Page 22 of Friar
“Doesn’t matter.”I brushed a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear.“Beast gave me two weeks to decide.I’ve decided.The rest is just details.As for Nugget and Nigel, they were told what’s going on.The fact neither has come by to try and talk to you says plenty.”
She searched my face, looking for hesitation, for doubt.Finding none, she nodded slowly, a tentative smile breaking through the tears.“Okay,” she whispered.“Okay.”
I pulled her close again, feeling something settle in my chest -- a weight, but not an unwelcome one.A responsibility I was choosing to bear.My arms tightened around her, a silent promise I intended to keep.
Chapter Eight
Cheri
Sitting with Friar felt more comfortable than it should have in a lot of ways, and yet I still felt a bit nervous at times.There was so much I didn’t know about him.We were pretty much strangers.
“Have you ever dated anyone here?”I asked, thinking about the women at the clubhouse.He arched an eyebrow at me but didn’t comment.My cheeks flushed.Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have asked.“You don’t owe me explanations about your past.I was just curious.The women at the clubhouse… I wasn’t sure if any were ex-girlfriends or something.”
His lips quirked into a half-smile.“I owe you more than you think, church girl.”
I watched as he leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking beneath his weight.His face looked different in this light -- softer somehow, the hard edges blurred in the shadows.
“I wasn’t always this upstanding citizen you see before you,” he said, gesturing to himself with a self-deprecating sweep of his hand.“Used to be a real piece of work.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I said, and meant it.The man who’d taken me in, who’d bought baby supplies without hesitation, who’d claimed me and my child -- he seemed solid, dependable, worlds away from the troublemaker he was describing.
Friar laughed, a low rumble that seemed to rise from deep in his chest.“Believe it.By the time I was sixteen, I’d stolen more bikes than I could count.Had a real talent for hot-wiring.Could get on a motorcycle and have it running in under thirty seconds.”
I tried to picture him at sixteen -- younger, wilder, but with the same penetrating gaze that seemed to see right through pretense.“Did you ever get caught?”
“Few times.Spent some nights in holding cells, but nothing stuck until I was eighteen.”He took another drink, his eyes growing distant with memory.“Got into a street race with some rich kid who thought his daddy’s money made him invincible.We were tearing down the highway on Kawasakis of all things, doing ninety in a thirty-five zone.”
“What happened?”I asked, drawn into the story despite myself.
“Cops came out of nowhere.Roadblock up ahead.”His voice took on a different quality, more animated as he described the chase.“I cut through the Millerson farm, nearly killed myself trying to avoid an old tractor they kept by the fence line.Bike went one way, I went another.”He gestured with his hands, showing the divergent paths.“Broke three ribs and my collarbone, but I got away.”Pride flashed across his face, followed quickly by a more somber expression.“Other kid wasn’t so lucky.Tried to outrun the cops on the main road, lost control on a curve.Wrapped himself around a telephone pole.”
“Did he die?”I asked, my voice hushed.
Friar shook his head.“Paralyzed from the waist down.And I was the one who’d goaded him into the race.”
The guilt in his voice was palpable, a weight he still carried years later.I reached across the table, my fingers stopping just short of his.“You were just a kid.”
“Old enough to know better.”His voice dropped lower when he added, “My family sure thought so.Especially my old man.”
Something in the way he said it -- the slight tightening around his eyes, the subtle shift in his tone -- told me we’d reached a sensitive point.“Your father was upset?”
Friar’s laugh this time held no humor.“Upset doesn’t cover it.The Bradshaws are good Catholics.Have been for generations.My dad was an usher at St.Mary’s every Sunday for thirty years.My grandad before him.Whole family’s got a reputation to uphold.”His accent deepened slightly, traces of something more ethnic coming through.“They named me Ignatius for Christ’s sake.After a saint.”
“Hence ‘Friar’,” I said, understanding dawning.
“Yeah, my friends thought that was hilarious.Catholic boy gone bad.”He rolled the beer bottle between his palms again.“My old man gave me an ultimatum after that race.Straighten up or get out.”
“And you chose to get out,” I guessed.
He nodded, his jaw tightening.“Couldn’t be what they wanted.Couldn’t sit in those pews every Sunday listening to sermons about sin while my dad stared at me like I was the living embodiment of disappointment.”His voice had changed, grown quieter, rougher.“So I left.Slept on couches, in shelters when I had to.Kept stealing bikes, running with a bad crowd.Heading straight for prison or the morgue.”
I tried to imagine it -- Friar homeless, angry, spiraling without direction.It seemed impossible to reconcile with the man who sat across from me now, whose home had become my sanctuary.“What changed?”
“Beast found me.”A hint of reverence crept into Friar’s voice.“I was twenty-two, working at a chop shop, taking apart stolen motorcycles for parts.He came in looking for someone else, but he noticed me.Said I had good hands, knew bikes inside and out.”A smile touched his lips at the memory.“Offered me a job at his garage.Legitimate work, cash under the table at first until I could get my shit together.”
“And that was it?You just… changed?”
Friar’s eyes met mine, steady and serious.“Not overnight.But Beast saw something in me worth saving.Gave me structure, purpose.A chance to be part of something that mattered.”He gestured around us, at the house, at the life he’d built.“Everything I have, I owe to him and the Reckless Kings.They became the family I needed when my own had written me off.”
