Page 28 of Property of Gray

“Get dressed. I

“I’ll start packing you up,” Madz orders.

If I didn’t love Gray and we weren’t making a go of being together, I’d want him with Madz. She deserves a hot biker to treat her right.

Chapter Ten

Prez must be out of his mind. He’s got a hot blonde on the back of his bike. Some chick Big Daddy asked him to get out of town. Faye is going to flip her shit if she sees him pull up to the clubhouse with this woman.

His ol’ lady is a certified bitch. We all hate her, but tolerate her for him. They started as an arranged marriage for business, but Woods has tried to love her and make their marriage real, but their love is about as real as Dirty Diana’s tits. I can’t believe they still allow that crazy cunt at the rally.

I wouldn’t have believed she was still alive if I hadn’t seen her with my own eyes with some guy called Maverick. As Grannie Mags would say, ‘Not my pasture, not my bullshit.’

I’ve got to treat Woods’s bringing this chick home with us the same way. He’s the Prez, and I respect his decisions even when I don’t understand or agree with them. That’s my job as his VP and his best friend.

Not that I have any room to judge his choices. I’m seeing his sister behind his back.

We’re about ten minutes from the clubhouse, and now that we’re home, the bubble of being at the rally has burst. It’s back to reality. I drop Willow off and watch for the fireworks between Faye and Woods to explode when she sees Jessika on the back of his bike, but she does the opposite. She greets her man with a kiss.

“See you later, pipsqueak.” I wink at Low as she moves off to take care of our parting gift from the rally.

I drive to my homeplace. I pay the mortgage, but it’s still in my old man’s name.

I greet our old dog, Blue. “Hey bud.” I bend down and scratch him behind the ears as I walk up onto the porch. The screen door squeaks as I push it open. The second I step through the door, I can see my father has been on a bender. There’s a pyramid of beer cans on the coffee table and the ashtray is overflowing. There’s new burn marks on the couch and on the floor. One day he’s going to set the whole fucking place on fire. If he burned with it, no one would give a fuck. He’s a sorry, drunken, hateful bastard.

I don’t know why I bother with him, but I do.

I walk into the kitchen, disgusted by the amount of fruit flies buzzing around a moldy TV dinner that never made it off the baking sheet. Looks like he made it and forgot about it.

I grab a trash bag from under the sink and sigh.

I’m dead tired. The last thing I want is to clean up another of his messes, but I can’t stand the filth. I’d hired a lady to clean, but she stopped showing up after she walked in on him passed out naked on the couch in a puddle of his own piss and vomit one morning.

I can’t blame her. She thought he was dead and had called an ambulance.

No one wants to deal with that shit.

The ugly side of dealing with an alcoholic. I don’t know how his liver still functions after so many years of abuse. He’s already down to one kidney and has pancreatitis.

I buy his beer and pay his bills. I know I’m enabling him. I shouldn’t, but he’s my father and I can’t seem to turn my back on him.

My mother gets pissed at me. I know why she walked out. It wasn’t even the cheating and gambling that did it. She couldn’t stand the drinking and his temper. He never hit her. Sure, he burns and breaks things, but he never became violent toward her.

When he’s not drinking, he’s the best man you’ve ever met. But when he goes on a bender, he’s your worst fucking nightmare. He’s a complicated man.

I pick up his garbage and sweep the floor. If I’m lucky, he’s upstairs sleeping this shit off. Blue scratches at the front door, and I let him in. Poor thing is probably hungry. Who knows when he was last fed? “Come on, old boy.” I get his bowls refilled, and he scarfs his food down. “I’m sorry, buddy. I’ll make sure you get fed next time I’m gone.”

I make my way down the driveway to collect the mail that’s overflowing from the box and sort it into piles on the kitchen counter. I toss the junk mail into the garbage and take it out to the burn barrel out back with the rest of his cardboard. I pay for garbage pickup, but we’re only allotted so many bags.

I grab lighter fluid from the barn and light the trash on fire. I watch the black smoke curl and disappear. Sometimes I wish I could be that smoke when it comes to dealing with my father and his bullshit.

The back door bangs against the house. I turn and see Willow standing there as though I dreamed her into existence.

“What are you doing here?”

“Grannie Mags made an extra pan of lasagna and asked me to drop it off for Bill and you.”

“She doesn’t have to keep feeding us.”