“Yo, little girl, how’s tricks in the Promised Land?” Dad’s gravelly, slightly sleepy (no doubt I woke him, he usually didn’t get up before ten), two-pack-a-day voice came at me.
“Daddy,” I whispered.
His tone was alert when he instantly responded, “Where are you? I’ll be on my bike in five minutes. Do I need the boys?”
Tears gathered in my eyes and I sucked in breath to control them.
“It’s gone,” I told him.
“What?” he asked sharply.
“The pain.”
He was silent.
I felt a tear slide down my cheek as I slid an arm around my belly, holding myself close, holding the fullness tight to me. “I’m whole, Daddy,” I whispered.
“What’s his name?” Dad asked gruffly.
I closed my eyes and another tear fell.
Dad so totally got it.
“Abel.”
“Kickass name,” Dad muttered.
I smiled and opened my eyes. “He’s got a Sportster.”
“I already like him.”
I felt a giggle slide up my throat but swallowed it down.
“There’s more,” I told him.
“Fuck. The asshole’s married, I’m gonna rip his dick off.”
“He’s not married.”
Well, at least all indications pointed to that fact. That said, I knew absolutely nothing about Abel except he was a heretofore fictional creature walking the earth.
I decided not to share that with Dad just yet.
But I did share, “I…I actually kind of do think I need you to call the boys and come out.”
His gruff was back to sharp when he asked, “Why?”
“Abel kind of saved my life last night.”
“What the fuck?” he bit out, and I could actually feel his movement through his words, either getting out of his recliner, where he’d fallen asleep watching something badass on TV (or porn), or rolling out of bed, leaving one of his bitches in it if he’d had company.
It was usually option two. As much as Dad was antisocial (this didn’t include “the boys”), he liked to get himself some enough that he’d put up with a woman, at least long enough for her to take care of his needs and make him breakfast before he got her ass out of his house.
At this point, I heard the door scraping open behind me and I looked that way.
Abel caught my eyes, and half a second later he was bending over me, his face an inch away.
“Why are you crying?” he demanded to know, then didn’t wait for my answer. He ripped the phone out of my hand, straightened, put it to his ear, and clipped, “You made her cry.” There was a pause before, “Yeah, I’m him.” Another pause before his eyes dropped to me and he muttered, “Right. Didn’t know. Just got in, saw tears on her face. Here she is.”
He then offered the phone to me.
I took it, my lips parted, my gaze never leaving him, and put it to my ear.
When I did, Dad must have sensed it with Dad Perception for he declared, “Already fuckin’ love that guy.”
Abel moved toward the kitchen as I said, “I…well, that’s good.”
“Fucker handed off the phone before I could have a word. Give it back to him. Wanna know what’s goin’ down with you and want that from him.”
“We don’t actually know,” I told him. “He and his buds went after one of the, uh…guys who got away, but they didn’t get him. So we’re at a loss.”
“He went after him?” Dad asked.
“Yeah,” I confirmed.
“No cops?”
Oh man.
“Dad—”
“He an outlaw like your old man?”
I didn’t know for sure, but I had a feeling he was.
Or he’d turned into one last night, for certain.
“We’ll just say that the proper authorities were not notified,” I stated, then stared as I watched Abel come out from behind the door of the fridge with one thing in each hand.
The first was a packet of bacon.
The second was a plastic bag filled with blood.
I swallowed.
He tossed the bacon on the counter, opened the microwave, and shoved the bag of blood in.
Gluk.
Through this, Dad hooted.
Then he asked, “You okay?”
“Freaked out but healthy,” I answered.
“Am I gonna lose my motherfucking mind at what happened to you?”
“It wasn’t that bad, Dad. Or, at least, Abel stopped it before it could get that way.”
“Thank fuck,” he muttered, then louder, “You still at the Bay?”
“Yeah.”
“Right. To gather the boys and be there, take at least two days. He got you covered for that?”
Abel was beeping buttons on the microwave as I said, “Yeah. He’s pretty, um…capable.”
“Ha!” Dad snorted. “Good to know. But you tell him one beautiful, shiny hair on my little girl’s head is fucked, I’ll have his throat.”
Dad was forty-eight years old and spent his time taking odd jobs that paid cash so he could avoid paying more taxes than he had to in order to keep his house and land. He drank. He caroused. He rode his bike. He got laid. He communed with his brethren. He frequently did things I never knew about because they’d scare me. And he loved me.
He also worked out. Sure, he sometimes lifted weights with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, but he did it.
Abel could still tear him limb from limb.
“That won’t be a problem. I haven’t known him very long, but so far he’s been pretty good at taking care of me.”