Page 198 of American Hellhound
Roman sighed. “What I said before, about wanting back in – I really do. And I want my boys to have a chance to prospect.”
He gave it a minute. “Oh. You’re serious.”
“I don’t joke around about those kids, man.”
Ghost clenched his jaw to keep from saying what he wanted to – an oh so eloquentfuck you– and tried to hold onto his presidential mantle just a little longer. “We’ve had this conversation, Roman. You were kicked out. You don’t get to come back.”
“And I said–”
“I remember what you said.”
Roman glanced away, a muscle jumping in his throat. “I don’t have anywhere else to go, Ghost,” he said, quietly.
“Sure you do. You could go anywhere. Tend bar. Work in a garage. Whatever. This isn’t your only, or even your best, option.”
When he looked back, his eyes held a sheen Ghost had never seen in them before. Being a parent had a way of changing people, always for the better. “I want a better life for Boomer and the boys. I’ll do anything.”
“Including lie to me and try to pull one over on my entire club just to get out of a jam.”
“Ghost,” he pleaded.
Ghost sighed. “I feel bad for the kids, alright?” And he did. They made him think of Aidan, perpetually directionless, and Ava, strong when she shouldn’t have had to be. He’d screwed over both his kids, denied them the lives they wanted through his own bullheadedness. They’d worked things out for themselves…but other kids weren’t so lucky. Weren’t so strong.
Shit.
“I’ll put it to a vote,” he relented. “For the kids. If the guys are okay with it, they can start as hangarounds. They’ll have to work their way up the ladder the normal way, no special treatment.”
“That’s fair,” Roman breathed, like he couldn’t believe his luck.
“And you’re not back in, Roman,” Ghost said. “That’s the deal. The kids, but not you.”
His face fell, crumpling in a way that highlighted all the lines and freckles he’d collected over the years. He looked fifty-three then, tired and gray-faced, worn out from the kind of life that killed you slowly…and then all at once.
“That’s fair too,” he said, tone dull now.
“You’re welcome to stay in town,” Ghost said, almost apologetic. “But you can’t wear the colors again, Roman. I just can’t trust you.”
His mouth twitched in a sideways, humorless smile. “Yeah. I get it.”
Thirty-One
Then
The scariest part, Ghost decided, was that nothing was happening.
Yet.
The day he took Maggie shooting, they stayed up at the cattle property until it was time to get Aidan from school. They’d packed sandwiches for lunch, and spent long hours in the hay loft, surveying the land, talking. Worrying. After they got Aidan, they grabbed a bucket of KFC and took him to the park. Ghost sat on his butt in the grass, awkward and bad at parenting, while Maggie worked with Aidan on his kite, until they finally got it up in the air to the sound of their triumphant laughter.
They were more like siblings than a parent and child – Maggie was a child herself. He felt a pang of deep sadness, like always. Maybe one day he’d stop feeling guilty for stealing her youth, but he didn’t think it would be anytime soon.
They took a whole day away from the club, but the next morning, he’d known his reprieve was over. He’d gone to the clubhouse, knees weak, stomach churning, to face the wrath of Duane.
Only Duane hadn’t been wrathful. He’d been oddly placid, if anything. “We’ll need to set a meeting with the Ryders,” he’d said, and that had been it.
Ghost didn’t trust it for a second. But he was always scared shitless that if he pushed the issue, his tiny little family would suffer somehow.
That’s what he realized in Duane’s office that day: his concern was for Mags and Aidan, for the three of them. And any other worry was distant and unimportant.
