Page 10 of Walker

“Yeah, Dina said something about how her mom was going to take everything they had, since Ariel's dad wasn’t around to pay the bills anymore.”

That caught my attention. “What the fuck did you say?”

“Ariel's dad was messing around with Dina’s mom before he died. She was pregnant.” Griff hurried to tell me.

“Reesa doesn’t know that.”

Griff shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think she does. That’s why Ariel's been having a hard time. She said her dad wasn’t a good man. He used to be, but I guess he got mixed up in a bad crowd and I don’t know everything. Ariel's doesn’t talk about it a lot. She only told me that much because I was there and chased Dina away that day.”

“Thanks for letting me know.”

“You gonna tell Miss Ambrose?”

“Don’t you think she deserves to know before someone comes knocking on her door demanding shit that she shouldn’t have to give?” Griffon nodded his head. “You did the right thing. Plus, maybe it will help Ariel if her mom knows, and she isn’t the one keeping the secret to protect her anymore.”

Griffon blew out a breath and ran his hands through his dark hair. “Yeah, that would be good for her. Who knows if Dina was even telling the truth, you know? I was going to tell Tash, since Miss Ambrose works for her, but she’s been busy lately with Diesel.”

Tash and Spike’s kid was a holy freaking terror on a good day. The boy had twice the energy of any kid his age and he found the craziest ways to burn it off. Like running his tricycle off a ramp from the second story deck to the downward sloping backyard. It took years off both their lives when he did that and all he had were a few scrapes and scratches where the trees stopped his forward momentum. Spike turned their gorgeous deck into a sunroom after that, walls and windows, so the boy couldn’t launch himself anymore. He also fenced the lower half of the yard, so his boy couldn’t tumble down far enough to roll head over tail down the side of the damn mountain.

“You did good, kid. I’ll handle it from here. No use stressing Tash out when she has her hands full.”

“Little bro is going to be the death of her.” He grinned as we both tripped down the memory lane highlight reel of the shit his baby brother got up to. Then Griffon turned back to me and frowned. “Just-uh, be gentle with her, yeah? Ariel was giving her a hard time because I think she thinks her mom already knew her dad was stepping out on them and she’s mad that Miss Ambrose would stay. She’s mad that her dad died too, but I think she lost respect for her mom because she stayed when her dad was having an affair.”

“Reesa didn’t know.”

“How do you know?”

“Because we talked about her past before. She knew about some other shady shit her man was into, but there’s no way she suspected he could be cheating on top of it.”

“Damn. She’s a nice lady.”

“Yeah, kid. Don’t worry, I’ll break it to her gently.” As if that was really a thing. Griff was too young to understand there was never an easy way to break that kind of news to a woman. Fuck if I wanted to be the one to deliver it.

I’d seen first-hand what my bullshit had done to my ex-wife. No way in hell did I want to further taint Reesa’s memory of her late husband. He was gone. There was no one to yell at, be angry with, or divorce. Still, she deserved to know, especially before some dumb cunt came around causing more trouble for her and her kids.

I paced in front of the bar at the clubhouse debating whether I should call Reesa or show up to her work to deliver the bad news. Part of me wanted to go half-assed stalker and find out from Quickshot where she lived, so I could deliver the news to her in her home, where she could at least kick me out and have a good cry in the sanctity of her own house afterward. Considering my troubles with checking in on my ex-wife after we split, I didn’t think that route would go over too well with my VP.

“What’s eating your ass?”

I glanced up to see Snake standing by the bar watching me. There was a time when we had been the best of friends. That came to an end when he made it clear that he would steal my wife from me if I didn’t get my shit together. It was a warning that I didn’t heed until it was far too late. Truthfully, he would have probably tried his best to steal Poppy too, but she moved away and found a new love before he had the chance.

We were both left floating in the wind after Poppy moved on, and it was only then that I realized my best friend had been in love with my woman and the bastard stood by and watched my life implode.

That wasn’t fair. I needed to fucking get over that train of thought. He tried his best to get me to do right by her back then, but I was too fucked in the head to listen. Couldn’t even blame the fucker for falling in love with her. Poppy was a treasure. I’d been an idiot and now she belonged to someone else. Truth is, and it took a long time to realize this, Poppy was only ever meant to be a part of my life. It was something I’d grown to understand over the past few years.

She was happy. It was time to put the bullshit behind me completely, and that meant mending a fence I’d broken with my best friend years ago too. Besides, if anyone had any insight into how to break this type of shitty news to a woman, it was probably Snake – since he’d been there to see it happen with Poppy.

I stopped pacing a couple feet from him before moving to the barstool beside the one he occupied. “I need advice.”

“If I remember correctly, you ain’t too good at taking it.” While there was a nip of truth to his words, they were issued playfully.

“Fair enough. Still, I have some shit news to deliver to someone and I don’t know how to go about doing it.”

Snake sat up straighter after hearing that. “Lay it on me.”

He tapped the wooden bar between us and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. So, I laid it all out for him. Everything I talked about with Reesa, seeing her at the store completely overwhelmed dealing with a teenage girl with too much attitude and a preschool aged boy who was sick and whiny.

“Wait, you took care of the sick kid for her while she finished her shopping?” Snake’s eyebrows were damn near to his hairline - what should have been his hairline, if he didn’t shave it bald.

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