Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 137310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
“No,” Armitage murmured to his bottle of beer. “She doesn’t.” He then took another drag.
Hugger took his own and went on, “Anyway, I lost my ma, she found her dad. And that woman who’s her mother is playing games with her grandma. It’d kill her to be away from either of you right now.”
He felt the man’s eyes, so he turned from watching Diana smiling at something Archie was saying to look at her father.
“You lost your mother?” Armitage asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m so sorry, Harlan,” Armitage said quietly.
Hugger took another drag and said, “Happened a while ago.”
“You never get over it,” Armitage said.
His gut clenched but he didn’t say anything.
“I had a wonderful mother,” Armitage told him. “She and my dad worked hard all their lives, died too young and didn’t get to enjoy all they worked for. They were both in their sixties when they went, but still, it was too young. I miss them every day, and I hate that for them every day. I would have wanted them to leave this earth having had time to enjoy being on it without expending a lot of blood, sweat and tears.”
Hugger remained silent, feeling this in the marrow of his bones, because it was the same for him.
Armitage’s attention was acute on Hugger when he said, “That’s their due, what they earn from us, not to be forgotten. They live on in us, as long as we have their memories.”
“Yeah,” Hugger grunted.
But he liked that.
It was what his ma told him in that song.
She’d be gone, and her memory would get him through.
And she was with him, maybe just in his thoughts, but every day, whenever he needed her, he could call her up, and she’d be right there.
His attention was taken when female cackles rent the air, and both men focused on the women in the pool, seeing all of them lost in laughter.
“With what Margaret did, there was always something, like a blanket smothering our happiness as a family, Di’s and mine,” Armitage said as he watched the women laugh. “Never seen her so happy and carefree.”
Hugger felt his throat close.
Because what Armitage just said…
That was for him.
The man was giving him that gift.
Armitage turned to him. “Thanks for that, Harlan.”
Christ, that was for him.
“You can call me by my Club name, Hugger or Hug,” Hugger pushed out.
Armitage smiled and murmured, “Honored.” Then he walked to the edge of the pool and asked, “Anyone ready for me to put the burgers on the grill?”
Pete woke for that and yelled, “Fuck yeah!”
“Want help, Dad?” Di called.
“I’d love it, Buttercup,” Armitage answered.
Armitage glanced at Hugger with a dip of his chin as he took his beer back into the house.
Diana paddled her way to the Baja bench, listed off the noodle and pulled herself out of the pool.
Dutch and Gerard got off the loungers, Dutch going to sit on the edge of the bench, Gerard commandeering Diana’s noodle and floating in the pool.
Jagger lifted his glasses off his nose, looked at Hugger and grinned.
And Hugger set his beer aside and toweled off some more so he wasn’t dripping.
Then he went into the house to help Di and her dad with the burgers.
24
THE ISLAND OF CHAOS
Hugger
Two weeks later…
Hugger stood in his house in Denver and decided (all the shit that meant anything to him packed and sitting in High and Millie’s basement, waiting for him to load it up and drive down to Phoenix, all the rest of it, furniture, kitchen shit, whatever, taken to the dump), the place looked better than it ever had.
The rooms with carpet had been stripped of it, the kitchen and bathrooms gutted, the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room had been torn down so they could create a great room.
There was a corner of the living room filled with boxes and loaded pallets. Another stacked with tools. They were waiting for the kitchen cabinets that had been picked by Rosalie and Tyra (and approved by Diana) to arrive. But they were ready to roll on the bathrooms.
That work was going to start tomorrow.
He’d be glad to have it done, renters in, income coming in.
It had never been a home. But now it would be something.
Something that would feed into making a good life with Diana.
He left the house, setting the security alarm that was the first thing put in because now there was something in it that had worth, and locking up.
He hopped on his bike and headed to Chaos.
When he hit the forecourt, he saw all his brothers’ rides parked in a line outside the Compound.
Hugger parked at the end, shut her down and got off.
He was headed to the front door to the Compound when something pulled him another direction.
Even though he knew the men were waiting for him, he found his feet taking him to the back door of the store. He punched in the code, pulled open the door, strolled through the meticulously organized storeroom (his doing—before him, that room was a pit), and hit the store.