“This about that kid, Ethan?”
Marcus didn’t answer immediately. How did you explain to your brothers that a chance encounter with an eight-year-old had made you question everything about the life you’d built? How did you articulate the feeling that maybe being an outlaw biker wasn’t as meaningful as being someone a scared kid could count on?
“Yeah,” he finally said. “It’s about Ethan and his sister and their dad who’s trying to hold everything together with duct tape and hope. It just got to me, I guess.”
Danny was quiet for a moment, then clapped Marcus on the shoulder. “You always did have a soft spot under all that leather and attitude. Go do what you need to do. But don’t forget who your real family is, yeah?”
The words, though meant kindly, hit harder than Danny probably intended. Marcus nodded and made his way to his apartment, a small one-bedroom place about ten miles from the clubhouse that served as the official address he put on paperwork and not much else. The apartment was sparse and impersonal—a mattress on the floor, a TV that didn’t work, a kitchen he never used. This was where Marcus Brennan technically lived, but it wasn’t home. Home was the road, the club, the constant movement that kept him from having to think too hard about what his life had become.
He lay on the mattress, staring at the water-stained ceiling, and thought about Ethan’s hand slipping into his in that parking lot, thought about Lily’s innocent question—“Are you a bad guy?”—and his answer that had surprised him with its honesty. “Maybe I used to be, but I’m trying to be better.” When had he decided to try? What had changed in that moment when a boy stood between him and his motorcycle and said, with everything he had, “Don’t start your motorcycles.”
Marcus didn’t have answers, but as he finally drifted toward sleep, he found himself looking forward to tomorrow afternoon, to showing Ethan and Lily his bike, to proving that promises made to children were worth keeping. It was a start. Maybe not redemption, not yet, but a step in a direction Marcus hadn’t even known he wanted to go.
The Cole house sat at the end of a street where optimism had long since given way to pragmatism. The aluminum siding had faded to a dull gray, and the small front yard was more dirt than grass. A rusted swing set listed to one side, its chains missing, a remnant from better times, but the windows were clean, and someone had attempted to brighten the concrete steps with potted plants that struggled valiantly against the Arizona climate.
Marcus pulled his Harley to the curb and cut the engine. Before he could dismount, the front door flew open and Ethan burst out, his face lit with an excitement that made him look younger than his eight years. Lily followed more carefully, her left arm in its blue cast held protectively against her chest, Thomas hovering behind her like a nervous shadow.
“You came!” Ethan shouted, already racing toward the motorcycle. “I told Lily you’d come, but she wasn’t sure, and Dad said not to get my hopes up in case you were busy, but you’re here.”
“Told you I keep my promises,” Marcus said, swinging his leg over the bike. He pulled off his helmet and set it on the seat, then turned his attention to Lily, who had stopped at the edge of the yard, suddenly shy.
“How’s the arm, kiddo?”