a child who was an angel. I didn’t give a fuck about Ama’s past, about how it had forged her—I knew, point blank, that there was more to Ama than met the eye.
And I couldn’t wait to meet every different facet of her.
Because, seeing her here, like this, fighting for a woman who—if memory served—hadn’t particularly liked Ama, made me inordinately grateful that I had her daddies’ permission to pursue this.
Rubbing a hand over my face to shake myself out of that line of thought, I tuned back into the conversation and instantly stiffened when she growled, “…do I need to come down there?”
Martin snorted. “Is that supposed to be a threat? I ain’t seen you in a few months.”
Her lips curved into a pout. “And whose fault is that?”
He grunted. “Mine.” That was probably one of the few admissions of guilt the Prez of the notorious MC had ever made. Had to love how a woman could have you in knots. “I can’t always go down there, girlie. You know that.”
Reaching down, I grabbed her shoulder and gently shook it. “Ama, you don’t like leaving the clubhouse.”
“That Ink?” Martin grunted. “You staked a claim yet, boy?”
Inside, I froze, and somehow, the sixty-nine-year-old biker made this thirty-seven year old feel like I was back at high school, on the brink of asking the future prom queen out.
I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or not, but Ama’s reaction was so extreme that she didn’t even notice me. The color that blossomed on her cheeks made a plum tomato look pasty white, and she leaped up off the couch like a cat on a hot tin roof—I’d never seen that outside of shows and movies, but the sight had me laughing, especially when she knocked over the tumbler of water she’d placed on the ground beside her. Oh, and the bag of chips that had been on the table went flying too.
Within seconds, my neat living area turned chaotic. Chips soaring through the air, soggy ones clinging to the rug, and Ama making a respectable go of looking like a working stoplight.
“Ama? You still there? Everything okay? What’s all that noise?”
Martin’s questions were the final straw—I couldn’t stop myself from bursting out laughing, and when Ama gasped in outrage, I laughed harder.
“What the hell’s going on there?” Martin growled.
I cleared my throat, forced myself to stop laughing, and told the Prez, “I ain’t claimed her yet, but I’m going to soon.”
Martin snorted. “‘Bout fucking time.”
“She only just turned eighteen,” I reminded him. Her grandfather. Total SMH moment.
“Fuck that. Sometimes, you just know. Sometimes, two people need each other. And sometimes, age ain’t got nothing to do with it. Ama was ready two years ago—”
“Granddad!” Ama squeaked, her mortification apparently complete.
“Yeah, but the United States wasn’t,” I interjected on a short laugh, totally bewildered by the turn this conversation had taken. “Whatever, I’m glad that I’m not going to be serving time for statutory rape.”
Martin grunted. “True.”
Well, this was surreal.
With my eyes on Ama, who looked like she wanted to grab a stick of dynamite to blow up the ground beneath her feet, I murmured, “Thought you’d be pissed.”
“You don’t know me well enough, boy, to know if I’d be pissed. Just know my Ama has loved you since you saved her—”
“Granddad!” Ama choked, and, once again, looked like she wanted the ground to open and swallow her up.
Because I hated that, I held out my hand. She eyed it like it was a rattler just waiting to pounce, but deep in those beautiful eyes of hers? I saw want. Longing. Need.
I sucked in a sharp breath at the sight and wiggled my fingers, silently urging her to take them. With her grandfather grumbling in the background about granddaughters who didn’t know what was what, she took a hesitant step forward and placed her fingers in mine.
“Ama? You listening? I got shit to do, you know?”
Her voice was still choked as, with her gaze locked on mine, she grumbled, “I got shit to do too. I’m apprenticing at the tattoo parlor.”
Martin grunted. “How long’s it been since we last talked?”
She blinked, and that was the only thing that broke our eye contact. Staring down at the phone like he was there in person, she mumbled, “Two days ago.”
“Well, a lot of shit’s happen in two damn days! You’re supposed to keep me informed!”
Wincing, she mumbled, “I got accepted to Rhode.”
Martin released a sharp gasp. “No! No! My baby girl’s going to colle—”