He stepped over to the water and as he started to release the ashes, he recite the Irish Blessing:
“May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
the rains fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.”
Once the urn was empty, they all shouted, “United we stand. Divided we fall. Hoo-Rah.”
With that, they all turned and started back towards the parking lot. As we were walking, I leaned over to Roman and whispered, “That was really sweet. I’m sure it would’ve meant a lot to your friend Badger.”
“Yeah, it would have. He was a good kid.”
He didn’t say anything more. I didn’t really expect him to. He’d been pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing. He hadn’t even told me how Badger had died. I didn’t push then, and I certainly wasn’t going to push now with all his brothers around. When we got back to the parking lot, I was pleased to see that the brothers’ moods had lifted, and they were all starting to talk and cut up with one another. I was standing there taking it all in when Widow gave my hand a squeeze and said, “I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.”
I watched as he stepped over to Menace and started talking. I was feeling a little out of sorts standing there alone, but that feeling quickly faded when a group of three women came over to me, each of them young and beautiful and, thankfully, smiling. The pretty redhead was the first to extend her hand and say, “Hey, I’m Delilah, and this is Marlowe and Remington. We just wanted to come over and welcome you to the club.”
“Thank you.” I shook her hand as I said, “I’m Frankie. Roman...I mean Widow has told me a lot about you. It’s really nice to finally put faces with all of your names.”
“So, he’s told you about us?” Remington asked.
“He’s shared a story or two,” I answered with a smile.
“Well, he hasn’t told us much about you, so you’ll have to fill us all in.” Marlowe giggled as she said, “Sometimes it’s like prying teeth to get these men to tell us anything.”
“I’ve noticed that.” I glanced over at Roman and smiled before saying, “I’ll be glad to fill you in on anything you want to know.”
“Are you going to be able to make it to the cookout tonight?”
“I wanted to, but I’ve got to get back home to meet the boys. They were at their dad’s this weekend, and I need to be there when he drops them off.”
“Well, if that’s the case, we should plan a day to get together for lunch or maybe a girls night out.”
“That would be great.”
One of the brothers came up behind Delilah and asked, “You girls behaving yourselves over here?”
“As best we can. We were just getting to know Frankie.” Delilah slipped her arm around the man’s waist as she said, “This is Hawk, by the way. He’s the club’s Sergeant at Arms.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Hawk.”
“Right back at ya.” He gave me a wink as he said, “Good to see that Widow’s finally found someone who can put up with him.”
I giggled as I told him, “I think it’s him who’s having to put up with me.”
“Either way, you’ve got yourself a good one.”
“I certainly think so.”
When Widow and his brother Menace walked up, Hawk gave Widow a nudge with his elbow. “I was just telling your girl what a pain in the ass you are.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, I tried to tell her she needed to get while the getting was good, but she wouldn’t listen.” He chuckled as he teased, “Don’t know what we’re going to do with her.”
“Better watch it,” Country warned from a few feet away. “Widow gets testy when you mess with his woman.”
“Ah, he knows I’m just fuckin’ around.”
“Yeah, I do. I also know it’s time for us to be gettin’ back on the road.” I looked over in Viper’s direction. “Prez is already gearin’ up to go.”
“Alrighty, then. I guess we best be going.” Hawk looked back over to me as he said, “It really was nice to meet ya. Hope we’ll be seeing you around.”
“It was nice meeting all of you, too.”
Marlowe stepped over to me as she said, “I’ll get with you about lunch sometime this week.”
“Great. I’ll be looking forward to it.”
Our little group dispersed, and after we all got back on our motorcycles, Viper led us through the rest of the park. We followed him back into Nashville but veered off when we hit downtown. I hated that I couldn’t join them for the cookout, especially after meeting the girls, but at the same time, I was looking forward to seeing the boys. I always missed them when they were at their dad’s and planned to have a nice dinner for them when they got home. When I’d invited Roman to join us, I’d assumed he’d want to go back to join the others for the cookout but was pleasantly surprised when he took me up on my offer.