Prologue
Ryder
My fingers gripped tighteronto the handlebars as I read the sign: Vilas – 5 miles. I was nervous. It was fucking ridiculous and entirely pathetic, but I was scared of rejection. I had never felt like a bigger pussy for admitting that fact to myself, but there I was. My heart wouldn’t calm down, not even with every deep, slow breath of fresh mountain air I forced to pump in and out of my lungs. My brain was a jumbled mess of uncertainty, but there was no turning back at thatpoint.
As the road curved slowly down the mountainside, my mind tripped back to where it had allbegun.
“Mom?”I climbed onto my mother’s boney knee in the middle of the afternoon. Our front room was blazing hot from the sun pouring in through the sheercurtains.
She helped me get settled into her arms, the ash of her cigarette landing on my shoulder. “What is it, Ryder? Mommy’s watching her soaps.” Even as a five-year-old, I could tell how much she didn't want me just by the tone in hervoice.
“Why don’t I have a daddy? All the other kids at school havedaddies.”
She put her cigarette inside the empty Old English bottle next to her foot and chugged out of her glass of grain alcohol with ice cubes clanking around. “Your daddy didn't want you so he nevercamehome.”
Sniffling, I tried to wrap my tiny mind around what those words truly meant. “But why? Aren’t daddies supposed to lovetheirkids?”
“Yours doesn't love us. Now piss off. Go play in your room. Mommy’stired.”
I scampered off to my section of the studio apartment that was my ‘room’. I grabbed my Thomas The Train blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders as I sniffled and cried over a dad that had never beenthere.
It wasa plain as day memory that had plagued me for more than ten years; that’s how long it took me to grow the balls to confront my mother again about my father who had never loved us. That’s when she finally told me the truth: that she had been a few years older than my dad and could have been charged with statutory rape when she was fucking him, so she’d run away, only to send a letter to him years later, once she assumed she couldn't be sent to jail for raping aminor.
What a fucking awful eighteenth birthdaypresent.
My mom swore that she had sent it, but who knew if he had gotten it, read it, or even if she was telling me the truth or not. I wasn’t even entirely sure why I was looking for my old man after eighteen years, but there I was, twisting and curving along an old mountain highway, not knowing if my father would know his own son when he saw him. It was freaking insane. Nothing else had panned out for me in my life so far, so something had to give…right?
What if he doesn't even know Iexist?
It was mybiggestfear.
My forearms were sore from the four hour ride, but I didn’t give a shit. All I was focused on was finding a place to grab a beer and get my head on straightagain.
I pulled off into a parking lot with a few trucks and a handful of bikes near thefront.
Seems like my kind ofplace.
I swung open the heavy wooden door and puffed my chest out while all the guys lining the bar and at the pool tables stopped dead to stare at me making my way to an empty stool. There should have just been a damn sign on the wall:No fucking outsiders welcome; it would have made things way lessawkward.
The middle-aged bartender smiled sweetly at me as her long, curled dark hair bounced along while she made her way overtome.
“What are you havin’, sugar?” she asked, wiping thecounter.
“Bottle of BudLight.”
She nodded, dug in the trough, and put the brown bottle in front of me. “My name is Crickett, love. If you need anything, justholler.”
I smirked at her name, but held back. “Thanks,” Imuttered.
In two gulps my first beer was gone and another was slammed in front of me. My nerves were cooling…finally. I just had no idea what I was going to do next. I had an address of where my mom had sent that letter years ago, but so much time had passed. It was a complete shot in the dark, but it was better thannothing.
Crickett kept looking over at me, glancing and checking me out. It was unnerving, but nothing that I hadn’t dealt with in the past. Most of my mom’s friends would hit on me during their wine nights in our apartment; they pretty much made a game out of it. Cougars love their cubsafterall.
“Not from around here are you?” She finally decided to talk to me instead of juststaring.
I shook my head. “Just passingthrough.”
She laughed a little. “I said that once, sitting in that very seat that you are now. I’mstillhere.”
