Page 101 of Loyal
She blinks up at me with those big blue eyes. “You can do that?”
I shift her slightly in my arms and pull my phone out of my pocket. Quickly I pull up the app and log in. When it opens, I show her the screen.
“Red dot is you. The bright pink is Farrah,” I tell her.
She takes my phone in her hands and studies it. “They are going down Tenth Street.”
“A normal route back to his place.”
She takes a deep breath, relaxing into me.
“You know, when you gave these to us, I thought it was dumb. Then as soon as I put it on, I felt more at peace than I have been in a long time. It’s oddly reassuring. It looks nice too.”
I rub her arm. “I would like to tell you that I had them custom made or that I spent an insane amount of time picking them out, but that would be a lie. Savage bought them in bulk in case of emergencies.”
She laughs softly under her breath. “I’ll admit, I don’t know him well, but that seems pretty on brand for him.”
“It’s the military guy in him.”
We fall silent for a moment as I begin to play with her hair.
“Tell me something that no one else knows,” she says quietly.
I tip my head back and stare at the ceiling as I try to rack my brain for something. Anything.
“I don’t know,” I murmur.
“Come on, you have to have something. Even if it’s club-related, you can be vague. I don’t need all the details.”
The memory hits me like a freight train. “You know how I got my name Loyal, but what no one knows is I almost wasn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
I blow out a deep breath. “It felt like I was standing at a crossroads. I can’t go into specifics, but I was given a choice tojoin the wrong side. I could stay loyal to Lotus or be a part of something different.”
“But you chose to stay.”
I nod. “I did. I wasn’t even a full-fledged member, but I loved what we stood for. I wanted to be one of them. Sure, joining the wrong side would have been easy, but it wouldn’t have been right. So I chose Lotus.”
Sami hums. “I’m glad you did. I honestly can’t imagine you with another club.”
I don’t bother telling her that if I had joined the assholes who were trying to take over, I would be dead right now.
“I couldn’t agree more. Enough about me, though. What’s something that no one else knows about you?”
“I’m afraid of who I am without Farrah,” she says with no hesitation.
“What do you mean?”
She sighs heavily. “I became a mom when I was sixteen. It’s been my entire identity. The woman who got pregnant in high school. The statistic. I love Farrah, truly I do. Being her mom is one of my favorite things, but the closer she gets to graduating high school, I worry about who I’ll become when she’s gone. I’ve literally spent every day for half of my life with her. It’s bad enough when she’s gone to her dad’s.”
“I guess I had never really thought of it that way. The whole half of your life with her, I mean.”
“Yeah…” She starts rubbing her thumb back and forth over my T-shirt.
“It’s going to suck, I’m sure, but it’s not like she’s going to go far,” I try to reassure her.
She looks up at me and smiles weakly. “Matty, think about it. The last year of her life has been hell. She’s been manipulated to the highest degree. She just had to have a police escort betweenparents to make sure no one fought. Do you really think she’s going to stay?”
