My Bad (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 4)

Well, I had a feeling he liked me. He’d asked me out once, and I hadn’t been able to decide whether it was to piss my parents off or because he truly had feelings for me. Regardless of his motives, I’d said no and had made it a hobby to stay as far away from him as possible.

But, unfortunately, there were days like today where I had to see him.

He felt it was his God-given right to be up in the middle of the ER and doing shit that he had no business doing because he was the head of the board. Apparently, that included inspecting the drug kiosks, making sure we didn’t have our phones out, and making sure that anything else wasn’t going on that he could scream at us about.

Honestly, he was a real dick.

“Let’s have cookies,” my mother suggested seconds before the timer went off. “But if you want some, you have to be eating them off your dad’s half. I’m going to eat all of my half. I think you gave me a new gray hair today.”

I snorted and let my father go, walking to the fridge to get the jug of milk out and then pouring four glasses.

“Why are you pouring four?” my father asked as he walked to the counter next to me.

“Phoebe is on her way,” I said. “She had some questions about her homework for class, so I told her to come over here because I wasn’t going home.”

He grunted. “She still mad at me?”

I grinned. “From what I hear, yes.”

He scoffed. “She has no reason to be mad.”

“You stole her car and had it crushed,” I said. “And it had all her stuff inside of it.”

“It had all her trash and bullshit inside of it. I made sure to take out everything that looked to be of some value. But Jesus Christ, there was so much trash in there I have no clue how she’d even know,” my dad argued.

“I had forty dollars in a small coin purse on the floorboard.” Phoebe came rushing in, looking harried, tired and stressed out. “I also had a new pair of tennis shoes in the back seat.”

“I got those out,” he pointed out. “Along with all your books. Plus, I gave you another goddamn vehicle. Most people would say thank you.”

“You gave me a new car that was your style, not mine,” she argued. “And you know how I hate Fords.”

Which explained why she wasn’t driving said car and was driving my mother’s old vehicle that was older than she was.

I snickered. “You do know how she hates them.” I felt it prudent to point out.

“Jesus.” He threw his arms up in the air. “After your accident, I wanted to make sure I got you the one that helped park itself, as well as give you that all around lane warning when you drifted, or something came too close. It even had adaptive cruise control!”

He did have a point.

“Why did she get a new car and I didn’t?” I pushed.

He looked at me. “I got you a new car.”

“You got me an old car,” I said. “Not that I’m complaining or anything. I love it. But still.”

“Why are y’all such ungrateful little shits?” he countered.

My mother, God bless her soul, didn’t burst into laughter, but she did chuckle. “You made them this way, Sam. What did you expect would happen when you gave them everything under the sun that you never had?”

A wave of sadness rolled over me at the thought of my dad not having what we had. But, the older we got, the more I was able to understand why he didn’t have it.

When he was young, his mother was married to a man that was undercover in a motorcycle club—a motorcycle club that was the complete opposite of the club that I knew today.

Back then, that club was hard. That club was dark. That club was everything that you didn’t want to be near…which was why my grandfather, Silas Mackenzie, did everything in his power to make sure that his son wasn’t around it.

The only problem with doing that? In the process, he’d alienated my father, and made him feel like he wasn’t worthy.

In a hasty attempt to shift the focus of our conversation, since we all knew where it would lead if we let it continue, Phoebe hastily changed the subject. Of course, it was something that I didn’t want to talk about, but anything was better than seeing that faraway look on my dad’s face.

“So, who was that guy that you were talking to today?” Phoebe asked. “I had to come up and use Mom’s computer for patient care reports. The one that was in the old band t-shirt that Dad likes.”

“Van Halen,” my mother drawled, rolling her eyes. “Jesus, Phoebe. You make me feel fucking old.”