Page 32 of Exile & Lula
As the sun went down on another day, Dillon and I packed our clothes and necessities before walking with my sisters and Xena next door to spend the evening with my parents.
While Dillon played outside with the dog, I sat in the guest room and watched the video sent to me of Stevie awake and talking. The pink-haired beauty sounded drugged and confused. She kept asking where Cher was, even though they were in the same room.
Weeping quietly, I didn’t know how to cope with my guilt. Bebe heard me crying and held me. My mind replayed yesterday over and over. I’d been sloppy. I was on autopilot, having come and gone from the court so many times. I wasn’t ready for an attack. I let my guard down. In the end, even at my best, I wasn’t certain I could have changed the outcome.
“I want to fix what happened,” I told Bebe after my tears ended. “I feel like it’s a problem I can solve.”
“You know you got hurt as a little girl,” Bebe said as her voice broke. “More than once. I couldn’t protect you.”
My mom stroked my arm fractured during the attack on the mall. Sighing, she shook her head. “I loved you so much, but I couldn’t defeat the bad guys. There were too many of them, and they were stronger than me. All I could do was try to survive and love you as much as possible. It never felt like enough, but we can’t control the world around us.”
“I wish I could skip ahead to a few weeks from now when things might be better.”
“But then you’d miss out on all the good moments, like when Stevie is released from the hospital and Cher wakes up. You’d miss Dillon’s upcoming piano recital. You’d also miss that biker taking you to lunch tomorrow.”
I smiled weakly. “I’m a horrible person to be flirting with Exile when my friends are in the hospital.”
“If you were in the hospital, and Cher and Stevie had handsome bikers interested in them, I bet they’d flirt, too.”
“Do you really think they would? I feel like I’m behaving coldly in that way I’m cold and other people aren’t.”
“No, you’re never cold. You’re just sensible when others are emotional. Certain people might view that as you being cold, but someone needs to remain calm when the rest of us are flipping out.”
“Am I being smart with Exile?”
I saw worry lingering around the edges of Bebe’s gaze as she mumbled, “I don’t know anything about him.”
“Neither do I, beyond a few things he’s shared and what I read in his file.”
Bebe’s gaze sharpened, and her expression shifted from concern to curiosity. “Fess up. I’m curious.”
I considered how best to explain Exile’s past without turning my mom against him.
“He grew up in South Dakota and now lives in a house in Baton Rouge with his younger sister and her two little girls.”
Bebe’s face warmed at the mention of children. She’d been hoping for more grandchildren, but so far, Sabrina, Vanessa, and Rowdy had refused to take the bait.
“He is the vice president of the Black Rainbow Motorcycle Club,” I continued. “He was in the Marines. He’s the man who untied me at the drop-off location.”
“That’s all you know?”
Sighing, I fidgeted with my hands and tried to find the right words. “His dad was a criminal.”
“So was yours.”
“No, well, yeah. His dad was more like Wolfman than Pax.”
Bebe lost her smile. “Like a pimp?”
“No, he had a normal job. But he was convicted of murdering two young women. The authorities thought he might have killed more.”
“A serial killer?” Bebe hissed under her breath and looked at the door as if worried we were being overheard.
“This all happened when Exile was around Dillon’s age.”
Bebe’s dark-eyed gaze glanced around the room before settling on my face. “I shouldn’t judge a person by what their parent did.”
“Exile is a stranger. He could be a monster,” I said quickly before adding in a pained voice, “But I hope he isn’t a monster because I feel an intense connection to him.”
