Page 121 of Love, Lies, and Whiskey

“Fuck.”

“You need to holler? I’ll listen. You need to beat the hell out of something? I’ll hang a bag for you to beat on. You need the open road? I’ll ride with you. You got a lot on your shoulders, son, but you don’t have to carry that burden alone. We’re all here to help.”

He knew that to his core. Not just with family and the people on the ranch, but with the brotherhood, too. Tiny had mentioned what was going on with Lucas at church last night, and every man in that room had offered to help.

“This fucking disease.” He pushed free, pacing. “I thought if I knew what was coming, I could handle it. But Jesus, Tiny, he’s my kid. My flesh and blood.” He pounded his chest with his fist. “I just fucking found him, and now…”

“What’re you saying, Doc? You said this is a highly curable disease even if it’s later stage.”

“I fucking know, but this is science, Tiny, not magic. We don’t know what stage he has or how his cancer will respond to treatment. We don’t know if his hair will fall out or if he’ll get sick from treatments. Did you know being male is a higher risk factor than being female with this disease? Yeah. How fucking great is that?” Tears streaked down his cheeks. “And Lucas, my amazing kid, who was just coming into his own and coming to grips with me being in his life, is withdrawing from everyone. Did you notice Layla wasn’t here this weekend?”

“I did.”

“He said she was busy, but I know he’s pushing her away. All I want to do is help him, and I feel so fucking useless. Last night Juliette was in tears because when we were in the hospital and the doctor mentioned the swollen lymph node, she told Lucas she’d kill him if he had mono. No amount of talking will take away her guilt, and she didn’t do a damn thing wrong. She just said what hundreds of parents have probably said. How can I fix that for her? How can I make her see that Lucas didn’t take the comment to heart, and neither should she?”

He dragged his forearm across his eyes, gritting out a curse.

“I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you’re doing exactly what they need. You’re listening and reassuring. You’re there for them when they need you.”

Doc scrubbed a hand down his face. “It doesn’t feel like enough.”

“It never will.”

“That’s not helpful,” he barked.

“It’s honest, son. Before you found out Lucas was sick, did you feel like you were doing enough for them?”

That felt like a lifetime ago, but he thought about it and realized he hadn’t felt like anything was enough. “No.”

“That’s love, son. No matter the situation, good or bad, when you love someone, you never feel like you’ve done enough. The only thing besides this family and the club you can count on in life is that things change, and if you love your partner, your kids, and your friends, then you’re going to continue changing with them and for them. That’s how you make sure they have what they need and what they don’t even know they need.”

Tiny stepped closer and said, “Now, as far as your boy goes, I do have one piece of advice. I don’t have many regrets, but I do carry one about my brother Axel.” Axel was Tiny’s youngest brother. He’d passed away more than a decade ago from lung cancer. “You know he was a rough and tough Nomad who worked hard and played harder. Axel battled demons, and took them out on himself.”

“Yeah. But he cleaned up his act eventually.”

“That’s right. But by then he was already so damaged. He lost his first love in a motorcycle accident. He was driving, but the accident wasn’t his fault. The guilt though?” Tiny shook his head. “He wore it like a second skin and spent years running himself into the ground, drinking, using women, trying to outrun the pain.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you know what we do here. The ways we help people.”

Doc nodded, understanding dawning on him.

“I knew Axel was fucking up, and when he didn’t want to talk about it, I let it go. If I’d tried harder, given him a purpose, gotten him to talk to someone, to stay here, to take part in our world, maybe things would’ve turned out differently. Maybe he’d’ve let himself be loved, and he’d’ve had a chance to know his son.”

“You can’t know if trying harder would’ve helped.”

“Exactly. That’s why it’s my regret and why my advice to you is this. If you feel Lucas pulling away from the people he loves or the things he enjoys doing, don’t let him. Fear can chew a person up and spit them out. You do everything you can to give that boy a reason to fight. You figure out the things that will make him want to take part in life. It doesn’t matter if they’re big or small. You get him involved, and most importantly, you keep talking to him, even when he doesn’t want to hear your voice anymore, and you never stop.”

Doc thought back to those painful years after Juliette was ripped from his life, when he’d tried to push everyone away, and his parents were constantly pestering him. His mother would show up on campus and say she happened to be in the area and she’d take him to lunch, or his father and Manny and a handful of other Dark Knights would drag him out for a motorcycle ride. And his parents always needed help with something: rescuing a horse, fixing a fence, or helping with the rehab horses. He’d thought they were shorthanded on the weekends. But looking back, his father had used those times to get him talking, and his mother would often show up in the rehab barn and get him talking, too.

An idea took hold, and he looked at his father through new eyes. “Like you did for me?”

Tiny cocked a grin. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, son.”

“Uh-huh. Thanks for the talk. I needed it.”

“You okay? You want to take a walk or get some coffee?”