Page 74 of Riding the Edge
Chapter Twenty-two
Reaching my bike, I throw my leg over the seat and slide my helmet from the handlebars. Fitting it to my head, I lift my eyes and spot Riggs advancing towards me. I’m not in the mood to deal with him and any club shit he might feel the need to discuss. Not after Maria pushed me away…again.
“Wolf!” he shouts as I rev the engine. “A word!”
“Not now,” I growl over the thunder of my pipes.
“Fuck that,” he bellows, coming up next to my bike. “You got something you want to tell me?”
“Your kid is cute,” I mutter.
“Nice try,” he says, crossing his arms. “You’re banging Maria, aren’t you?”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I glare at the fucking idiot. The minute Anthony mentioned he spotted the Charger outside Maria’s house, I knew Riggs had connected the dots. It’s partially the reason I followed Maria into the kitchen. Aside from getting the woman to give me a shot, I thought I could convince her to tell her kids. Little did I know, I was shooting too high on all counts.
“Ah, shit,” he moans, threading his fingers through his hair. “You are!”
“Go back in the house, Riggs,” I order, throwing up my kickstand with the toe of my boot.
“For fuck’s sake, she’s my mother-in-law!”
Throttling my engine, I stare at him over the rim of my sunglasses.
“Who’s the fucking tiger, now?”
Stunned to silence, his jaw drops, and I take the opportunity to back out of the driveway. As I peel away from the house, he recovers and starts to shout something I can’t make out. Leaving him and the rest of the Bianci family in my dust, I speed away. I don’t know why I can’t shake this woman or why, now, at forty-nine, I’m ready to work for a woman. Yeah, Maria is a different kind of woman and more than a schlep like me deserves but it’s more than that. It’s how I feel when I’m with her. It doesn’t matter if it’s just the two of us and I’m sitting across from her in a little Italian restaurant or if we’re in her dining room, surrounded by her family, the woman makes me feel like I’m something when I’m nothing. It’s indescribable, and it makes me want to be better.
A better man.
A better father.
A better person in general.
I want to be the man she deserves. The guy who will wipe her tears when she cries and be her strength when hers falters. I know she don’t need me, that she can do it all by herself but, I want to be the guy who makes her realize she doesn’t have to. I just don’t know how the fuck to get through to her. Part of me thinks I need to back off until she hears from the doctor. No one likes to play the waiting game, especially when their health is in limbo and as long as she remains in the dark, she’s going to keep getting lost in her head and her convictions.
As soon as we know the results, I’ll get back in the saddle. In sickness and in health, I’ll prove she can lean on me. I’ll show her this thing between us is more than two ships passing in the night. It’s the kind of shit some people wait their whole life to find and when they do, they hold on tight.
Turning into the parking lot of the hospital, I decide to tone it down. Instead of calling six times a day, I’ll call once to check on her. I’ll let her lead.
Killing the engine, I remove my helmet and hang it from the handlebars before making my way towards the hospital. On my way to Maria’s, I got a call from Pipe and he informed me that our friend Alvarez had paid Nico a visit. As promised, he cut my son loose and told him because of his connections to the Satan’s Knights, it was best he ended his association with the Devil’s Cross. According to Pipe, who was standing outside the room, Nico threw a fit. Alvarez didn’t waver and when he left, he took Nico’s cut with him.
Now, as I near his room, I can’t help but feel like I’m walking into the lion’s den. At his age, I was already on my second-wife. If my old man would’ve got in my business, I wouldn’t have liked it either. In fact, I would’ve raised hell and severed ties.
Pushing open the door to his room, I step inside and find him sitting up, spooning a pudding cup.
Like father, like son.
“Those were my favorite when I was stuck in this joint,” I comment, walking deeper into the room.
Lifting his eyes to me, he places the empty pudding cup on the tray and licks the spoon.
“Where’s your mother?”
“There’s a sale at Nordstrom’s,” he replies, shrugging his shoulders. “I gave her my AmEx and told her to have a ball.”
“That was nice of you,” I say, taking a seat next to the bed.
“Not really,” he replies. “I’m over the limit,” he adds, dropping the spoon. “I had to get her out of here after she told the nurse she would sponge bathe me.”
