Page 74 of The Heart We Guard
Greer puts her hands on her hips. “Perhaps if men like you and those out there were a little less sensitive about feedback, there wouldn’t be so many fights, stabbings, and killings.”
“You’re wrong. But that isn’t what this is about. I don’t need putting in place by you in front of my men. Makes me look weak.”
“And making me look like I’m agreeing with everything you’re doing, in front of your men, doesn’t makemelook weak? Like I’m agreeing with the ridiculous way you’re doing things.”
I remember the winces from some of the brothers.
On Atom’s face when he went after Ember.
“This is my clubhouse. My rules. I’m just asking you to not make me look stupid in front of my men.”
“Maybe if you didn’t do stupid things, I wouldn’t have to.”
I take a breath, ready to snap back, until what she just said actually resonates through my brain. Then, I stop and close my mouth.
Tension crackles between us the way it always does. I bite down the need to argue with her, to stand my ground, but I don’t because, in truth, I don’t have any ground to stand on.
Greer walks towards me and puts her hand on my arm. “Listen. It must have been a shock for Ember. What you did to her was unfair, and she should have heard this message from you. Privately. Not in a public setting, in front of your men, like me or them are more important to you than she is. If you didn’t like hearing something, that you think should be private, in front of your men, why should she?”
I huff. “I hate it when you make sense.”
Those narrow but strong fingers of hers squeeze my bicep. “I know. And you should be warned, it’s likely to happen often between you and me. So maybe you need to adapt a little.”
“What do I say to her, Greer?” I take her hand and tug her to the end of the table, where I encourage her to sit in my chair.
When she’s seated, I perch my butt on the end of the large table, handmade by Atom’s grandfather.
“How old is Ember?” Greer asks.
“Twenty-seven.”
Greer looks surprised. “You don’t look old enough to have a twenty-seven-year-old daughter.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t have enough braincells when I was younger to know I should wrap my dick up. Ember’s mom gave birth just before my eighteenth birthday.”
“So, both your children were accidents?”
It feels like a trick question. A gotcha. “Guess so. But I love my daughter, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Greer looks thoughtful for a moment, then shakes her head. But I wonder if it’s more to clear her own thoughts than to say no to me. “And her mom?”
“We tried to be married. But what the fuck do two teenagers know about anything, let alone raising a baby and being a couple?”
“So, her mom isn’t on the scene?”
“She’s an active part of Ember’s life, but she long since left this town and has remarried Ember’s stepdad. A safe and reliable man.”
Greer leans back in the chair. “Go see Ember. Apologize for doing what you just did. And be truthful about this, about you and me. I’m about as close in age to Ember as I am to you. She doesn’t need to create stories in her head of a wicked stepmother, or us trying to have a family unit without her. Lether know that evenwedon’t know what this is. But I’d like to be friends.”
Greer’s words are like a kick in the gut. She might be right, but I hate that she’s discussing the two of us like we have an expiration date.
“Is that how you see this?”
She nibbles on the side of her thumb for a second. “We barely know each other, Butcher. I’m trying to be pragmatic. And objective. I was thinking on the drive here how things under pressure always seem more intense than they are. We went through something like that together. And now”—she pats her stomach gently—“we’re working our way through something else that’s equally intense. But who we are isn’t what’s important right now. It doesn’t need solving. But you hurt your daughter, and you should go fix that now.”
I glance toward the door. “Atom is with her.”
Greer leans forward and pats my knee. “He shouldn’t have to fix what her father broke. If she asks about me, let Ember know I’d love to meet her and grab coffee or something. But I also totally understand if that’s not what she needs right now. If she doesn’t ask about me, don’t say anything about me.”
