Page 10 of Time to Bounce

We’d been raised together since the two of us had been brought home—me from Japan, and her from Portland.

Dad was a protector.

He’d seen both of us while he was visiting both places—though Mom had been the one who’d introduced Mary Beth to Dad. Apparently, while she’d been visiting her family in Portland, a baby had been introduced to her from a family member. The next time they’d gone to visit family six months later, Mom had introduced Dad to Mary Beth.

Gavrel had been adopted from Russia when Dad had been there visiting a couple of his old bootcamp buddies who’d been stationed there.

He said we spoke to something broken inside him.

See, our father hadn’t been adopted.

He’d been left in the system since he was five, and bounced around from foster home to foster home.

Once, when Gavrel had been around eleven or twelve, he’d talked to him about his life growing up.

When Dad was four, his parents, grandparents, and two siblings had died in a car crash on Christmas Eve. Dad, the only one who’d been insulated in the middle seat when they’d rolled, had been the only one to survive.

Without a scratch.

Dad had been immediately transferred to foster care in Amarillo as they’d tried to locate his family.

But each of his family members that he had left said no to taking him in—including his mom’s parents.

From that point on, he’d been transferred from orphanage, to foster home, to orphanage, to foster home, until he’d aged out at eighteen. At eighteen, he’d joined the military, but had promised himself that if he could change a life, he would.

And he did.

He changed my life.

And Mary Beth’s.

Gavrel would never know what it felt like to not have someone love him.

Which was all you could ever ask for.

But saying all of that, I was happy to continue Dad’s lifelong dream of helping children—even the ones who were now adults.

Everyone deserved to have someone who loved them unconditionally.

Which happened to be why I was in a dive bar in the middle of downtown Dallas.

A dive bar that was owned by a known one percenter motorcycle club that wasn’t like the ones I read about in books. This club, the Aided Aimers MC, was well known around the area.

According to Shasha, the police were investigating them because they were characterized as a gang with the DPD. They were armed, dangerous, and didn’t give a single fuck who they hurt.

If I were being honest, I would admit that my heart was a little bit jumpy being here.

It was obvious they were a little wilder than anything I ever expected.

But Shasha and Dima had been pretty open about how scary they would be and had urged me not to go on my own.

But I hadn’t lived my life playing it safe.

I couldn’t.

Because playing it safe wasn’t living, and I liked to live.

I’d promised myself the day Gavrel died that I’d start living, and that I wouldn’t question my instincts any longer.

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