My mom gives him a sideways look. But she lets me answer.
“There’s always a threat, dad. And any time there is, you do your thing, and it means I’m sort of kept locked up.”
“My thing?”
“That sexy, beastly, protective thing you do, love,” my mom says. “It’s one of the many things I love about you, it’s why I feel so safe. But I think maybe it’s time we do it a little less with Addie.”
“I’ll take it under consideration,” he says. Then he slips his hand around my mother’s waist. “We can talk about that after the show, all right? I didn’t drive my ass down here to LA not to see my daughter’s art. Let’s go look around, babe.”
They move through the gallery, taking their time to stop and look at every one of my photographs. I stare after them, struck with pride.
Then footsteps sound behind me. And a familiar hand caresses my shoulder.
“Hey, Addie.”
“Snake?”
“Yeah. You didn’t think I’d miss out on this, did you?”
I’m sure he has more he wants to say, but I don’t give him a chance. Turning, I press my lips to his and kiss him until my head swims. I don’t care who sees, don’t care who knows, there’s something so special about having this man here at this moment. To see me take these first steps in making something of myself.
“I take it you’re not upset I caved to Stone?”
I laugh. “To be honest, I’m not surprised. The longest I kept a secret from him — well, excluding today — was ten minutes. And it was serious, too; I’d taken his bike out for a ride. I was sixteen, and his bike is a monster, and I crashed it half a block away from the driveway.”
“Did he do that thing he does with his eyes?”
I nod. “Where he stares into your soul and suddenly knows every guilty thought you’ve ever had in your life? Yes. And it doesn’t matter how many times you go through it — there is no immunity.”
“I told him about us, too.”
“And you’re still alive.”
“That remains to be seen,” my father says, coming up to stand next to us. “You’re my daughter. It’s my job to watch out for you. Your mother and I have been out-of-our-heads in love with you since the day we first saw you, Addie. It makes thinking about taking a step back and relinquishing some of my duties to another man almost impossible to wrap my head around.”
“I don’t need a man to take care of me, dad. But I wouldn’t mind having Snake around as a partner. I like him,” I say. I put my hand on Stone’s arm to ease the blow of acknowledging that now he’s no longer the single most important man in my life.
“You’re my daughter, I just want the best for you. That’s all it takes to make your mother and I happy,” he says, then he clears his throat. “But no more fucking lies. Snake, I’ll tell this to you here in front of my daughter so she knows that those times you tell her you’re not able to come see her in LA or wherever else she’s displaying her exceptional fucking artwork, you will be working for some fucking penance. And if you thought they knew how to give out gruntwork in the army, well, nothing will have prepared you for the shit I’ve got in store for you.”
Snake nods. “Understood, sir.”
“And it fucking goes without saying that, if Adella ever calls her mother or me crying about something you’ve done, the number of remaining breaths you have in this life is strictly determined by how long I take to fetch my gun and find you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Then he holds out his hand, and he and Snake shake hands. “Other than that, you take good care of my daughter, you respect and support her obvious talent, and we’ll have no problems.”
Snake gives me a look. It’s warm, it lights me up with love and pride.
“I look forward to it.”
I hug both of them. I never in my wildest dreams imagined I’d be in a moment like this: my father and the man I love standing side by side, both admiring my work. It’s better than a dream come true.
Then another voice rings out.
More than one, actually.
Loud, coarse, riotous, raucous, and all so familiar from my nights working in the clubhouse.
“You call that fucking art, Mack? Fuck, I’ve painted prettier pictures with my piss in the snow.”
“Blaze, we’re in a fucking cultured space, you moron. Show a little fucking respect and tone down the crude language, you braindead chimp.”
One by one, every single member of the club files in to the gallery. Decked out in their cuts, not a one of them even close to being dressed right for the occasion, and every single one of them so lovably inappropriate — and getting so many offended stares from the other patrons — that I laugh and jump for joy and run right into their midst to be enveloped in a dozen hugs and even more congratulations, until my head is spinning and my face hurts from smiling.
I’ve made it. And I’ve got my family with me. This is the life I want.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Snake
My body aches from a hard day’s work — busywork that Stone’s thrown my way consistently for the last two weeks as penance for sneaking around with his daughter; jobs that have had me up to my neck in grease and spending entire days with a broom in my hand. My old drill sergeants in the Army would be proud of the job Stone’s done; Exhausted, I relax at the bar and I nurse the beer in front
