Page 40 of Pumpkin
Frustration, rage, and fuck him, self-pity all battled inside him. Pumpkin couldn’t remember hating anything in his life more than he did that walker. Other than his father, that is, and that was only because the man had made Pumpkin’s mother cry.
But Pumpkin would not wallow. He’d done enough of that in the hospital and rehab when he’d been alone in his room, helpless to move due to his casts. When the pain had gotten so bad that he’d purposefully hit the morphine button just to make it end, and God help him, because there’d been once when he’d hoped he wouldn’t wake back up again.
Pumpkin had pushed through. He’d endured. He’d worked his ass off to be able to come home. For his son, for SJ.
And now? Now, he had yet another reason to push on. To keep fighting. Hisdaughter.
Pumpkin cleared his throat, gathered his energy, and put one hand on the crossbar of the fucking walker and the other on his car door. It took him a moment to balance, but finally he was steady enough to grab the walker with both hands and take a step forward.
Darrin moved out of his way, his face an emotionless mask.
Pumpkin kept his head high as he passed the prospect. “I’m not thanking you.”
“Never expected you to.”
Pumpkin snorted and kept on walking.
Demo had two offices.As the club’s Treasurer and accountant, he was in charge of all the financials for the varying businesses. Since the dealership was where he was needed on-hand more often than not, this had become his main office and the clubhouse one was now mere convenience.
There was no doubt Demo heard the damn walker on the linoleum floor long before Pumpkin reached his office, but the man still lifted his head like he was surprised to see Pumpkin there.
“Hey, man! I thought you had PT.”
“So did the PT.” Pumpkin got himself over to the side enough where he could close the door.
“Playing hooky. I like it.” Demo smiled at him. He waited for Pumpkin to take a seat in one of the comfortable chairs in front of his desk before asking, “So what brings you to my neck of the woods?”
“I have a daughter.” It felt weird to say out loud, but not because he was so used to saying he had a son. No, the weirdness came from how natural the words came out. Like somehow his tongue had been waiting years to say those words.
Which was fucking ridiculous. He was losing his goddamn mind.
Demo’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Um, I think SJ’s a little young to have figured that out, but hey, full support.”
Pumpkin’s head dropped into his hands. He had no idea if he should laugh or cry at Demo’s words. He ended up with a mixture of the two.
“Hey, whoa!” Demo came around the desk, taking a seat next to Pumpkin. “It was a joke. Seriously, man, what’s going on?”
Pumpkin let out a shaky breath before sitting back up. He squared his shoulders and faced his friend. “I have an actual daughter. She’s five.”
Demo’s jaw dropped open. “What? I… How… I mean, I knowhow, but…Who?”
The floodgates finally broke and it all came free. He told Demo everything he could remember from his patch-in party, how much he remembered really liking the woman he’d been with that night, and how disappointed he’d been that she’d vanished the next morning. Heleft off his frustration about his road name and the running pumpkin joke the club kept up to this very day. How he’d eventually let the idea of finding her go and he’d moved on.
Then all about the restaurant the night before. How he’d recognized her immediately and all the feelings he’d suppressed for years came rushing back. How he’d declared her to be his, even if only in his head. And the triumph he’d felt when he’d been able to get his cut on her.
And then the bookstore.
“I need to find a family lawyer. I need to get my name on her birth certificate,” he finished up by saying. “Who did Paige use when she was dealing with everything with her family and custody of the boys?”
Paige’s mom and stepfather had been threatening to take her sons away before Keys had been able to dig up some of their financial skeletons and made those public.
Demo put his hands up. “Hold on. I think you’re jumping the gun here?—”
“Did you not hear anything I just said?” Pumpkin demanded. He thought of all people Demo would understand. He had been at Paige’s side during the worst of her battle with her family. “I have adaughterwho knows nothing about me.”
“Oh, I heard you. The real question is, didyou?”
Pumpkin blinked, not understanding. “Demo, I am not going to let another day go by where my daughter doesn’t know me. Where she doesn’t have a father in her life. I went through that and I willneverlet any of my children know the pain of thinking their parent doesn’t love them!”
