The words land like iron in my gut, because she’s right. She’s not a little girl anymore. She hasn’t been for a long time. I’ve spent the last twenty years seeing her as my kid, my responsibility, the one who still needed my hands on the wheel.
Maybe that’s part of the problem. Maybe I don’t know how to be anything but her protector.
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” I mutter.
“No,” she says softly. “You don’t. You can think he’s the biggest screw-up on earth. You can refuse to let him near the shop, you can tell him he’s not welcome at the clubhouse, you can roll your eyes when I talk about him. But you don’t get to lay your hands on him like that in front of me again. Not unless he’s hurting me or the kids. Are we clear?”
I drag a hand through my hair, the buzzed strands scraping on callused fingers. My head throbs. My heart feels like it’s being squeezed in a vice.
“Yeah,” I say finally. “We’re clear.”
She studies my face, like she’s checking for lies. Satisfied, she nods, some of the tension leaking out of her shoulders.
“And you,” she adds, poking me in the chest. “Need a vacation.”
I blink. “What?”
“A vacation.” She says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Time away. Somewhere that isn’t here, where your blood pressure might come down below ‘walking heart attack.’”
I snort. “I don’t vacation.”
“Exactly.” She plants her hands on her hips. “You run this shop six days a week. You spend your seventh day at the clubhouse dealing with club business. You say yes every time someone needs their truck looked at or the generator fixed or the fence mended. You’ve taken maybe two weekends off in ten years. And in between all that, you’re trying to keep me and the kids afloat emotionally.” She lifts her chin. “You’re worn thin, Pops. You’re snapping at everyone. Mom would’ve smacked the back of your head by now and shoved you out the door.”
The mention of her mother hits like a bullet. I feel it, sharp and familiar. Twelve years and it still knocks the wind out of me sometimes.
Honey’s face softens. “She would’ve,” she says gently. “You know she would.”
She’s not wrong. If my wife was still here, she’d have taken one look at me lately and told me to get my ass on the bike and ride until I could breathe again. She always knew when the walls were closing in on me, when the noise in my head got too loud.
Without her, I’ve just been… filling the space. Work, club, women. Anything to keep from stopping long enough to feel how empty the house is.
“I got responsibilities,” I protest weakly. “This shop doesn’t run itself. The club?—”
“Can live without you for a week,” she cuts in. “I already talked to Country Boy. He said he’d cover whatever comes up on the club side. And I can handle the shop. I do the books, I know all the jobs scheduled, I can call in a couple of the guys to cover the heavy lifting. You taught me how to do half this shit anyway.”
I scowl. “You’ve been plotting behind my back?”
“Absolutely.” She doesn’t even try to deny it. “Because you weren’t listening when I tried to talk to you about it in pieces. So I went around you.”
A reluctant laugh bubbles up. “You’re your mother’s daughter.”
She grins briefly. “Damn right I am.”
Then she sobers. “Go home. Pack a bag for a week. I’ll have everything booked by the time you get back. You can hit the road tomorrow morning.”
“Booked where?” I demand. “You sending me to some yoga retreat or some shit?”
“Relax,” she says dryly. “I’m not putting you in a yurt. Just… somewhere quiet. Put some miles under you. Clear your head.”
I open my mouth to argue, then shut it again. I can feel the resistance in me, automatic and knee-jerk. Control freak, that’s what she calls me when she’s pissed. She’s not wrong.
The idea of leaving makes my chest go tight. The idea of staying does too.
I look around the shop. At the cars in various stages of repair. At the oil stains on the concrete that I could mop with my eyes closed. At the workbench where I’ve sat so many nights, alone, with a beer and an engine block as company.
The walls feel closer than they used to.
Outside, beyond the big bay door, I can see the narrow strip of gravel that leads to the road. Beyond that, Salemburg stretches out in its familiar, small-town lines—one stoplight, a couple of churches, the diner, the gas station, the same houses I’ve driven past a thousand times. I know every crack in the pavement, every pothole that’ll rattle your teeth.
