Page 57 of Sinner's Steel
“Your mom usually let you eat cookies for breakfast?”
“Yeah. All the time.” Ty bit into a cookie, watching, his body tense.
Zane bit back a smile and stretched out on his chair. “You know… even outlaw bikers got rules. We live by a code: honesty, integrity, brotherhood and loyalty. You want to be a biker, you gotta live by the code. You got to be able to trust your brothers just as they got to trust you, because the world we live in is not forgiving of mistakes. We had one brother, Axle, he did lotsa bad shit and betrayed his brothers. He lied, stole… In short, he was dishonest. In the end, he died alone.”
Ty’s eyes widened and he stopped chewing. “He died?”
“Yeah. You get involved in bad shit, it always comes back on you.” He leaned across the table, made his son a promise. “What Mark did to your mom… that’s gonna come back on him. Big time.”
Ty placed the box and the unfinished cookie on the table. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Didn’t think you would be.” Zane gave himself a mental high five. Maybe parenting wasn’t so hard after all.
They cleaned up the breakfast dishes together and put the groceries away. Ty talked about his friends, the games he played, and movies he had seen with his mother. Except for that one outburst about Mark, he never talked about Stanton, and Zane wondered if he didn’t remember much, or he didn’t want to remember. He was an easy kid to be around, curious about Zane’s life as a biker, enthusiastic about his friends, and passionate about superheroes.
“Batman. He’s the only true superhero,” Zane said as they put the last of the food away. “He’d win a fight against any of the others hands down ’cause he’s got that streak of dark in him, makes him able to cross the line that pansies like Captain America can’t cross. He doesn’t take shit from anyone.”
“Duh.” Ty rolled his eyes and pointed to his Batman pajamas. “I know that.”
Nobody had ever said “duh” to Zane since… well, ever. The kids at school had been afraid of him and the junior patch and prospects knew to stay out of his way. “You allowed to say ‘duh’ to a grown-up?”
Ty shot him a sideways look. “You allowed to say shit to a kid?”
Damn. The kid was smart. He would have to watch his mouth. He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. “How about I pay a couple of months in advance since I seem to have used up my last advance payment?”
Ty took the money and put it in his swear jar. “Can I use some of it in case I need to swear sometimes like you?”
“Definitely not. Bikers swear. Boys don’t.”
Ty’s smile faded and his face grew solemn. “I’m going to be a fucking biker when I grow up. I’m going to swear and shoot guns and be in car chases. I’m going to be a Sinner’s Tribe motorcycle man like you. But first you have to teach me how to ride a motorcycle.”
“When you’re older.” He let the swear slide. Boys needed to learn how to cuss so they could express themselves when they became men.
Ty deflated. “I want to learn now. Trevor’s dad plays baseball with him and takes him to football games. And Jason’s dad is building a clubhouse with him. I want you to do things with me. Riding a motorcycle would be epic.”
“And dangerous.”
“I thought that was the point. Or maybe you’re not cool like I thought.” Ty’s bottom lip quivered and Zane’s pulse kicked up a notch. What would he do if Ty cried? Evie would think he was a failure as a dad. Fifteen minutes and he couldn’t keep his son happy.
“I am cool,” Zane protested.
“Prove it.”
Zane narrowed his eyes. What the hell was he supposed to do? What did a eight-year-old kid find cool? “You play vids?”
Ty’s eyes lit up. “Yeah. What games do you play?”
“None. But we got lots of games at the clubhouse and a couple the junior patch play all the time. There’s one guy, Hacker, he…” Zane trailed off when Ty’s face fell. “What’s the matter?”
“I want to play with you.”
“I haven’t played for a long time.” Not since he’d left Stanton. Video games were something he played with Evie and Jagger. He’d thought it almost a sacrilege to play with anyone else.
“Good. Then I’ll win.” Ty raced to the bedroom. “I’ll go grab my stuff. I brought my game console and a couple of games.”
Ten minutes later, awed by his son’s skill with hooking up the complicated system of wires and navigating all the Internet shit that now comprised a modern gaming system, Zane joined Ty on the couch.
“Here.” Ty handed him a controller with so many buttons it resembled an airplane console. He ran through the different commands and started the game before Zane had a chance to assimilate all the information.
