Ryker by Jeneveir Evans
Chapter 20
My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.
~Jim Valvano~
Rebel
October 19th, 1999
It has been a little over six weeks since we’d rescued Billie and Timmy. Remarkably, everything was going okay. Both boys had nightmares occasionally, but that was to be expected. Other than that, they were bouncing back from the brutality inflicted on them during their captivity. They were each seeing Bryn. I’d talked to her about how well their progress was going. She told me that children were resilient, that having a stable home life with a loving dad plus a caring extended family was making all the difference in the world to the boys. Billie and Timmy were proving that to be true.
I smiled as I thought about their reactions to the house we moved into. I think that helped make it real for them. They had been excited to live in something this nice. I’d shook my head at that. The house was nice, but it was just a standard build. They were going to flip when they saw the house being built for us. I might have gone a little overboard. It had two master suites and six regular bedrooms. I wanted a lot of kids. One day I would have them too.
The boys liked sharing a room. It kept them close to each other and gave them comfort. Even when we moved into the new house, if they wanted to continue sharing, I wasn’t going to say a word about it. I was going to play all of this by ear. One day as they get older, they might decide they wanted their own rooms. Although to be honest, Pred and I never did get tired of sharing a room when we were growing up. It may very well be the same way for my sons.
Pred and I had adjusted faster than I thought we would. I knew not living in the Clubhouse wouldn’t bother me, I hadn’t been so sure about Pred. I’d said as much the day we were packing our shit to carry to our new home.
“Pred, you know you don’t have to do this with me. I’ll be okay to do it alone.”
“Reb, it’s always been you and me facing everything together. Where you go, I go.”
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to, Pred. This was my choice, my decision. I know I’m taking on a lot of responsibility. It’s not your job to take it on as well.”
He released out a deep breath of air as he sat on the end of my bed. The expression on his face was sad, almost resigned. I didn’t have a clue what was wrong. While we told each other almost everything, I knew there were a few things that we kept from one another. I’d never talked about my feelings for Shea and he’d never talked about his for Elle. I think it hurt too much for either of us to tell the other how what had happened had affected us.
“Reb, as far back as I can remember, it’s always been you and me against the world. What one of us did, the other did too. As soon as I saw you carry Billie out of that hell-hole, I knew what you were going to do. I don’t have a problem with it either. I want to be your support, your backup. Sometimes it takes a village to raise children.
“Reb, gonna be frank with you, through you may be the only way I have children of my own. What happened that night with Elle did something to me. A part of me shut down. I still love my family, but I don’t know if I can ever let anyone else close enough to become that invested again.
“You knew I liked her but, Reb, it was a little more than that. I’d been talking to her for a while and I really liked her, Reb. Really liked her. Hell, I’m sure I loved her. I think she felt the same way toward me too. There’s something I never told you.”
“What’s that, Pred?”
“I had a date with Elle for the Saturday night after our patch in. Fucking Spawn knew it too. He’d overheard me asking her out. That night when I found Elle at our patch in party, I told you I tried to stop it. You saw the bruises of where they beat me back. I’d give anything if I had fought harder for her.”
“Pred, that wasn’t a winnable situation. You would have ended up dead,” I exclaimed. I’d known that Pred’s feelings for Elle were deeper than what he showed to everyone. We might not talk about every aspect of our private lives, still we knew each other fairly well.
“Yeah, well sometimes I wish I had. That shit has haunted me ever since then. As I tried to get Elle away from them, Spawn laughed at my attempts. Then he told me how he’d gotten Elle to the party. He said he told her that I really wanted her there but was afraid she wouldn’t want to come to an MC party.
“God, Reb, she wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for me. I can’t get that out of my head. You don’t know it, but you kept me from going off the deep end. After that night, you stayed closer to my side more than you ever had before. I drew from your strength. Hell, I needed your strength to survive. Shit I don’t know, maybe I got Serpent’s weakness of will. I do know for a long time the only thing that kept me going was you.
“So I want to take this journey with you. I can be a kick ass uncle. I may never love them like you will, but hopefully I can form a fondness for them and help you take care of them. Don’t take this away from me, Reb.”
“Christ, Pred. Why didn’t you tell me that night?”
I was dumbfounded by what I had just heard. This was my Brother, my best friend, the person who knew most of my deepest, darkest secrets. For God’s sake, half the time we said the exact same thing at the same time and, at other times, we even finished each other’s sentences.
I understood him loving a woman so much that he didn’t think he would ever love another one, because I felt that way about Shea. Yet to hear him say he had shut his emotions down so that he didn’t start caring about anyone other than those he already cared about, that worried me. A lot. All this info let me know that I needed to work on that and I knew just the way to do it. I think the boys would worm their way inside and he’d open up to them. It wouldn’t take long before he was fully emotionally invested in them.
“I just couldn’t, Reb. I was scared as fuck you’d go off and get yourself killed. I know you, you would have confronted every one of them single-handedly.”
I sighed heavily. He was right, I would have. He knew me too damn well.
“Pred, there will be someone for you one day.”
“I don’t know, maybe. You need to listen to what you just told me, the same applies to you.”
I shook my head as I looked at him. “Fuck, we’re a pair, aren’t we?”
He laughed. “That we are.”
Boyish giggles drew me out of my thoughts. I glanced into the living room where both boys were sprawled out on the floor watching cartoons. They’d come in from school and had immediately begged to watch TV. Since they didn’t have homework, I’d decided it wouldn’t hurt.
It was time I got something done. To officially make them mine. I’d thought long and hard about what to do too.
“What’s on your mind?” Pred asked as he walked up behind me.
He’d been at the stove cooking dinner. We took turns each night. Sure, we could have had dinner made for us by the club girls, but we’d decided that the boys needed to know how a family really worked.
“It’s time to do something official to make them mine.”
“Yep. It is.”
“I called Sloane and she’ll be over in thirty minutes to watch the boys. I need to go talk to Zane. I don’t want to just be their guardian like everyone else that has taken in kids. I want them to know they’re mine. I want them to officially have the Davis last name.”
“You don’t want them to have your last name?” he inquired. I could hear the confusion in his voice.
“Fuck no, I don’t. I’ve despised my last name since I was a kid.” I was silent a moment then decided I needed to tell him, it was unusual for us to keep many things from one another. “Now it’s me who has something I haven’t told you.”
“What’s that, Reb?”
“As soon as I knew I was keeping the boys, I decided to do something I should have done years ago. I went to Jerik and had him petition the court for me to change my last name. It’s no longer Williams, it’s Davis now.”
“Holy fuck,” he breathed out in amazement. “We’re true brothers now. You know Pops is going to be beside himself.”
“Yeah, I know. We’re going to dinner at Moms and Pops tomorrow, thought I’d tell them then.”
“What are you thinking about doing with the boys?”
“Want to talk to Zane and see how hard it would be to get birth certificates with my name on it as their father. They’d need new social security numbers too, the whole works.”
“I’m coming with you.”
I chuckled. “Why do you think I called Sloane to watch them? I knew you would.”
Pred and I quickly got dinner on the table and called the boys to eat. There was a lot of laughter on Pred and my parts as we listened to the boys’ chatter. They had to give us a detailed reenactment of what had just occurred on their favorite cartoon.
We let them know that Sloane was coming over to babysit them and that we might not be back before their bedtime. They were okay with it. They had gotten used to that occasionally happening. We had Sloane watch them every Friday while we were at Church and we rarely came home before their bedtime on those nights. Pred and I usually stayed a while and shot the shit with our Brothers. We also usually took a club girl then too. That wasn’t the only time during the week we had sex either.
We’d figured out a plan that worked well for us. After putting the boys down for the night, one of us would stay home and the other would go to the Clubhouse. Sometimes we both made it there the same night. We were, after all, young healthy men with strong sexual appetites.
After Sloane arrived, we said our goodnights to the boys and gave them hugs before we headed to the Clubhouse. I’d already called Zane and told him we needed to talk to him. We were to meet in the dungeon in a few minutes. I had also called Pops and Dog and told them we wanted to talk to them in roughly an hour.
Walking through the kitchen we called out greetings to a couple of the girls who were baking something that smelled delicious. At the door of the dungeon, we knocked.
“Come in,” we heard Zane call out.
Opening the door, we strolled into the room. Pred shut the door behind him then we took seats beside Zane.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Need your thoughts on something,” I replied.
“Alright, let’s hear it.”
I explained to him what I wanted to do concerning the boys.
“Hmm, it’s workable. Billie is what, nine?”
“Yeah.”
“That is putting you really young at being a father, Reb. You would have been what? Fifteen?”
“Yeah. But, Zane, it’s not out of the realm either.”
His eyebrows rose when he looked at me. “Active then were you?”
I grinned at him. “Since I was fourteen.”
“Damn, Reb.” He looked at Pred questioningly. Pred simply smirked at Zane.
“How the fuck did y’all manage that?”
“Girls knew our old man was in an MC. Besides, I’ve always been big and Pred looks like Pops. My first time was with a seventeen-year-old.”
He glanced at Pred and Pred smiled lazily at him. “I was fourteen too. It was with a neighbor’s daughter. She was home on break from college. She was twenty-one. Was with her many times over the summer. She enjoyed teaching me how to please her. I enjoyed learning.”
“Hell, and I thought I’d been lucky to get laid when I was sixteen,” he muttered.
We laughed at him. A thoughtful expression suddenly crossed his face.
“What is it?” I questioned.
“I’ll need to find a girl’s name to use as the mother. It would be better if I can find someone who has passed away. I’ll have to dig into death records in your home state. It was Kentucky, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled as I looked at Pred. We both knew someone who would have been old enough to have my kids at that age and who was no longer alive.
“What’s wrong?” Zane uttered.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Pred spoke up. “We know someone you could use.”
“Pred, no. I don’t want to take that from you,” I protested.
“Reb, she’s not alive. She won’t know. Besides, she was the type to help out. She would want to do this.”
“You sure, Pred? Completely, one hundred percent sure?”
“Yeah, Reb. I’m sure. This will give her a way to live on.”
Zane sat quietly listening to our conversation. He could tell that who we were talking about meant something to us.
Pred looked at Zane and spoke, “There was a girl that I liked who killed herself when she was twenty-two. She was in the same grade as Reb and me. We could use her name.”
Zane spun to the computer. “What’s her name?”
“Elle Wheeler.”
Zane’s fingers flew over the keyboard. Screen after screen rolled by until finally he paused.
“She would work.”
“You need my info?”
“Nah, already got it. Give me a couple days and I’ll have everything ready.”
“Thanks, Zane.”
“No thanks necessary. You’re doing a good thing, Reb. Giving those boys a family, a Dad they can be proud of. Something neither ever had. You’ll need to talk to them, make them understand everything. They don’t need to tell anyone any of this, ever.”
“Yeah, was planning on it. Just wanted to make sure that you could make it happen first.”
We left Zane busy at the computer and strode into the Great Room. We made our way to the bar and grabbed a beer. We talked to Rock and Marsh until I saw Pops come into the room. Rock held out a bottle of brew to him before he even asked. He jerked his chin at Rock in thanks. Dog had left their table as soon as he saw Pops.
“Y’all ready?” he asked.
We nodded, then followed him and Pops to his office. Once inside, we shut the door and took a seat.
“What’s going on?” Dog inquired.
“I’ve had the boys for a little over six weeks. I decided it was time to do something about it. I don’t want to just be their guardian. Besides, I’m a little worried if anyone ever looked into it, they would wonder why a twenty-four-year-old man was given guardianship to two children their age.”
“Whatcha wanting to do, Reb?” he questioned.
“I know there’s no way that I can officially adopt them, that would be pushing the limits too if anyone ever asked. I came up with another plan.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“We just talked to Zane to make sure he could make it happen. He says he can. He’s going to get new birth certificates for the boys and put my name on it as their dad.”
“You’re a little young to be their dad, Reb,” Dog voiced.
“Like I told Zane, Prez. It’s not out of the realm of possibility.”
He looked at me in disbelief. “You had fucking sex at fifteen?”
“No, sir. Fourteen.”
He glanced at Pred who nodded.
“Holy shit. Y’all have been sexually active since you were fourteen?”
“Yeah,” we replied.
“Damn, Vip. You knew about it?”
“Dog, knew they were thinking about it. Overheard them talking one night. I had a heart to heart with them then gave them each a box of condoms.”
“Unreal,” he mumbled as he shook his head again. Then he tilted his head in thought.
“Won’t you need someone to put as their mother?” he quizzed.
“Yeah, already got that figured out.”
We looked at Pops and he nodded. “Elle,” he murmured quietly.
“Yeah. We’re gonna use Elle’s name,” I replied.
Dog looked back and forth between us. “Who’s Elle?”
I looked at Dog and responded, “Remember when Pred and I told you we didn’t want a party when we patched in?”
He nodded.
Pred took over the conversation. “Elle is a girl I liked. The night of our patch in party with SoS, fucking Spawn conned her into coming to the party. He told her that I wanted her there but didn’t think she would want to come.”
“What the fuck?” Pops growled. “You never told me that.”
Pred grimaced as he gazed at Pops. “Yeah, didn’t tell Reb either. Spawn bragged about that shit when I tried to stop them. I couldn’t have either one of you trying to take on all of them.”
Pred looked back to Dog and continued, “Reb and I both got pretty drunk. I found Spawn with Elle. He and several of the other men had her on top of a table. They were gang-raping her. I tried to fight them off and got my ass handed to me. I barely managed to get away from them.
“Reb found me a little later behind a shed, we knew we couldn’t take them on alone, so we waited until we thought we could get to her. She was barely alive. After we were finally able to get a hold of Pops, he told us what to do. Once we got her to him, he got her to a hospital. The month before we mustered out, she took her own life. She never could come to terms with what had happened to her.”
“Jesus Christ,” Dog uttered. “That poor kid.”
“Yeah. Anyway when Zane said he’d need to find someone in the right age range from Kentucky, I knew who we could use. Elle was a caring girl. She would want to help.”
“Reb, asking you one last time, are you sure this is what you want to do?” Dog queried.
“Yeah, Dog. There’s not a doubt in my mind that this is what I want to do.”
“So we’ll have two more Williams around here, huh?” he concurred.
“Uh,” I mumbled.
He and Pops looked at me sharply.
“Something we don’t know, Reb?” Pops asked quietly.
“Fuck, Pops. Was planning on telling Moms and you when we came to dinner tomorrow.”
“Tell me now, Reb,” he demanded.
I glanced at Pred. The same smile was on his face as when I told him earlier.
“Pops, from the moment I decided I wanted Billie and Timmy, I decided something else too.”
“You did a lot of thinking on that trip, didn’t you?” he questioned.
“Yeah, I did.”
“What else did you decide?”
“Something I should have done years ago. I had Jerik petition the court to change my last name. I’m no longer a Williams. My last name is now Davis.”
Pops’ eyes went glassy as they became covered in tears.
“You did what?” he asked huskily.
“I took your last name, Pops.”
“Christ,” he murmured. He pressed his fingers to his eyes and took several deep breaths. The next thing I knew, he got out of his chair and jerked me out of mine, then he wrapped me in a bear hug.
“You have no fucking clue what this means to me. None, son. I’ve always wanted this but wasn’t gonna push the issue.”
My throat worked as I tried to control myself. “I’ve always wanted it too, Pops. Always. You’re the only Dad I’ve ever had.”
I hung onto him for a couple minutes until he finally stepped back. He looked at Dog and grinned. “You get more Davis’s instead.”
Dog chuckled as he shook his head. “Those boys couldn’t be getting a finer last name.”
He was right too, they couldn’t. As far as I was concerned, there wasn’t a better man than my Pops. There never would be either.
~***~