I looked like the only half-brown boy in a lily-white mountain town, and got my ass kicked regularly because ofit.
I hated growing up in that pissant town, and after our parents split, hated having to go back, spending summers at Dad’s place. Lived for my new life in the city at Mom’s, even though her and Piper were like oil and water by then: too much alike, too fuckingincompatible.
And even though I looked like her, Mom saw right through me. Right to mydad.
She told me, often, that God had made a carbon copy of my dad’s personality, and that carbon copy was me. Despite the fact that she once fell in love with the man and gave birth to his two sons, it wasn’t acompliment.
I knew she was right. I had my dad’s grudging sense of humor, his restlessness, his loyalty. His stubbornness. Hisheart.
His unwillingness tochange.
Like my dad, I was a lone wolf in the middle of a pack, struggling to balance those two disparate sides ofhimself.
Unlike my dad, I hadtwopacks tonegotiate.
2:27pm.
Piper got off his fucking phone and we rode to theclubhouse.
And these moments… On my bike, in the wind, with my brother. These were the moments that made me feel the mostalive.
The mostfree.
2:48pm.
I sat down to lunch with the boys at the clubhouse. The bar was packed, whole lotta dudes from nearby chapters rolling in, some for the meeting, others just for the partyafterward.
Sat right next to Ben, road name Blazer. Not because he “blazed” up the road or anything like that. Because he once wore a blazer to a Kings party and no one would ever let him forget it. Good guy, old friend I hadn’t seen in a while. Also the Vancouver Kings’ Secretary, I gave him the respect he wasdue.
Did I love that I was now sitting next to a man—that I was in a room with two men, actually—who had, once upon a time, fucked Roni Webber? Not so fuckingmuch.
But I’d been forced to make peace with that uncomfortable reality yearsago.
These were mybrothers.
Nothing would ever changethat.
3:28pm.
Jessetexted.
Flynn checked in again fromWhistler.
Delete.
Delete.
Theroutine.
The timetable in myhead.
The mental tally of everyone who neededme.
4:00pm.
Church—club meeting in a room in the back of the clubhouse that we called the chapel. Fourteen men present. Not the entire club, just the local and semi-localofficers.
Andme.
