Page 2 of Biker Daddy

Drew rose, looking at the clock. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep but he hadn’t slept more than an hour the night before. Drew stretched his long body before yanking on a pair of black jeans and pulling a black Metallica t-shirt over his head. He shoved his hands through his shoulder-length hair and grabbed the plain leather cut off the back of his kitchen chair.

Shoving his feet into his black, mud-crusted biker boots, he headed for his Harley with only one thing on his mind—rot-gut whiskey. He could afford better, but he didn’t deserve it.

As he started the bike, the rumble of the easy rider filled him with one of the few pleasures he allowed himself, and it made him close his eyes a second before he drove off. There was nothing like having a hog between your thighs, except maybe a woman’s mouth, but today that didn’t interest him. Bad whiskey, straight up, with nothing to cool the burn from his gullet.

The only biker bar in the small town of Fell was mostly empty at just past two on a Wednesday afternoon, which suited him fine. He had no more interest in company than he did a picnic in a field of daisies.

“Fitz,” Trevor, a part owner ofLast Resort Bar and Grill, said with a nod as Drew clomped into the dimly lit establishment. “What’ll it be?” The people of Fell only knew him as Fitz since he’d changed his name to Andrew Fitzer after leaving the Skull Grinders MC.

“Ten High, straight up.” Drew threw himself onto a stool and ignored the grimace on Trevor’s face.

“How you stand that shit I’ll never know.” Trevor shook his shaved head and poured two fingers in a glass. Drew waved his hand for more before slumping against his forearms on the bar and hitching his booted foot on the railing of the stool.

“You sell it,” Drew answered with an irritated sigh.

“Only because you ask for it, and I’m guaranteed to empty the bottle weekly and the Iron Code appreciates your business.” He slid the drink to Drew. The Iron Code, the local MC Trevor was a patched member of, was the other part owner of the bar. “You should choose a top shelf in honor of Ray today.”

Drew lifted the glass and saluted before taking a liberal gulp. He clenched his teeth, hissing as the burn turned his gut to lava. Thinking of Ray, the man who had unofficially adopted him after he’d run away from the Skull Grinders, heightened the fire in his belly. He still couldn’t believe Ray was gone.

“Ray didn’t drink, so if this drink was in honor of him pushing up daisies, I’d be slinging back milk.” He shook his head. “Fucking chocolate milk.”

The thirty-something biker with the road name Gunner, for his time in the military, chuckled deeply and put the Ten High back on the shelf. Drew admired his cut with the Iron Code patch on it. They weren’t a one-percenter club like the Skull Grinders and although they were often rowdy and toed the law at times, especially when it came to keeping justice in their town, they did more good than harm. They were the kind of MC that Drew could understand the appeal of. They were a brotherhood that had each other’s backs—a family.

“Any action I should know about?” Drew asked as Trevor swiped the bar with a cloth. He asked every time he came into Last Resort. At Drew’s request, Trevor kept an eye out for any MC members coming into town. Trevor didn’t know which club Drew was watching out for or why and he didn’t ask. Drew sure as hell wasn’t offering either.

“I wasn’t going to tell you this until after Ray’s funeral, but Loki was on a poker run and a couple of Skull Grinders were at one of the stops showing your picture around.”

Drew’s fist tightened beneath the bar. He’d been looking over his shoulder for a decade and had never been mollified by news that they hadn’t gotten any closer and this was why: Drew knew one day they’d catch up with him.

“Don’t worry, he didn’t say a thing and none of the other Iron Code members would either. You know Loki wants you as a prospect. Ever since you fixed up his bike, he’s been bugging me about it. You turned that piece of roadside shit into a highly coveted machine.”

Drew nodded, relieved that he hadn’t been found, but still edgy at how bold the Grinders were getting in their search.

“Hey, Fitzie.” A bleached blonde with blood-red fingernails and a matching fringed leather skirt leaned close. The smell of her cheap-ass poison perfume made his eyes burn like his gut. Her low-cut shirt showed off too much of her sunburned, freckled cleavage.

“What do you want, Layla?” There was nothing friendly about his gruff voice, but Layla only giggled and ran a red talon across one of his fully tattooed arms. He’d done some of them himself and she was always fawning over them. She wasn’t really looking at them then though. She was looking at Trevor with a taunting gleam in her eye. Drew glanced between the two with narrowed eyes.

“Just thinking you might want a little company. My roommate’s out.”

“He’s your son, not your goddamn roommate and no, I don’t want any fucking company.”

“Sheesh, you don’t have to be so rude, Fitz. It’s not like you haven’t warmed my bed a hundred times.” She leaned against the bar, ran her hand up his arm to the bicep, and rolled her eyes playfully.

Drew’s eyes found the bottle of Ten High and focused on it, but he didn’t fail to notice the flicker of discomfort on Trevor’s face as his eyes slid by. The sight of Layla made Drew sick, but the look in Trevor’s eyes made his gut sink. His hand tightened on his glass, his fingertips whitening.

“Three, Layla, three fucking weak moments. Three.” He held up his long paint- and grease-stained fingers to aid his point. “Go home and clean the beer bottles and hash stink from your trailer before your son gets home.” His jaw ticked at the thought of her six-year-old, Brent.

Trevor started slamming shit around behind the bar, but Drew ignored it, lost in thought.

Drew had woken up after his final weak moment to find the boy sitting at the shitty Formica table that doubled as his bed, overloaded with ashtrays and beer cans. His sweet face had been crunched in concentration and his tongue sticking out as he colored on the inside of a pack of cigarettes. Some shit cereal with zero nutrition was getting soggy beside him.

It had been like seeing himself at that age. He’d stayed, made the kid a real breakfast, and taught him a bit about drawing, but then he’d left, getting out of Layla’s filthy trailer before she got her lazy ass out of bed. He dropped by often to check on Brent, and when his mother was shit-faced he’d take him to have dinner at the diner and then to the cliff house to paint, but that was as far as things had ever gone between Layla and him.

“Asshole,” Layla spat, letting her hand fall from his arm, and waved to Trevor for a beer. Trevor growled as he slammed a can of Coke on the bar.

“Get home and clean up for your kid, Layla, or this’ll be your last drink here ever.” Trevor’s hand flexed when she huffed, but she nodded.

“Fine.” She grabbed the can, mumbling, “You’re both assholes.”

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