,” High told him. “Did it. I’m in.”

He watched Alan’s mouth get tight before he noted, “Movin’ real fuckin’ fast, man.”

“May seem that way to you. Me, waitin’ twenty years to have her back seems real fuckin’ slow,” High replied.

High watched as something changed about Alan and he watched it knowing he wasn’t going to like the change.

Then the man opened his mouth and proved High right.

“Pretty lucky for you, you walk away from your family, find yourself livin’ in an RV, you also find an ex who’s still hung up on you. An ex with a sweet crib. And you got her back a coupla days and your clothes are in her closet.”

High stood there, motionless except to take in a deep breath.

Then, quietly, he returned, “Could buy my girls a house, that bein’ all my girls, my two babies and Millie, layin’ cash down on somethin’ that’d make Millie’s pad look ghetto. Could do that, upgrade my truck, buy another bike, and, bud, I already got three, and do that in cash too. Do all that and take Millie on a five-star trip back to Paris, give her the luxury. Do all that and not even touch my girls’ college funds. You didn’t know any a’ that shit. I get that. Now you do.”

“You could buy your girls a pad, why’re you livin’ in an RV?” Alan shot back.

“You got kids,” High said. “Hope like fuck you and Dot stay strong. Shit happens and you don’t and you gotta put your kids through a split, you don’t just rent any place where they gotta lay their heads. You give ’em a home. You find the right one. I looked. Didn’t find it. While doin’ that, found Millie. Her place is nice. Not my scene but it’s hers, she loves it. So that’s where we are. And when I have my other two girls, that’s where we’ll all be.”

“Got all the answers,” Alan clipped irritably.

“Got ’em because there are answers,” High replied.

The man crossed his arms on his chest. “Right. That’s good. ’Cause, see, I need more answers. You got a history, man. In that history, it’s clear you got no problem walkin’ away from things that matter. Walked away from Millie. Walked away from your family. History like that repeats itself and you’re livin’ proof of that shit.”

High again stood silent and motionless to give himself time to talk himself out of laying the hurt on Dot’s old man.

When he found control, he spoke.

“You look at me, you know the man I am ’cause I reckon you see yourself in me. So you know I’m not a big fan of explainin’ myself to anyone and sure as fuck not a man who’s comin’ at me like you’re doin’. But you mean somethin’ to Millie and you’re gonna be in my life for a long time so I’m givin’ you this respect. Once. Just once, Alan. Not fuckin’ with you. You keep comin’ at me like this, it’s not gonna be good.”

Alan’s eyebrows went up. “So now you’re threatening me?”

High shook his head. “Bud, you walked into my store on my turf and came at me with this shit. I pulled up the patience and shared where I was at. I get this is new for you. I get you’re lookin’ after Millie, which is another reason why I’m eatin’ your shit. What you gotta get is that your wife and Millie’s girls are all down with me bein’ back. You give me a shot, I’ll show you it’s good for you to be down with that too. But advice. Look around at how the people who matter to Millie, who know the real history, are behaving. And do it bein’ careful. ’Cause not only am I not gonna take more of your shit, I got a job of it bringin’ Millie back to happy and I’m not lettin’ anyone fuck with that. Not even you.”

“Can’t say you’re impressin’ me,” Alan fired back. “Me askin’ pertinent questions and you makin’ threats.”

High took a step toward him and it said a lot the man didn’t move a muscle.

“You’ve got no fuckin’ clue,” he stated low.

“I got a clue, Logan,” the man returned. “I heard everything Millie said about what you did to her when you two got back into each other’s lives. No decent man treats a woman like that.”

“You got no fuckin’ clue,” High repeated.

“Know we nearly lost her to your shit.” He lifted up his brows again. “She does somethin’ where you feel she needs taught another lesson, what’s she gonna get?”

“You know, you turn the tables, you know this shit isn’t any of your business.”

“You’re wrong,” he spat, losing it. “Millie’s absolutely my business. Been in my life for twelve years, Logan. Longer than you had her. Through that time, I watched her exist. Saw the mess you and your brothers made of her before she went to Paris. You turn the tables, man, and tell me again it isn’t my business.”

It sucked, but the man had a point.

“She kept comin’ back for more,” High told him through gritted teeth.

“Way I heard it, you kept comin’ back to give her more.”

“And she took it. Took it. Held on tight. And didn’t let go.”

Alan shut his mouth.

And there was High’s point.

“It would suck, what you got with Dot isn’t what I feel for Millie. What Millie gives back to me,” High said. “I’d want that for Dottie, to have something like that. She’s a damn fine woman. She deserves that beauty. I’ll tell it to you straight, when I saw Millie again, I had no idea the heartbreak my girl’s been dealin’ with for twenty years. What she sacrificed to give me all I got. But even if that shit wasn’t there, I wouldn’t care. The dance we danced when we hooked up again was fucked right the hell up. But it was a dance we had to dance. A dance that led us outta hell and back to beauty. Lotta folks work the hurt out a lotta ways. Even if Millie didn’t have the best reason in the world to get shot of me twenty years ago, I’d be back in her bed ’cause that’s what we got. That’s what we’ve always had. That’s what we been missin’. And older now, a fuckuva lot smarter, we know not to let it go.”

High stopped talking and Alan didn’t start.

So High kept going.

“Straight up, you got this kinda love for my girl, I dig that. But she’s walked through fire, man. That’s done for her. You don’t like my threats, don’t be a threat to what I gotta build for my woman.”

Alan held his gaze steady.

Then he looked to the fan belts.

High leveled his tone when he spoke again.

“Millie’s the kinda woman who deserves everything in life but life chose to fuck her and not give her the one thing she wanted most. Only way she can get even a little of that is through your kids and through mine.”

Alan looked back to him.

High went on, “I know you don’t like this now but we’re a team. We got a goal we gotta see to the rest of our lives. We both love Millie and we both got the job to find a way to give her what she deserves. You’re not with me on that, bud, that’s your problem. But I’m not gonna let you make it Millie’s. You don’t like me. Pretend. But I got a big job ahead of me. I’m not expendin’ a lot of effort on you.”

When Alan didn’t say anything, High decided he was done. So he made his way around the man and moved toward the front of the store.

He was five feet beyond him when Alan called, “Logan.”

High turned around.

“Millie calls me that. Dottie calls me that,” High stated. “I’m High to you. You don’t get that, man, I don’t give a fuck. Logan is theirs. It ain’t yours.”

Alan looked confused for a beat before he powered past it and focused, muttering, “Whatever.” Then, louder, like a command, “Be real.”

“I’m real,” High returned.

Alan again held his gaze steady and High could barely hear him when he repeated, “For Millie, for God’s sake, be real.”

He said nothing else and didn’t give High a chance to reply before he turned and walked away.