Colson (The Henchmen MC #20) - Jessica Gadziala Page 0,5

I stood up, going into my own place, finding my daughter making her way down the stairs in a royal purple robe—a gift from her uncle—her eyes still blinking at the morning light.

"Did you just get home?" she asked, looking around the empty living room.

"No. I was just sitting out on the porch. You'll be happy to know I finally met the neighbor."

"Yeah?" she asked, moving into the kitchen, knowing the routine. I always made breakfast. It didn't matter how early our day was, I took a couple minutes to throw eggs in a pan for her, butter some toast. I wanted her to start her day right. Even if I was coming off a rough overnight shift. "What are they like?"

"Well, the son has an attitude and was trying to sneak out last night. The mom was nice. Funny."

"Oh, she was, was she?" Jelly asked, eyes getting bright. "Was she pretty?" she asked, making me turn back to her.

"That's a strange question, baby girl."

"Not really. It's a normal question. Was she?"

"Yeah, she was pretty." Beautiful, really. "But that is beside the point."

To that, Jelly shrugged. But I knew her well enough to know that something was going on in her little head, her eyes bright.

She really was growing up, I realized as I looked at her while whisking some eggs in a bowl.

As much as I wanted to forever see her as a chubby little girl with giant eyes, there was no denying she had sprouted up a lot over the past year and a half, getting tall and lanky, her body and face thinning out. She was looking more and more like her mother every passing day. The same heart-shaped face, the same perfect skin, the same eyes. I didn't see much of myself in her at all. Maybe I could claim her ears. But that was about it. Otherwise, she was the mirror image of the girl who had walked out of both of our lives soon after Jelly was born.

That said, I liked to think she had more of me personality-wise. She was a good kid who was rational and level-headed at least sixty-percent of the time. She applied herself in school. She was patient and kind.

She had some of her Uncle Thad's crazy mixed in with that, since she spent a lot of time with him. That was where she got her love of the more feminine things I was useless with, who helped with her hair, who waved a hand and soothed over the complete wreck of a job I had done trying to teach her about puberty a few years before.

My sister came back into her life when she was still little, and had become the soft female shoulder I understood Jelly needed at times. I hadn't been able to give her a mother. But I had given her a loving and dedicated family. And, eventually, a whole slew of mother figures in the girls club who took her right into their fold like one of their own.

There were times I second-guessed my decision to join the MC, but it had proven time and time again to be more of an asset than a liability.

That shit they say about raising a kid taking a village? It was true. Jelena wouldn't be the kid she was today without me having that, having the men at the club, having their women, having my siblings.

"She's having a rough time with her son," I admitted. "He seems to be going through a rebellious stage. Trying to sneak out. Mouthing back."

Jelly's eyes went thoughtful at that, her head dipping toward her shoulder. "Are you going to help her with that?"

"I... no. Well, I caught him sneaking out last night. Kept an eye on him until she got back from work. That's all it was."

"It would be okay," she told me as I mixed the eggs around in the pan. "If you wanted to help her out," she clarified.

"Jelly, baby girl, it's not like that," I told her, shaking my head.

Christ, I just met the woman.

"I'm just saying," she told me, getting up, holding out her plate to me to drop the eggs onto. "If it was like that, I'm okay with that."

"I'm not interested in dating, Jelly."

Had there been a handful of casual flings over the years? Especially after joining up with the MC? Yeah, sure. But it had never been anything more than that. All parties involved knew it. And it truly had been only a handful.