“Mr. Remington, as Cash started the fight, he’s going to be suspended for three days. Everett’s nose was broken, and he had to be taken to the hospital.”
“Good,” I snap, crossing my arms over my chest. Everett Ryan is a piece of shit, just like his father. The apple never falls far from the tree.
Her gaze drops to the side of my neck, and her eyes flicker with distaste before she can mask it. That makes me even fucking angrier. “Good? Your son is suspended, sir. I don’t think you should leave without seeing the principal.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you or your principal thinks. Cash, let’s go,” I growl, and my son stands and follows behind me.
“Mr. Remington…”
“It’s Chance,” I call out to her. I still don’t even know her fucking name, and it pisses me off. At least she knows mine now.
“You know her?” Cash asks as he stands in front of my Harley. He rode to school on his scooter. He wants a motorcycle, but I told him he has to wait another year before he can do that. It’s the same time he has to wait before he can become a prospect.
“Met her once,” I reply vaguely, not wanting him to run his mouth around the school that I fucked his teacher. “She going to be an issue?”
He shrugs. “She’s only been here a few weeks. She seems nice, she’s just very?—”
“Very what?” I ask, grabbing my helmet and putting it on.
“In everyone’s business,” he replies, scowling. “The other teachers don’t give a fuck, but she’s always trying to help.”
“She cares,” I mutter.
We ride out of there, and I start to feel a little hint of guilt for the way I spoke to her. It wasn’t her fault. I was already pissed, and I never expected to see her at the school, looking so fucking proper, after she didn’t stay where I left her.
I told her I was coming back, and she bailed.
She didn’t even give me her name, so I couldn’t look for her. No woman has ever walked away from me before, and I know that sounds cocky as hell, but it’s the truth. Women don’t leave me until I’m done with them, and I wasn’t done with her.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about her since then, because I have, and Cash’s school is the last place I ever thought I’d find her.
When we get home, Cash and I speak about what happened. “Are you okay?” I ask him, sitting down next to him on his bed.
I know his mother is a trigger for him, and Everett knows it.
“I’m fine, I shouldn’t have let him get to me,” he replies, rubbing the back of my neck. “He said my own mother must hate me. That I wasn’t worthy enough for her to stick around. I’ve heard that shit from him over the years, but I don’t know. I don’t want it to get to me, but it does.”
Laura walked away from Cash when he was a baby and hasn’t been seen since. I carry that guilt with me, knowing my bad choices left him without a mother. However, I don’t have any regrets because Cash is the best part of me.
“Laura leaving has nothing to do with you, Cash. She wasn’t ready to be a mother. She wanted the club life without any responsibilities…” I trail off, reaching out and pulling him in for a hug. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Laura has no idea what she’s missed out on.”
“I know,” he nods, because we’ve had this conversation before. “He just makes me so fucking angry. I should have been stronger and walked away.”
I hate that he’s grown up without his mother, but we can’t control her actions, we can only do our best with what we have.
He’s been raised by the club, the old ladies, the club girls, and the brothers.
And I’ve done the best I can to raise him into a good man.
“I’m proud of you and I love you, Cash. Don’t listen to anything that little shit says.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
After our talk, when he wants to step into the ring with Lust to go a few rounds to work off some of his anger, I let him do that.
And when I head back to work in the mechanics shop the club owns, my mind roams back to those angry, hazel eyes.
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