Page 47 of Armor

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Creedence

Age 21

I read that letter every half-hour that I was able.

However, two weeks later... no address to write him letters to.

Three weeks later... nothing.

Six months later... my dad got a call.

Ripper was graduating from BUD/S training.

He’d been able to call Storm, the president of his MC.

But not me.

And when that realization hit... my world... suddenly stopped.

***

How was I supposed to understand his reasoning?

He stopped texting me. He stopped answering my calls. He stopped all social media.

We have been best friends and lovers, and he was—and still is—the love of my life. Yes, I know that sounds stupid to say, given how young I am.

But there was no other explanation for this feeling I have for him.

Nor could anything else explain it.

Not after I asked my mother how she felt about my dad.

Same. Freaking. Words.

I had just loaded my car with an overnight bag, ready to travel, so I could ask him what the hell was going on when my father called me.

“Dad, I can’t talk right now,” I panted as I rounded my car, opened my door, and then froze at his next words.

“I know what you're doing. Don’t,” he said.

I gasped, “Are you freaking kidding me?”

He sighed, “He had his reasons, princess.”

At those words, I didn’t have a response.

“Princess?” he called out.

“I’m here, Daddy. He had his reasons? So what? He could share them with you and not me? Not me, the girl he wrote in his letter to me that he was going to ask you for my hand in marriage the day I graduated from college.”

I heard him sigh, “Fuck.”

My entire frame froze at his word.

But not the tears I could feel forming in my eyes.

Then I whispered, “Daddy?”

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