Page 9 of Faithless
She’d be safely in her own driveway moments after crossing, so once she made it, I turned my bike around, satisfied that she was okay. My phone buzzed with a text a few minutes later, and I checked it at a stoplight.
Rori: Made it home, Dad #5. Satisfied?
Torrance: Good girl ;)
Rori: Ew, don’t be weird.
I started typingout a joke about spanking her, then quickly erased it. Rori and I liked to push each other’s buttons. We flirted, sometimes said raunchy shit, but always as a joke, always in front of other people. But a text was private. For some reason, that felt a step too far. Too intimate. The last thing I wanted to do was accidentally make my real feelings known. That would only make shit awkward. So I replied with a quick, “hope you feel better” and shoved my phone back in my pocket.
4
RORI
Iparked in the driveway next to my parents’ motorcycles and paused for a moment after turning the engine off. My mom’s bike was here, thank fuck. She was the one I really needed to talk to.
I didn’t know if the hallucination had continued during my ride. I was too freaked out to look in my mirrors after the first time.
Smoothing out my hair, I took a deep breath and retrieved my phone to text Daren and Torr that I’d made it. Daren replied instantly with a simple thumbs-up emoji. Torr’s reply came when I reached the front door, calling me a good girl.
I snorted and told him not to be weird. That whole praise kink shit was never my thing. At least, the guys I’d been with had never done a convincing job of it. Getting them to talk dirty, whether it was praise, degradation, or just telling me what the fuck they liked, was like pulling teeth more often than not. I was lucky if I got a quiet moan most of the time.
I bet Torr’s good at it, though.
Ugh, I needed to focus.
I went inside, the familiarity of the home where I grew up instantly comforting me. With five parents, me, Daren, and my two younger siblings, it was always a full house. Torr had even lived with us for a few months back when Daren and I first met him at ten years old. Plus, Lily has been hanging out with us since we were five. I could only imagine how exhausted my mom was, looking aftersixchildren in the house while also balancing her demanding career as a doctor.
I never remembered her being especially tired or stressed out though, and that was probably due to the fact that my dads were always present and involved. They took many burdens off her shoulders and were happy to do so. When Mom came home from a long day and us kids were still at peak energy, she’d say hi to us quickly, then one of my dads would put a glass of wine in her hand, send her to the bathroom with an already-filled tub, and shut the door behind her.
Our household was chaotic at times but always loving and happy. A family with multiple husbands just made sense to me. I didn’t understand why other people thought it was so strange.
It was quiet when I walked in. My dad Gunner sat next to my youngest brother, Nolan, at the kitchen table, the two of them poring over what looked like math homework. Nolan was fifteen and a lot like Daren in that he was perceptive and enjoyed figuring out all kinds of puzzles. Whereas Daren preferred hands-on puzzles like cars, motorcycles, and sign language, Nolan excelled with numbers.
“Hey, Ror.” Gunner looked up at me with an easygoing smile. He was the least outwardly threatening of my biker fathers with his friendly smile and cool, relaxed demeanor. Few people knew he was also one of the deadliest. He taught me everything I knew about weapons and self-defense. Before he retired, he worked as a military strategist, often with my grandfather, who had also been the general of the Four Corners Army.
Not that it mattered but Gunner was also my bio-dad. Pretty obvious when only the two of us had blonde hair in the family. His was pulled back in a ponytail, still lush and full with only a few wisps of gray in it. I could never stand the texture of our hair—not quite straight but not curly either, some weird wavy thing in the middle. My waves had a mind of their own, so I kept my hair chopped in a short bob no longer than my chin.
“Hey.” I approached the table and rested my hands on the back of a chair. “Where is everyone?”
“Lucia was at a sleepover last night. She’ll be home later,” Gunner said, referring to my seventeen-year-old sister. Lucia wasgorgeous, the spitting image of our mother, and incredibly popular. She had a large circle of friends and was always out somewhere with them. I had no doubt she’d find multiple men to adore her one day.
“Shadow had a tattoo client today,” Gunner went on. “Your mom, Jandro, and Reaper are out back. How was Lily’s birthday?”
“Good!” My voice went high with false cheer. “It was good, we had fun.”
Gunner’s face darkened. My parents always knew when something was off. “Everything okay, Ror?”
“Yeah. Just, you know, tired. A little hungover even though Bryce cut me off.” I tried to make my voice normal, but I knew I couldn’t hide everything from him. “I do want to talk to Mom about something, though.”
That was code for I needed her for women-only-business, and my dad nodded with understanding. The whole while, Nolan kept his head down, punching things into his calculator or scribbling on his homework page. I wasn’t offended though. My baby brother sometimes got hyper focused when he was deep in a complex puzzle.
Gunner stood as I rounded the table, heading for the sliding door that led to the backyard. He pressed a kiss to my temple as I passed him. “Here if you need anything, okay?”
I gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks, Dad.”
Outside, Reaper and Jandro looked to be repairing part of the chicken coop while my mom watched them, holding a sleeping chicken in her arms. Mom was the first to spot me, shielding her eyes from the sun as I approached. “There she is! How were the birthday celebrations?”
“Good.” I repeated what I told Gunner inside, putting on a smile, but it dropped the instant I saw the white dove settle on the fence behind everyone.
