an actual motorcycle yet.
“Let me ask your daddy tonight and see if they have anything going on. If not, then I’ll call their dads and ask if they can come over and hang out with you. Maybe they can bring their bikes too and y’all can ride together?” I ask, tossing that idea out there to stir around in her mind. I never know exactly what is going on from day to day within the walls of the club, and I try my best to keep Rogue out of his daughter’s doghouse.
“Yes! That will be so much fun. Thank you,” she replies, as she rushes off to her room to play with her toys while I get started on dinner. Tonight’s spaghetti night. It’s Rogue and Harmony’s favorite dish. I get the skillet out and begin browning the meat and boiling water when the phone rings.
“Hello?” I answer, flustered as I’m already multitasking and am trying to keep an ear out for Harmony while she’s playing.
“Hey, Rora. I was calling to let ya know I won’t make it home in time for supper. Something’s come up at the club that requires my attention,” Rogue informs me, and I can detect frustration and a hint of sadness in his tone.
“Okay, do you know what time you’ll be home?” I ask him through an accidental exaggerated sigh.
“I will probably just crash here on the couch in my office,” he informs me. I bite my tongue because I can sense the stress in his tone, and don’t want to add to that by declaring he’ll have a disappointed little girl. I’ve become accustomed to these last-minute cancellations; she, however, has not.
“Harmony asked me if she could come to the club tomorrow and play with Asher and Nash. Do you think that will be a possibility? Or am I wasting my breath?” I question, realizing I let some of my own irritation slip out.
He sighs, before I hear him growl subtly, causing me to audibly gulp. “This thing happening, it means I don’t want either of you here. Not just yet anyhow. Not until I get a better understanding of what this means for the club. I won’t put my family at risk.” I can hear a heavy sigh leave the other end of the receiver. “Fuck, I don’t know, baby. Let me see how things begin to look as we delve deeper into this. Just don’t wanna make any promises I can’t uphold.”
My heart falls deep into my stomach with his statement, but I desperately try to choke back any emotion revealing my gut feeling. I get these often, but they’ve only ever proved to be right twice in my life. Once when I first met Rogue and knew he was the one I’d spend my life with, and the other being when I knew we’d be having a daughter. “That bad, huh?”
“The worst, Rora,” he admits, and now I feel nauseous and clammy.
“Anything I can do to help?” It’s a rhetorical question, really. If he won’t allow us near the clubhouse, he most definitely will refuse any form of help coming from me. This is an attempt by me as his dutiful wife and old lady to simply assuage him. Even if I can’t help physically, it’s important he knows that I’m here for him to vent to.
“Nah, baby. Club business, we’ve got it handled. Can I talk to our girl to say my goodnights?” He always has a routine with her when it comes to bedtime, and I know that it will bother him, as much as it does her, if this doesn't happen.
“Sure, honey. Let me go and get her for you,” I say, placing the receiver down on the kitchen counter. I find my girl experimenting with her ‘play makeup’. She’s not a girly-girl, but she loves to decorate her face as she says. “Harmony?”
She looks up at me, her face smeared with pink lipstick and her eyes adorned with bright blue eyeshadow. Suddenly, my teenage years creep to the forefront of my mind. Big hair and bright makeup. Momentarily, I think to myself it’s probably a good thing her daddy is working overnight. “Yes, Momma?” She smiles up at me with a little bit of lipstick painted on her teeth, and I do my best to contain the giggle that’s trying to erupt.
“Daddy’s on the phone. He needs to talk to you.” Before I get the sentence completed, she jumps up and rushes out of the room. That