Reeve (The Henchmen MC 11)

But Cy didn't sleep well.

Because his mind was always racing.

He had a tough time quieting down for long enough to pass out.

Mom didn't care.

I did though. Since we shared a room. And he drove me batshit crazy all night.

"Alright, alright," Pops had said when I had complained to him about it. "I'll see what I can do."

What he could do the first few nights was dose him with Benadryl. It worked. And then it didn't as he built up a tolerance.

"Alright, how about this," Pops said, pulling a chair into the room next to Cy's bed, pulling out a book, and starting to read it out loud.

And it worked.

For Cy.

Me, I stayed awake listening, hungry for the next bit.

But maybe, just maybe, I could take that bit of parenting advice from my old man.

The next day, I stopped at my place, rummaging through boxes until I found our old copy of it.

Hatchet.

And, I'd be damned.

I sat down in a chair beside his bed like my old man had done, cracked it open, and started reading.

And within twenty minutes, Mikey was out cold.

So that became our nightly ritual. We fought over toothbrushing, got him into pajamas, and went into his bed to read Hatchet.

Night after night after night.

Within a year, I had read the book so many times that I could read it without looking at the pages, would find entire passages rolling around my head even when it wasn't bedtime.

"Oh, that fucking book," Erica said, shaking her head at me as I climbed into bed, burying my head between her breasts, feeling her fingers snake through my hair. "Start reading another. Those Harry Potter books or something. At least it won't be the same thing over and over and over."

"But I know this works. I don't want to rock the boat."

"You're a good man, Reeve," she told me, uncharacteristically serious. "He deserves a daddy like you."

We didn't talk much about Mikey's real father. I had been worried a bit at first that she maybe didn't know who he was. That sounded awful, but Erica had never been a saint, told stories about how wild she had been as a teen and young woman.

"Oh my god, baby," she hissed at me, eyes horrified when I maybe implied once that it was okay if she didn't know who his dad was. "I know who his father is, Reeve. Jesus. You think I'm that big of a slut? I don't remember who I was fucking when the stick turned blue?"

"That's not what I meant. It's just... you never talk about him, Erica. What am I supposed to think?"

"That I fucked anything with a dick, of course!" she said, but she was smiling, not offended. "Ever think that maybe I don't like to talk about his daddy because he was a really, really bad mistake?"

"What kind of mistake?"

"The kind of mistake that leaves bruises. And not the fun kind."

It was hard even to imagine someone raising their hand to Erica. She simply didn't seem like someone who would stand for it. She told me stories about the knife her aunt got her for her sixteenth birthday, and how she always kept it in her boot in case some guy got some ideas she wasn't on-board with.

Hell, this is the woman who once stormed out her front door, waving her hands around as she scolded the 3rd Street guys for setting off fireworks in the street, something that caused the kind of meltdown with Mikey that even the blanket and rocking trick wouldn't calm.

She was fearless.

I couldn't - and didn't want to - imagine her on the receiving end of a punch. I couldn't picture her staying with a man after the first time he did something like that.

"He's a bad man, baby. Okay? Bad man. Let's leave it at that."

That was what she had told me when I pressed it one day, wanting to understand, wanting to see beyond the guards she kept up around the whole situation.

And, well, yeah.

Of course he was a bad man.

Good men didn't beat their girlfriends.

But that was all she would give me.

So I took it.

And slowly over the next weeks asked other casual questions. Like had Mikey ever met his father.

"Of course he met his father."

Then how long it had been since he had seen him.

"Two years, baby. Are you done with the fifth degree? I got sauce burning."

She always had something burning.

She cooked.

Every single night.

And not just throwing a jar of store-bought sauce over pasta. Oh, no. Erica went all out.

My motha would be rollin' in her grave if she knew I served my man frozen ravioli.

When I asked if there was still contact with his father, she had stiffened, turning away from me.

"We can never see him again."

When I had tried to press, she had stormed off, muttering something about how some things were none of my damn business, that I couldn't come barging into her life demanding answers.