Page 9 of Walker

He glared in the general direction of where it beeped. “Darlin’ you need to keep that shit on you until you’re inside the damn car.”

“What?” I asked, shocked at his vehemence.

“What would happen if you shut that door with Josh in there and your keys, phone, and everything else were locked inside with him?”

Well, that shut me up. “You’re right. It’s not smart.”

“Know that. Don’t do it again. Kids are too important.”

“I’d break a window and figure out how to pay for it before I left my son in there more than a couple minutes,” I informed him.

Walker surprised me once again when he pulled me into a hug and then quickly kissed the top of my head. “Don’t doubt it, Reesa. Just be careful. Call if you need help with anything else. No need dragging a sick kid along to pick stuff up. Griffon and I can help you out until he’s better.”

“Thanks. I think I have everything we need now.”

“Text and let me know y’all got home safe.” He said to me as he let go and backed away. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I nodded my agreement as my smirking daughter passed by us and ducked into the front seat of the car.

“See ya around, Miss Ambrose,” Griffon called out as he waved and turned to walk back to the store. Walker followed him without so much as a backward glance and I was left feeling a unique mixture of mortification, elation, confusion, and hope. The last one had been in short supply in recent years and felt like a foreign concept.

“I think he likes you,” ll said.

“Yeah, well, I think he was just being nice to a woman who was clearly at her wits end with her kids in the store.”

“I really am sorry, Mom.”

“You know what, Ariel? You need to think about how often you have to say that to me and then maybe work on doing better so you don’t have to apologize as often. Apologies get old and start to lose their meaning when they’re repeated all the time. Do better before they’re needed.”

I caught her quick nod out of the corner of my eye and then we were all blessedly quiet for the rest of the twenty-minute drive home.

4 - An Ugly Truth

As Griffon and I walked around the store collecting the things we both needed, he kept side-eyeing me. “What is it?”

“Um, well, I didn’t know you knew Miss Ambrose.”

“We’ve met. Her friend Shaina is gonna end up Wash’s old lady. She brought her to the clubhouse a while back.”

“She’s not like the women who come to the club,” Griffon stated.

“What’s that mean?”

He blew out a deep breath. “I guess around the time my mom got sick and I came to live with Spike-”

“Your dad,” I corrected as he rolled his eyes at me.

“Anyway, elll’s dad died then. From what everyone said, she was always super sweet and really fuc-freaking smart.”

“You ain’t my kid, Griff. Don’t care if you say fuck.”

“Right.” He hummed the word out. I knew good and damn well that Spike didn’t really give a shit if his boy cussed either. He only tried to curb the boy’s mouth when the women were around, so they didn’t give him shit.

“Anyway, Ariel has been…” He paused as if to gather his thoughts but shook off whatever it was that came to mind. “She’s been having trouble ever since.”

“Trouble?”

“She’s been getting into trouble, fighting, and her grades are shit now. I thought it was just because of her dad, and it is, but one of the girls at school yelled at her a couple weeks ago.”

“Yelled at her?” I wasn’t sure where this was going but it didn’t sound like my business at all. Besides, wasn’t that something teenage girls did naturally?

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