Fallen Son (The Fallen Men 3.5)

Zeus blinked into the silence that followed, everyone waiting for him to speak, and then, suddenly, he tipped back his head and roared with laughter.

It broke the tension like a fist through a glass window. Everyone relaxed, smiles and laughter bloomed, and everyone was happy again.

I relaxed a little. I’d learned a long time ago how quickly conflict could escalate.

“Well then, fuck yeah,” Zeus bellowed, laughter in his voice as he surged up, gently dislodged Lou, and yanked his son into a bear hug. “Fuck yeah, son,” he said quieter into King’s hair as he cupped the back of his head and held him tight. “Dream come true, man.”

“Yeah,” King agreed, just as soft and gruff as though something was wrong with his throat. “Dream come true, old man.”

“Lou is crying again,” Harleigh Rose pointed out. “Geez, babe, you gotta get a handle on yourself. Biker babes do not cry.”

Cressida shoved her lightly. “They do too, when there is something important to cry about.” She tilted her head and cast her gaze toward Lou. “Is there something important to cry about, Loulou?”

She sniffed, her pretty face red as she tried to hold back her tears. Something in my gut clicked, and I was moving before I could stop myself, reaching for her hand before I could tell myself I knew better, and then she was tucking me into her side where everything was warm and safe and smelled of cherries.

When she looked down at me with a trembling smile, the wet in her eyes made them so vivid a blue they looked unreal.

I thought she was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen.

She studied me for a long moment, then gave me a squeeze before addressing the room. “Actually, yes. Seeing as it’s Christmas, I think it’s as good a time as any to give everyone another present.”

Immediately, Zeus was behind us, wrapping a big arm around Lou so his hand lay flat on her stomach. The other hand, he put on my shoulder. When I started, he winked down at me and gaze me a squeeze.

“Lou’s pregnant,” he announced loudly, as if we were on stage in a stadium and not in a living room. “Lou and I are havin’ twins.”

The room went so quiet, the air seemed to vibrate, like the still before a storm hits the forest.

Then, almost in sync, Cressida and Harleigh Rose burst into tears.

“I thought biker babes didn’t cry, H.R.,” King teased, only to receive a punch to the shoulder from his sister.

“If one of them is a boy, we’re going to name him Walker, in honour of Mute,” Lou announced, and everyone went still with remorse for a moment before Cressida and Harleigh Rose started to cry even harder. Even King had wet in his eyes when he clamped his arms around Zeus for a hug.

“Congratulations,” Cressida said through her tears, a massive smile on her face as she moved to hug Zeus and Loulou.

I tried to shuffle out of the way. I didn’t like being confined, didn’t even really like being touched at all, and I wasn’t a part of this.

Of this family and this moment.

But Zeus clamped his hand down on my shoulder, and when Cressida was finished hugging them, she crouched in front of me and offered me a fist to hit with my own.

“It’s a good Christmas,” she said softly, just for me while the others continued to congratulate Zeus and Loulou. “When you get three new family members all at once.” She paused, and I got kind of lost in her big eyes, brown and green, deeper and dark as the forest I’d been kept in for so long. But instead of the terror I’d found in my own forest, I found kindness and beauty in hers. “Don’t you think, buddy?”

I nodded because I needed an outlet for all the emotions fizzing up like shaken soda in my blood. I was happy and scared, surprised and wary, needing to stay and wanting to run all at the same time.

Zeus was the one who pulled me out of myself minutes later when everyone settled enough to return to a normal volume of conversation.

“What do you think, kid?” he asked me as he sat down in the big chair looking like a statue of an old god on his throne. “Excited to have two little ones to get to know?”

I bit my lip. I was confused by my own desires and by his intentions.

How could they want me to stay when they didn’t even know me?

What if they ever discovered the places I’d been and the things I’d done to get away from them?

Zeus frowned and leaned down so our faces were close. “Listen to me, boy. I’m not gonna stop welcomin’ you into this family ’cause the way I see it is like this; you’ve got nothin’, where by your design or someone else’s, and I got a whole lot of family that I’m all too willin’ to share with you. All you gotta do is believe me when I say that. Now, I’m not expectin’ you to trust me straight off. You got some hurt and some wisdom in those eyes, so I get you needin’ time to think on it. But you gotta know, this house is your house as long as you wanna be here.”