I Ran Home With My Baby to My Brother's Biker Friends, and the Three Who Tormented Me Said I Was Theirs to Guard novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: First Boat
The lake went out on the fourteenth of March, a little after noon, with a crack that rolled across the whole harbor.
I stood on the clubhouse steps with Zuri on my hip and listened to the ice break and begin to move.
It had been a winter of Sunday dinners on Fourth Street.
Cyrus had eaten everything in the house, and Dirk had learned to make a pie that was only a little burnt.
Three men had knocked at my mother's door after dark, and every time I had let them in.
Marcel had pleaded guilty to the weapons charge he forged and to three others.
He was in a state prison two hundred miles north, and I had not gone to the sentencing.
Zuri was eleven months old.
She wore a yellow slicker two sizes too big and a hat with ears, and she watched the ice go with her mouth open.
"Ba," she said.
"That's right," Dutch said, behind me.
"That's the lake."
He had come out of the clubhouse with a claw hammer in one hand and his reading glasses pushed up on his forehead.
He walked down the steps past me and across the gravel to the gate.
Every patch in the Saints had come out to watch.
They stood in the lot in their vests, in the thin March sun, with coffees in their hands and nothing to say.
Dutch stopped under the old green board.
NO VISITORS AFTER DARK.
It had hung there since before I could read.
He looked at it for a long time.
Then he set the claw of the hammer behind the top bolt and leaned on it.
The bolt screamed and gave.
He worked down the board one corner at a time, with his bad knee against the post.
The sign swung loose on its last bolt, and he caught it in both hands.
He carried it across the lot to me.
It was heavier than it looked.
He set it against the step and stood back.
"That's yours," Dutch said.
"Do what you want with it."
"Where's the new one?" I said.
"Mason's got it," Dutch said.
Mason came around the corner of the tow garage with a plank under his arm.
It was a length of fresh pine, planed and painted white.
He had lettered it himself in black, with a ruler and a great deal of care.
He turned it around.
It said VISITORS WELCOME BEFORE DARK. AFTER DARK, KNOCK.
Nik started laughing.
He laughed so hard he had to sit down on the bumper of a truck.
"It's too long," Nik said.
"It won't fit on the board."
"It fits," Mason said, with dignity.
"I measured."
Dirk took it from him, and a drill from the shop, and went to the gate.
He hung it in four minutes, exactly level.
When he stepped back, he turned and looked at me across the yard.
His shoulders had come down.
I had never seen them down before.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of I Ran Home With My Baby to My Brother's Biker Friends, and the Three Who Tormented Me Said I Was Theirs to Guard are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend