So, I've been weaning her off the breast these past two weeks. We're finally at the point where she doesn't cry for it anymore.
She's happy to eat solid food and drink cows milk.
“You're such a good girl, Ember,” I tell her while wiping the stray oatmeal off her face. She shows her little white teeth to me as she smiles so beautifully. I kiss her head before placing her plastic duck on the highchair tray.
I get out of my seat to take the breakfast dishes to the sink when she yells, “Da Da!” My heart lunges to my stomach. I should have seen this coming. Should have foreseen it. I didn't. “Da Da!” She yells while banging her tray with her little hands.
I turn and smile at her. I'm not going to make a big deal of this. He's gone, it's just her and me now, she'll get used to him being gone. As will I.
I didn't go home last night. Call it anger, call it pride. Either way, I didn't go home. I left her alone when I shouldn't have. She needed me and I wasn't there for her.
Where was I?
Drinking my fill in a damn titty bar. Of all the places I could have gone to it had to be there. Not the same one Nova found me in yesterday, I don't think I'll be welcome there for a while. Doesn't matter that the place belongs to the club.
I sat at that bar and shamelessly watched the girls shaking their asses for money. I felt a little stir below my belt, I'm a man, not a monk. I ain't dead either. But the second one of the girls came over to me, straddled my lap and began gyrating, I knew I was in the wrong place. Being angry with Nova didn't give me the right to have some other woman all over me. Especially one wearing nothing but a thong.
I pushed the girl off me, I didn't even know her name. She tried to talk me into staying, she could give me everything I've ever dreamed of, she said. There is no woman on earth who could compare to Nova. No woman could do to me what she can.
I left that place and went straight to the clubhouse, where I drank half a bottle of Jack and then passed out in one of the bedrooms. I made damn sure to lock the door first. You never can tell which whore will sneak into your room when you're intoxicated and suck your dick, claiming you promised them the world. Not happening to me.
I woke up this morning with a banging head. Self-inflicted, of course. Prez sent me straight out on a job with Mike of all people. Fuckin' cunt could've killed Nova!
As if she hadn't done enough for one day. Killing a man and then fighting another. I just don't know what the fuck got into her. What the hell was she trying to prove?
“She gave better than she got, you know?”
I turn my head in Mike's direction. We're parked outside Dugans having just collected this month’s payment for protection from the old guy inside. Dugans is a restaurant in the heart of town. Does pretty well. Needs to if the old guy is to pay us protection money and Draven Vidal.
“I'm not talkin' about this with you, Mike. All it will do is piss me off even more, and then I'm liable to put a bullet in your fuckin' head.”
“Brother,” he laughs, “ain't no need for you to get all up in my face. I know you think you need to protect her, but that girl is quite capable of taking care of herself. Maybe you should embrace it instead of fighting her on it. Woman like that? One in a million. You don't wanna piss her off or lose her. Because believe me, someone else will snap her up in a heartbeat.”
“Why don't you shut the fuck up and take that package back to Shepard.” He laughs and yells something over the rumble of my bike, but I can't hear it and I won't ask him to repeat it. I just take off and head for home.
I need to speak with Nova. I need her to know that I don't want her to change, but I have to know what she's keeping from me. Something about her doesn't ring true. What young mother knows how to kill? What young mother knows how to beat a man, to keep up with him in a damn boxing ring? Like Mike said: one in a million.
She's not home when I get there. In fact, she's nowhere. Believe me, I've looked. She ain't with Lynette and she ain't left Ember with her either. But it doesn't take me long after to find her. I'm riding past the park when I spot her. She's pushing a happily squealing Ember in a baby swing.
Parking my bike, I make my way over to her. She knows I'm here but she doesn't acknowledge me. Ember has other ideas.
“Da Da!” Halts me in my fuckin' tracks. She's never called me that before. Hell, I never even thought about her calling me that. I don't know where she learned it. But fuck if it don't make my heart swell.
“No, Ember, that's not your daddy. That's just a man who used to care about you.” There's no emotion in Nova's words or tone of voice. But still, telling Ember such a thing is fuckin' low!
“Don't say that shit to her!”
“I'll say what the hell I want, Haiden.” The emphasis on my real name irks the shit outta me. “What the hell do you want all of a sudden?”
“We need to talk.”
“There's nothing to talk about.”
There's a lot to talk about, the stubborn bitch.
Ember reaches for me, Da Da falling off her tongue repeatedly. Really does make my fuckin' heart soar to hear her calling me daddy.
I take a step to collect her. “Don't bother.” I stop dead just short of her. “You don't get to do this, Tank.”
“I know you're mad at me, Nova...”
“You know nothing.” She cuts me off while pushing the swing to stop Ember from crying. “You were the one who chose to act like a petulant child and stay away from us last night. You sure do like those whore bars, Tank.”
Fuck!
“Nova...” How the hell does she know?
“Don't lower yourself, Tank, I'm not interested.” She still hasn't looked at me. The problem is, she doesn't even look angry. I don't know what's worse, angry Nova or calm Nova.
Women are scary creatures at the best of times, but pissing one off and then have her talk to you calmly is not a good sign. Even worse when this woman killed one man and then beat the shit out of another within the space of two hours. She might just... Never mind.
“There was a lot for me to get my head around, Nova. Yesterday was...”
“Just another day in my life.” Finally, she looks at me! She's so beautiful. Even wearing simple jeans – yes, the tight kind – and a plain white t-shirt, she's beautiful. And it's only now I notice she's not wearing her leather.
“Why did you have to walk away from me? Why couldn't you just be a man and let me explain?”
“You killed a man, Nova, like a fuckin' professional! Then you jump into a goddamn boxing ring and fight another like you're a fuckin' professional at that too. Excuse me if I didn't fall at your damn feet and worship you for it!”
“I never asked you to. I just wanted you to understand.”
“Understand what, Nova?! That you didn't trust me to protect you?” I shouldn't be shouting like this in front of Ember, she's a child, no kid should see their parents fighting. But we need to get this out right now!
“It was my fight, Tank! I had to finish what he started. Don't you see that?”
“How can I when I don't even know who it was you killed!” And I don't. Still. None of us do.
“Why don't you shout a little louder, I don't think they heard you in Florida!” She grabs Ember out of her swing and rests her on her hip.
“Why do you hide yourself from me, Nova?”
“You're really asking me that?” Her sexy eyebrows raise sarcastically. Damn, she's hot when she's mad. “I could never tell you who I really am. You had but a glimpse yesterday and you freaked out.”
“Can you blame me after what you did?”
“You are not the man I thought you were, Tank. There are things I have done that you wouldn't understand. I can't trust you to be there for me when I really need you.”
“Nova, I freaked out, yes. But you knocked me the fuck out instead of trusting me to help you.”
“It wasn't your fight. I was protecting you.”
“From what?!” I yell so loudly in frustration that
Ember starts to cry while turning in her mother’s arms. Nova shushes her, kisses her head, and tells her it's okay.
“From my past, Tank. I may not have been the best mother to Ember in the beginning, but I have always protected her. That monster from last night, he deserved what he got. He followed me here, telling me he'd come to take Ember. No one will take her from me!” She clings tighter to Ember.
“I know that, Nova.” God, I want to reach for her, hold her, make all of this go away.
“That monster raped and tortured me, Tank.”
I suck in a sharp breath.
Fuck!
That was one of the cunts who attacked her! Motherfucker! Now I really wish she'd given me the chance to deal with that cunt myself!
“Him and his friends, and his brother... Who, for the record, I also killed last night.” What the actual fuck did she just say to me? My head is spinning!
“Don't look at me like that, Tank. Every last sonofabitch who hurt me that night has paid for his part in it. You have no clue what that night was like for me! It was the worst night of my life! Then they show up here to finish what they started, take my daughter from me! No, I couldn't let that happen. So excuse me if I don't care about your dented pride. Ember is all that matters to me, and I will do what I have to do to keep her safe.”
“But you don't have to do it alone. I'm here for you, for both of you.”