Page 40 of Daddy Issues

“We need to ride out to the Bends. Saw a car just like that pulling out when we made the run south.”

Pork Chop’s large sideburns were covered in blood that had gushed from his left eye. But that didn’t stop him from spouting off descriptions, his busted lip splitting further. “They were white guys, but they weren’t peckerwoods,” he said. “They weren’t on shit, except an ego trip. Too much money.”

“Sound Russian?” Merc tilted his chin. The Soletskys were Ukrainian, but Pork Chop wouldn’t notice the difference.

“Nah, they weren’tthatwhite. They pulled out from that little bar. One of them had prison tattoos on his left forearm and a scar across his left cheek. Another was more brown, maybe Native. Never seen him before, but the mean son of a bitch was stomping the kid once he was down.”

Merc’s relief was evident, but he shrugged.

“There’s a fucking laundry list of people who’d make that kind of power play.” Preacher and Archer were both gone. They were behemoths, larger than life figures. One respected, the other feared, but losing both left a power vacuum in Dry Valley.

Whoever thought we were weak was wrong.

“Gonna ride hot through the Bends,” Merc told his dad. “Put them on alert, maybe shake something out of one of those tin boxes.”

“Do it. But watch your back.”

The Bends were a series of old, busted up roads that snaked around the giant drainage ditch that housed the Dry Valley River. Each one was dotted with rusted out mobile homes and rickety old houses. The only good thing about it was that if it rained, the dry bed flooded and kept the town safe.

But not in the Bends. Nothing was safe there. From meth to crack and everything in between, it was where dreams and people came to fade away and die. I rode through with Merc. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look for Eli’s mom. Hell, I half expected Jessica to run out into the street, flag us down, and beg to see her son.

She didn’t. She was probably passed out wasted.

We didn’t see the car, but when we rounded the bend near Wanda’s, several of her boys stood out in the yard. One with a shot gun laying in his arms. He didn’t fire. Wouldn’t.

But they definitely got the message.

I would have said nothing good came from a place like this. But Kenna had. The stink, the filth, hadn’t sullied her in any way.

Here I was, wanting to dirty her all the way up.

A few hours before sunrise we headed back into town. I peeled off from Merc as he headed back to the clubhouse and headed for home. I was bone tired and craving silence and peace.

Not that it helped. Between dreaming of Kenna, splayed out and wide open on Jester’s lap, or her mouth on me, to the dirty way it felt to ride through the Bends, I tossed and turned all night. When I finally slept, it was well into the late morning. The sound of kids playing outside and the whir of a distant weed eater lulled me to sleep.

I’d bought the house, just outside of downtown, because it was a sort of suburban safe haven. The sort of place to raise a little boy. One who deserved a life far away from places like the Bends.

It didn’t hurt that it was only a block or two away from AP’s place. Nice neighborhood, good schools, somewhere safe for Eli because what his mother had come from was anything but. Where she was now, probably worse.

It was past noon when I got out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and nothing else, and headed toward the coffeepot. I was halfway through the house when I heard a car door shut in my driveway.

Kenna was already skittering back to her little pickup when I opened the front door. My flannel shirt folded neatly over the rail. She looked good enough to eat. Short shorts, oversized off the shoulder t-shirt, and her hair spilling out of a messy bun on top of her head.

“It’s a little early for you.” I opened the glass door, draping one arm over it as I stepped out onto the warm concrete.

She startled with a little jump, then turned. She ducked her head when she saw me, blushing when she spent too longlooking before she said anything. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I just wanted to drop that off.”

Her cheeks were pink, her expression apologetic. She looked so wholesome compared to the last time I’d seen her. I wanted to lick her from her toes all the way to that defined cupid’s bow at the top of her lip and yank her head back by that bun.

Instead, I glanced at the sky and gestured inside. “Got time for coffee?”

She thought about it for about a half second and then shrugged. “You sure you can handle my drama?”

I laughed. The annoyed anger in her voice was cute and made my cock twitch a little. “I’d chance it.”

When she didn’t brush me off and instead came inside, I rubbed my lips together to hide my smile of triumph.

“You look good,” I told her, as I grabbed my shirt and held the door for her.

---