Page 3 of Odin
Just like that, I do the one thing I promised myself I wasn’t going to do and break down. Hot, angry, bitter tears flow down my cheeks faster than I can stop them. Once the first two escape, the whole torrent follows, a flash flood that I’m powerless to stop. I came here to flip a big middle finger at Preston, but it turns out, I’m only going to embarrass myself further.
Chapter 2
Odin
It’s been quite a few years since I made anyone cry. Sure, people might walk to the other side of the street or give me weird looks, but a smile usually puts them at ease.
I have no idea who this slip of a girl is, how she knows my son, or what she’s doing here. Hart is literally all the way across the country from LA—eighteen odd hours.
I draw in a sharp breath at the flood of tears. Rage floods through me. My first thought is that my son fucked up. I judge this girl to be around eighteen at most. She’s dressed herself to look alluring, wearing a scrap of a leather vest, a tiny skirt, and towering heels. Her makeup is heavy, her long, platinum blonde hair flowing all the way down to the small of her back. She’s lovely, but there’s no mistaking that she’syoung.
She better have been fucking legal when Preston knew her. He’s motherfucking twenty-four years old.
She wipes at her eyes smearing eyeliner across her cheek.
The need to offer her something is overwhelming, but I have nothing. I’m not exactly the hanky carrying type.
She takes care of the mess herself, shamelessly using her hands and wiping them on her skirt. I reach out, letting my hand hover in the air for a good ten seconds in warning. I give her more than enough time to pull away if shedoesn’t want the gesture of comfort. She sniffles, but instead of arching away, she leans forward. My hand lands on her shoulder. It’s so delicate, her skin like velvet over dainty bones. She’s surprisingly warm.
The last thing I’m going to do is bring this woman into the clubhouse. Family time is long over. We’re decent as a club, especially as bikers go, but there is still plenty of debauchery going on in the lounge, copious amounts of weed being smoked, and whiskey flowing like it’s water.
“Can I call someone for you?” My deep baritone echoes confidently into the night, but I can’t remember the last time I felt so awkward.
The prospects behind me share a look with each other. I turn and wave them off. The gate slides shut behind me.
She shakes her head, sniffling so hard that she chokes herself. She coughs, clears her throat wetly, and swipes at her eyes and cheeks one more time. “N-no. Thanks. I- I came here to talk to you. Not because I’m in trouble or anything. I have something I wanted to ask you.”
I might be intrigued, but the alarms in my head are also going off. I could use a chaperone, and what the fuck kind of Victorian era nonsense word isthat? I glance at the prospects who are disappearing into the clubhouse. They’re too far away to call. Hopefully, the security cameras at the gate are capturing the video if she tries anything. I take a step back from her just in case.
“If you don’t mind me asking, are you old enough to be out alone? I mean, is someone going to be looking for you? Do your parents know where you are?”
She shakes her head. She’s got some kind of designer purse looped over her shoulder. Black, on a gold chain, with a fancy gold logo on the front. She pops open the quilted flap and gets out her wallet. She slips her license into my hand. I study it for a second, trying to discern in the streetlight if it’s fake or not, but it looks legit.
Twenty-four? How the hell?
I keep glancing back at the photo on the card to the real woman standing in front of me.Willow Rose Layton.Her name matches her wood sprite exterior. Her body, at least. Her face screams rebellious punk rocker princess.
Annndddd, there’s a good chance I need to stop looking and noticing shit like that.
I study her license for so long that eventually she snorts and even gives a shaky laugh before reaching out to pluck it boldly from my fingers. “I know,” she says as she tucks her wallet back into her bag. “There’s no way I can be twenty-four. I look eighteen. Am I sure it’s not a fake? I’ve heard it all before.”
I want to be a gentleman and ask her into the club to take her straight to one of the bathrooms so she can wash her face. I’m already planning on the glass of water I can get her, and which one of the women I can get to come in and give her some comfort. I’m not nearly as rough a man as I appear, but I have no idea what to do with a crying young woman who clearly has something going on in her life.
She takes a step and then another, walking away from the clubhouse. She keeps going, passing her car, her pleated skirt swaying slightly over her thighs. Her calf muscles push up with every painful step in those shoes. I can’t see thembeing enjoyable with those stick thin heels. She’s practically walking on the balls of her feet.
I don’t know where she’s going, but there’s no way that I’m going to let her do it alone. Not in that outfit, but also not if she was wearing thirteen layers of sweats and jackets either.
I cover the distance between us, my long strides outpacing her easily. I slow way down when I get close and fall into step beside her.
“You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here, bawling like a dumpster fire of a wicked hot messed up mess on your doorstep?”
“I guess that I am. You know Preston. Did he—hurt you?”
“Not in that way. We were engaged.”
What the fuck? I knew nothing about my own son getting engaged. I know that when Honey said zero contact, she meant it, but even she sometimes sent me an email with basic life updates. Graduation. College grad. Little things like that to let me know that they’re both okay every few years.
“We’re not anymore. Not since two nights ago, when I did the whole cliché thing of coming home early. I’d gone to a concert with some friends, and I thought I wouldn’t be home until midnight…” she pauses. “I found Preston balls deep in my mom on the living room floor. It wasn’t one of thoseoopsie, I slipped, and my pants ripped off, and my dick just happened to land in your mom and I’m really sorry about itthingseither. They were really going at it. I was so shocked that I just stood there for a while, taking it in. I went straight upstairs, packed mythings—it was his house and my mom and I had moved into it, so I didn’t actually own much—I left my ring and the key by the front door, got in my car, and drove all the way here.”
