“Gray is right, sweetheart. He wasn’t. You deserve someone who knows your favorite color is blue and your favorite ice cream is plain vanilla. Someone who always puts you first and will do anything to see you happy.”
“Is that Gray for you, Mom?”
For a moment I wonder if it’s too soon to share my feelings with my daughter, but she’s an adult and I want her to know there are good men out there.
Men like Gray.
“He is.”
“Tell him ‘thank you’ for me.”
“I will. Love you, baby.”
“Love you more,” she says, like she has since she was three years old.
Gray
“It looks a little rough.”
A snort escapes me.
“Ya think?”
It’s a little slow at Olson’s, so Jimmy suggested we pick up the old bike from his parents’ garage and get to work on it. He’s determined to have it ready so I can join him and his buddies when the weather gets better.
Back in September, when I’d gone on a ride with them to a swap meet, I managed to pick up a few new parts, but I never got around to working on the bike.
The Knucklehead had been protected with a tarp, but it hadn’t been in great shape when I dragged it from the dump all those years ago. I just forgot how much work it needed.
We load it on the back of my truck—no mean feat, the fucker is heavy—I thank Jimmy’s dad, who came out to see what we were up to, and drive back to the shop.
“Sweet,” Kyle calls out when we back the truck into one of the bays.
He’s already climbing into the cargo bed to get a closer look by the time we round the truck.
“Fuck. I don’t even know where to start,” I admit when we get the bike down and set up against the back wall, where it’s out of the way.
“Take it apart and clean it up.”
“That’s a fuckload of parts to try and fit back together,” I tell Jimmy.
“Might as well do it right.”
We spend the next couple of hours taking apart as much as we can—with a fair bit of cursing at the numerous bolts and nuts almost fused with rust—until we have a bunch of bins filled with parts and only the frame is left standing.
“Look what I found.” Kyle holds up his phone, the picture of a buddy seat up on the screen. “They’ve got all kinds of original parts. You’re gonna need one of those.” He taps the picture and grins.
A mental image of Robin snug behind me on the back of the bike, her arms around me, stirs my blood.
“How much?”
Kyle stifles a chuckle, but Jimmy doesn’t hold back, he starts laughing out loud.
“You’re predictable,” he snickers.
“Yeah?” I pin him with a sharp look. “Last time I checked you had a bitch seat. Difference is, mine won’t be empty.” I turn to Kyle and repeat. “How much?”
Half an hour later I climb up the stairs to my apartment, a few hundred dollars lighter, but a grin on my face.
I walk into the bar, just catching Robin throwing her head back and laughing.
I’m not the only one paying attention, the three musketeers sitting with her at the table watch her too. Fuck, who wouldn’t, she radiates when she as much as smiles. It’s no wonder the old geezers flock to her; they’re as hungry as I am for her light.
“There he is,” Enzo announces when he sees me approach.
Robin twists her head around and greets me with a brilliant smile. It’s all I need. Seeing happiness on her face at the sight of me makes every struggle I’ve faced in my life well worth it. Heck, if I’d known this was at the end of it all, I would have greeted each day of my past with a smile of my own.
“Hey, honey,” she says softly, when I walk up to her. Ignoring everyone else I bend down, cup the back of her head, and kiss her soundly.
“Sunshine,” I mumble against her lips, before releasing her and finally looking around the table. “Guys.”
The three wear similar grins as they mumble their greetings.
“Need refills?”
“Not gonna say no,” John says, holding up his half empty beer. The other two follow suit and I turn my eyes back to Robin.
“You? Another wine?”
“Sure, I brought Zeus and left him upstairs.”
Her way of telling me she was spending the night. I’m good with that.
“Be right back.”
Bunker is cleaning glasses behind the bar.
“Refills for them,” I tell him, cocking my thumb at the table. “And I’ll have a draft.”
His mouth falls open.
“I thought you didn’t drink?”
I shrug. “I used to. Before I went in. Only if I had something to celebrate, though.”
His eyes knowingly flit in Robin’s direction and he grins.
“I see.”
I’m sure he does.
“I talked to Becca last night,” he suddenly says as he fills my order.
Not sure why he would bring her up, and I don’t know if I really want to hear what he has to say. Still, I raise my eyebrow in question.
“She’s leaving for Florida with my aunt. Just so you know.”
“Good.”
I know from Francisi, who had shown up at Olson’s last week, he caught up with Becca, who claimed she had no idea Mike had taken her key to the diner when he left her place. Said she didn’t miss it until later and she was scared she’d get in trouble. Bullshit, of course, but Francisi had nothing but Mike Hancock’s say-so, which isn’t worth spit.
“So you know; I reamed her a new one. Apparently my aunt got wind of what she’d been up to, so I wasn’t the first. She admitted she’d come here thinking she could get you back after discovering you’d inherited the
