Page 37 of Insidious Heart
“Me and Rochelle…” His eyes flick to mine briefly before he stares out the windshield again. “We’re leaving for a run tomorrow.”
I nod slowly and try to hide my frown.
Tomorrow is Monday, and while club runs can typically bleed into the week, they usually start on a weekend so that’s a little strange, but now I’m pretty sure I know where this is going.
“Should only be a couple days tops, and we were hoping…”
“Of course.” I smile a little. “I’ll be more than happy to keep Prince.”
He nods. “Already ran it past Beau. He’s fine with it, but you gotta stay home. No school or work til we’re back.”
Which is fine.
There isn’t class on Monday or Wednesday this week because my professor is on vacation. Tuesday I can just email that professor and work from home, and I can probably use a couple of vacation days at work if I need to.
Honestly, I’d still take the time off even if I couldn’t because hanging out with Prince is one of the very few bright spots in my otherwise bleak existence.
“We’ll drop him off tomorrow morning.”
“I can make him breakfast before school. As long as…”
Cal nods. “Beau is heading the run himself. Be gone just as long as we are.”
Another bright spot.
My father has been gone a lot lately, dealing with other clubs on new business and stuff but even if he was home, Beau wouldn't beat me in front of Prince. And considering I was a little older than him when my father started doing that, I’m inclined to believe five-years-old is probably the cutoff before Beau stops caring.
He doesn’t think twice about beating me in front of King anymore, so it’s only a matter of time.
Which makes me wonder… “What about—”
“King will come over when he gets out of school.”
I nod. “Great. I’ll make sure he gets his homework done. Is there anything you need me to do with the boys while you’re gone?”
“Just make sure they get their schoolwork done and keep them safe. Same as always.”
I’ve been babysitting for Cal and Rochelle ever since I was old enough to do it.
It was forced on me at first, a situation my father demanded when I was only ten-years-old, but I didn’t care at all because King was the first kid I was ever allowed to spend time with outside of school, and the five year age gap was never an issue.
In the DSMC, all kids are homeschooled until high school. Beau’s paranoia knows no bounds, and when I was old enough to start preschool, he said the only way it could happen was if I was homeschooled then made that a requirement for everyone with kids. It started as a way to keep us protected, and by the time I was almost six it was a form of control, but when my mom died, it became a way to get me out of his hair without stepping outside the MC.
And it’s how I wound up so close to Rochelle before she was fixing me up on a regular basis.
She wanted to be a teacher but she married her ex when she was seventeen and he was just as bad as my father, so he didn’t allow it. But when Beau implemented the homeschooling thing, Rochelle jumped at the chance to help my mother teach the kids at the clubhouse and she’s been doing it ever since.
Once my mom died, Rochelle became more than my teacher, though.
She’s the one who taught me how to try to conduct myself as the daughter of the Demon Seeds’ president; the one who tried to help me avoid gettinglecturedby explaining how I should act in order to do it. And Rochelle was the one who took me shopping for bras when I started to need them; the one who helped me through my first period at eleven, and she’s the one who explained all the things about boys and sex and life that my mother would have told me if she were still around.
Rochelle Moreland took on a role with me I don’t think she ever intended to take and that’s exactly why when she got pregnant with King not long after her and Cal got married, I was excited for her.
Sometimes, when I missed my mom so much or when Beau would beat me delirious, I’d pretend she and Cal were my parents. Don’t get me wrong, Cal has always scared me, but I saw how he was with King, how he was throughout the pregnancy, and how he actively participates in his son’s life. He dotes on Rochelle and their boys, treats them like gold and never ever lays a hand on them. Scary or not, the way Cal is with his family is everything I’ve always wanted from my father, and Rochelle is everything I briefly had with my mother.
They are what I secretly prayed for, and even though I never got it, I lived vicariously through them anyway.
I still do, even at twenty-three-years old, and I love their sons like brothers.
