"Yeah," she said. "I'm back. I bought Mrs. Crawford's old place."
Oh, hell.
"Next door?” I asked. Of course she was moving in next door to my father. I told myself it didn't matter. I wouldn't be here long enough to matter.
“Cade," my father said, his voice firm. He stood at the door, as if he were consciously trying to interrupt us. “Get inside.”
I had a flash of irritation at him, at being spoken to like I was a child, at the way he'd just broken the moment between June and I. But part of me was relieved. I didn't need to be talking to her like that. I didn't need her to be looking at me like that, as if not a day had passed since I'd last seen her.
"It was good to see you, June," I said, as I turned to walk inside. I could feel my father's gaze, steady on me as I passed him, my boots heavy on the wooden porch.
"Be careful there, June," I heard him say. "Cade's been gone a long time. Things are different now."
I couldn't hear what she said.
Sitting in the guest bedroom in my father's house, I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wall. It was late, but I rarely slept much anymore anyway, not since the Marine Corps, and tonight would be no exception. There was too much to occupy my brain, trying to process all the shit that was going on with the club. I knew when I was being set up, and this shit with the club stank to high heaven. I no longer trusted the Club President. Or many other people, for that matter.
Which is why I was here now.
It was almost midnight, and I could hear my dad out in the living room watching television, some late night talk show. I knew he wasn’t actually watching television. Knowing him, he was trying to figure out what the hell to do with me here. I had put him in a tough position. He hated the idea of me in the club, and worse, bringing that mess here with me. But at the same time, he wouldn't turn away Crunch's family. Not when there was a kid involved.
I had no idea when the club would realize we weren't dead, but I knew what would happen when they figured it out. And I didn't want to bring that shit down on my dad.
Or on June.
This is only temporary, I reminded myself. I twisted the cap off the bottle of cheap whiskey I'd picked up at one of the gas stations when we stopped for a piss break on the way, and swallowed it down, feeling the familiar burn as it slid down my throat.
~ ~ ~
Standing in the convenience store, I'd tried to hide it, but Crunch had seen the bottle in my hand and shook his head. "Do you really need that, man? I mean, out here, with all the shit going down?"
Did I really need it?
Did I really want to give him an honest answer to that question?
"I don't want to hear it, Crunch," I said. "Lay the fuck off."
"Suit yourself," he said. "Just don't fucking drink and get on the back of that bike. I've had enough death to last me a while. And don't let MacKenzie see you drunk."
~ ~ ~
I'd heard all of it over the past year from a couple of the guys in the club.
Clean yourself up.
You used to be a Marine.
How can you just let yourself go?
I'd heard it from myself. It didn't matter. There was no turning around once you were headed on the path I was on. This is who I was.
A knock on the door shook me out of my thoughts. I screwed the top on the bottle and shoved it under the pillow on the bed. “Come in,” I said, steeling myself. I knew it would be my father.
He stood in the doorway. “I brought you a blanket for the bed in case you need it. You know how the temperature drops overnight here, even in the summer.”
“Thanks, Pop."
He paused, the silence awkward. Years of unspoken words just hung there in the space between us. "So your friends," he said. "Are they okay out there? Is everything still working all right at the old bunkhouse?"
The bunkhouse was part of the original homestead, and the only remaining remnant still standing after almost a hundred years. Tucked away from sight in a hidden gulch surrounded by tall pines, it was a good idea to place the family there, strictly from a security perspective. I knew Crunch and his family would be safer there, isolated; of course, Crunch was carrying a piece, just in case.
It used to be my fort back when I was a kid, but in middle school, my dad and I had made it into a real house, gutting the interior, laying new wooden flooring, and putting in plumbing. We'd spent weeks together, him and I, working on the project until the place was habitable. Afterward, I'd disappear for a weekend and my mom would have to hike through the woods to drag me home. And then, in high school, it was the place where I went with June.
Going up to the bunkhouse to get them settled had damn near ripped me in two. The place was haunted with ghosts from my past, filled with memories of her.
“Yeah,” I said. “You kept it up really well.”
Dad grunted. “Well, you never know when something might happen. I figured it could come in handy one day.”
He meant that he never knew whether I might return, the prodigal son coming home. He'd been keeping up with the repairs on the bunkhouse this entire time. For me.
I didn't know whether to be glad he thought I'd come home eventually, or upset that he hadn't written me off entirely.