“He’s beautiful, Daddy!” Willow hugs my side the way little girls do when they’re excited.
“He?”
“You got another son, Dad.” My boy pats me on the back like he’s one of the guys.
“And he looks just like you.” My mother tells me with a smile.
“He does?”
“Yes,” She giggles. “He does.”
Just then, Taylor comes out of the room, her eyes as wide as her smile when she sees me. “Shepard! Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.” She squeezes my arm.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s perfect,” She tells me with a smile. “I just helped her to bed. Jett, why don’t you take your sister downstairs and get her a hot chocolate? I need to have a quick word with your dad before he sees your mom.”
“I’ll take them. Apollo will be pacing the floor down there wondering if everything is okay. You remember what he was like when Jett and Nova were born.” I chuckle. My old man was awful when Jett came along, pacing the floor, wearing a hole in the rug because he was so nervous.
“Then I can see my baby brother?” Taylor tells Willow that as soon as she’s finished her hot chocolate, she can see the baby. Both Willow and Jett leave happily with my mother.
As soon as they’re out of earshot, Taylor rounds on me. Gone is the smile, and out comes the Taylor Anderson snarl, the one that would make any man cower. “Why the hell haven’t you been answering your damn phone?” I open my mouth to speak, but I should’ve known I’d never get a word in edgeways. “And if Jack thinks I’ll let him get away with ignoring my damn calls all evening, he’s very much mistaken.”
I pity BlackJack right now. Taylor is a wonderful woman, but she’s one you don’t mess with, no matter who you are.
“She sobbed her damn heart out for you!” That hurts. God, I wanted to be here for her, but how the hell was I supposed to know she’d go into labor two weeks early?
With Jett and Nova, I was there for both of their births, even if Celia didn’t want me in the room. I was also there when Willow was born. I shouldn’t have been in the room when a sixteen-year-old gave birth, and I didn’t look between her legs, but Lynette was terrified, and her useless partner was nowhere to be seen. Celia was too busy barking orders at Lynette to help calm her down. I stroked Lynette’s hair, calmed her, encouraged her, watched Willow come into the world, but I’ve missed the birth of my newborn son, and that’s something I can’t get back.
“She needed you here, Shepard. I know you’ve been out there dealing with those motherf...” Typical Taylor, always holding back the curse words in case a child might hear her. “Just get in there and hold her, she’s exhausted, but she needs you right now.”
I kiss Taylor’s cheek in thanks for being there for Lynette when I couldn’t. She grabs my wrist gently. “She did great, and he’s beautiful.” She tells me with a smile.
Deep breath, that’s what I take before opening the large white door that will lead me to my wife and newborn son. I feel a little emotional the second my eyes land on the angel sitting up in bed. Her hair is loose, and she’s dressed in a white night slip, a blanket covering her legs, cradling a tiny baby wrapped in the white shawl my mother knitted for him. My beautiful wife, my reason to keep on fighting, to keep on living, is singing softly to the babe in her arms.
I close the door quietly, knowing she hadn’t heard me enter in the first place. The second the lock clicks, her eyes shoot to my direction, her face a mixture of shock and relief. The smile on her face and the tears in her eyes have me walking faster towards her. “Vincent,” She sobs my name as I take a seat beside her, and take her face in my hands and kiss her softly.
“I’m so sorry, baby, I should have been here.” I kiss her again.
“It’s okay; you're home now. You are home now, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I kiss her head, and tell her, “Everything has been dealt with. They’re gone now, baby,” She sobs quietly, relief filling her. I want to hold her so badly, but my eyes are now on the little man in my wife’s arms. The little man with tiny tufts of dark hair, the little man who even I can see looks like me already, my mom was right.
“He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” I can’t speak, all I can do is nod while stroking my son’s head. “Say hello to Daddy, VJ.”
“VJ?”
“Vincent Junior. The second I saw him the name jumped out at me.” We hadn’t discussed names, we just never seemed to get around to it. Or maybe it was the fact that when we so much as tried, nothing popped out at us. However, she wants to give our boy my name, and fuckin’ pride fills me. “What do you think?”
“Its perfect. God, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.”
She smiles while cupping my face, drawing my attention to her. “You’re here now, baby. Do you want to hold him?”
I gently take VJ from Lynette. He’s so damn tiny, and I’m a monster in comparison, but I hold him to my chest and kiss his perfect little head while breathing in the scent of newborn skin. His little fingers clutch my pointer finger, and I smile at the fact he’s strong little thing already. One day, he’ll be running the Snakes with his big brother, President and VP. Yeah, that sounds much better.
“I love you,” I tell my wife, my beautiful, amazing wife.
“I love you, too, Vince. So much...” Her voice trails off as she loses her fight with sleep. I kiss her head before taking my newborn son to officially meet his big brother and sister, his grandparents, and everyone else in the damn house. They’re going to love and protect him as much as his mother and I will. VJ is a lucky boy. I hope he isn’t a cursed one.
Chapter Twelve
Lynette
Over Five Years Later...
Its crazy how quickly the years fly by. Blink and they’ve gone. Vince and I are stronger than ever. We became the proud parents of another little boy, Max, four years ago. We planned for him; I didn’t want VJ growing up lonely. I wanted him to have a baby brother or sister he could be close to. My baby boys are so close they hate being without each other.
Vince is terrific with them, and they love their Daddy. He tucks our boys into bed each night with a story, and they listen intently to the silly voices he makes for each character. I watch them sometimes from the doorway of the boy’s bedroom with a smile on my face, my heart light. They giggle and chuckle while getting so into the story, I fear they’ll never fall asleep.
However, they do, as soon as Daddy is finished with the story, VJ and Max lie back in their beds, in their motorcycle themed room – yeah, my husband thinks they’re future bikers – close their eyes, and let Daddy stroke their hairs until they fall asleep. Good job their beds are close together, he’d need arms like an octopus otherwise.
My Willow, my beautiful daughter, isn’t a little girl anymore, she’s eighteen, dating boys, and doing well in school. An amazing young woman, who is my best friend. We talk about everything. Well, not everything, there are some thing’s a mother should never speak to her young daughter about. All the important stuff, we share.
Jett is now twenty-one, huge, and the biker we all knew he would be. Even though we celebrated Jett’s birthday with a huge party, I knew Shepard’s heart was breaking because it was also Nova’s sixteenth birthday. He kept it together the whole day, he’d never show his sadness to our children, but when we were alone, he cried. I held him close to me like I do every birthday, telling him that one day, she’ll be home, and everything will be perfect.
Of course, we tell VJ and Max all about their big sister and how she’ll one day be home with us all. They don’t even know her, yet they love her
so much. My boys are special. There’s something about them that tells me they’ll one day be great men, strong and powerful like their father, and just like their big brother.
I’ve added to my ever-growing tattoo, the one I had for the kids all those years ago. Attached to the Willow tree, Jet plane, and Supernova is a small red racing car for my Maxy because that’s what he wants to be when he grows up, a race car driver, much to his Dad’s annoyance. For my VJ, I have a small motorcycle, a Harley Davidson because that’s the bike he wants when he’s old enough to own one. That boy is his Daddy’s double, and I know already that he will be a Snakes Henchmen before he’s twenty-one.
Jett is now a full patched in member of the Snakes. Has been since he was eighteen. His grandfather didn’t want to wait, wanting to keep the club in the family as much as he can. I am so proud of Jett, he’s a good man, and he’s always there for his siblings, he’s still making sure Willow is safe every day. Jett even beat up a guy who took Willow on a date and made her cry. When I say beat up, I mean pulverized. Jett was lucky the guy didn’t die, and that he kept his mouth shut about who attacked him when he came around a month later. Yes, Jett put the young man in a coma that lasted a month and a few days.
I was proud of him for looking out for his sister but ashamed he’d go to such lengths because a boy said a few mean words to Willow. Of course, I want to protect my daughter from everything bad in this world, but I’m trying to teach her to stand up for herself more. Jett can’t always fight her battles, and she wouldn’t want him to. Willow is not a weak young woman, and no man would ever hit her and live to tell the tale, but she lets these jerks talk down to her. I hate that.
Now, it’s no secret that my Willow was once a little chubby, wearing braces on her teeth, and looking a bit frumpy for her age. I have to admit Jett and Tank have beaten many a kid for bullying Willow in the past, for making her feel not good enough. They’ve never hurt anyone as badly as that one guy, but still. There were times between the ages of fourteen and fifteen that I thought I’d lose my daughter. She was depressed, and there was nothing I could do to help her through it. I tried so hard to lift her spirits, but nothing worked, and I couldn’t bear it. She was so disheartened by the taunting and constant bullying that I feared she’d take her own life.