Page 94 of The Heart We Guard
I think about the future I’m building and the example I want to set for my kid. “Not anymore,” I say, resolute. “I just said no for the first time.”
“Good girl,” Butcher says. “A man needs to look after his family.”
I glance over my shoulder at him. “You know that’s sexist, right? And we won’t even touch on harmful gender roles.”
Butcher winks at me. “You know what I’m saying. You tell someone you’re gonna love and protect them, you fucking do it. You have a child, you sure as fuck better provide.”
“That’s a massive oversimplification.”
Butcher shrugs. “I’m starting to realize it isn’t. It’s actually that easy. You want another minute out here? I don’t want you getting too cold.”
“Am I doing okay?” I ask.
Butcher raises an eyebrow. “Is my surgeon extraordinaire seriously asking if she’s doing okay?”
“I’m better with anaesthetized bodies than I am awake ones.”
Butcher laughs at that. “You’re doing fine. Quinn has always had her nose in a book. She used to come over when she and Em were at school together, and I’d routinely find Ember and the others out playing in the fields and Quinn reading a book on the porch. Thought she’d become a librarian.”
“It would just make all this easier if your friends liked me.”
Butcher tightens his arms around me. “They do. So, stop overthinking it, come back into the yard, and tell me about those World War One doctors you liked so much. They sound like they were good broads.”
I chuckle. “Broads, again?”
He steps off the porch before grabbing my hands. “Yeah, Greer. Broads. Good ones. Like you.”
28
BUTCHER
“Tell me again why we’re working on this, Prez,” Grudge says with a grin.
I slip my thick shearing-lined denim jacket off my shoulders. It was cold on the ride this morning. “Unless you want me to punch you in that ugly face of yours, you’ll stop asking.”
Grudge tugs on the waistband of his jeans, hitching them up a little. “I feel like we’re all dodging the obvious elephant in the room, though. That Prez might have a new girlfriend. Because this is the kind of grand gesture you do for your old lady.”
Wraith looks at Grudge as if he just lost the plot. “She’s having his kid. It’s not like they just met over a dating app.”
Grudge looks at the front end of the second-hand industrial ambulance I just bought. “Yeah, but it’s not the same thing. I mean, people get knocked up all the time after a one-night stand. But the guy rarely drops close to sixty grand on an ambulance to say thanks for the fuck and offspring.”
I grind my teeth a little at that comment. “She’s not just a fuck, and she’s the mother of my kid. Watch your mouth. AndI’ve been there. Did a shit job of it. But I’ll admit, I’m debating whether I have it in me to be better if I try it again.”
Grudge tips his head in acknowledgement, but there is still a fucking grin on his face.
“What are we doing to it, boss?” Jackal asks.
I look around the garage. It’s a large bleak building a few minutes’ walk up the road from the clubhouse. It was an old grain silo whose location no longer worked for Atom’s ranch.
When the club took it over, we squared off the front so we could put a roller shutter door in. Then, we lined the building, fixed the roof, and installed a concrete floor that was gently angled to form a drain.
Now, it’s a fully functioning workshop where we can fix up our bikes all year round. And we’ve been known to persuade people to tell us things in it.
Given the way Smoke is rubbing his jaw while eying the hoists, I’m pretty sure that Quinn and Smoke are about to, or already may have had, some fun in here, which makes me wonder just how sanitary some of the surfaces are for what we’re about to do.
Grudge stands to the left of Jackal and Shade. Everyone who could show up, has shown up. It’s a favor that hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“First, I appreciate you all coming to help.”
