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A smile cracks her tiny lips, and she waves back.
I glance at her mom, then back to her.
What the hell am I supposed to do? Shut the door and leave her here? Wake up Ivy?
I’m about to go up and shake Ivy’s shoulder when I notice the exhaustion underneath her eyes. I don’t know how long it’s been since last time she got sleep. Like, some real fucking sleep. I can’t wake her.
I make acome heremotion with my hand. Lilah hesitates, like she’s wondering if her mom will get mad at her. But then she rolls around to her stomach and slides off the bed. She holds my shirt above her feet so she can walk. Her tiny feet about the size of half my hand walk across the faded blue carpet that should have been changed a decade ago. It’s stained with beer, soda, other fluids that I don’t want to even think about, and cigarette burns, but Lilah walks over it like its water, stopping right in front of my feet and looking up at me. It looks like she’s seconds away from falling on her back. She has to bend backwards and tip her head so far to look at me; I have to swallow down my laugh.
Pressing my pointer finger to my lips, I back into the hallway. Lilah does the same, going the extra mile and going up on her tip toes to sneak out of the room. I shut the door behind her, and then it’s just us.
“Hi.” I say, suddenly unsure of what I’m supposed to do with a small kid.Do they go to the bathroom by their self or…?
“Hi. I’m hungry.” She says happily. She’s in a much better mood than she was last night.
“Hungry, huh? What’re you in the mood for?”
“Ummmm… I want pancakes.”
“Pancakes?” I widen my eyes.
“And sausage!” She does a little bounce in her spot.
“Pancakes and sausage? I think we can do that. Come on, let’s go see what we can find.” We start walking, and Lilah walks on top of my shirt until the collar is stretched down as far as it can go. She’s about to fall flat on her face when I stop her. “Hey. Hold on a second.” I walk into the bathroom that’s off the hallway. Sliding open the top drawer, I see a ton of leftover hair binders from Jessie’s in a pile. Grabbing one, I walk back over to Lilah and squat down in front of her.
“I’m going to help you with your shirt, okay?”
“It’s a big shirt.” She laughs.
“It is a big shirt. Here.” I roll the bottom until it above her feet and pull it in front of her and tie it up into a weird looking pony. “How’s that?”
“It’s funny.”
“It is funny. Let’s go see if we can get you some pancakes, okay?”
“Okay.” She grabs my hand without me prompting, and I almost jolt out of her hold on instinct. Her little hand folds inside of my palm, and I give her a curious look as I walk down the stairs.
I want to be angry with her for trusting me so easily. I want to sit her down and bark at her to not trust anyone. To not trustme.I’m not a good man. None of us are good people. How is she such an innocent kid in this fucked up world?
And more importantly, who the fuck is the father of this kid?
By her tanned skin, my stomach sinks thinking some sick fuck at that compound impregnated Ivy. She’s young. And I have a sneaking suspicion she wasn’t there willingly.
The thoughts make me crazy as we make our way towards the kitchen. There’s no answer that calms the turning in my gut, and I don’t want to think of what I’m sure is a bad backstory of this child’s conception.
Haley is already awake, although she looks like she doesn’t want to be. She’s turning on the coffee as she starts brewing a pot for herself. She’s one of the long timers. Not a Jessie, not an old lady. She just lives here, works, and is good friends with the Seven and all the people who frequent the club. She came here young and dumb, homeless, and just out of a shitty, abusive relationship. We brought her in and let her be, and now she’s in her thirties. She’s hot, we all know it. But no one does anything about it. She’s more like a mother to all of us. Now she does things around this place. Manages the bar and feeds us so we don’t live off of beer and keeps the place clean we don’t live in a shit hole.
When she looks over at me, she breaks out into a smile, then she sees the little kid walking next to me, and it drops. She looks shocked but recovers and looks at me with a confused smirk. “Now, Z, I know you didn’t have a kid last time I talked to you.”
“Hilarious.” I lift Lilah and set her on the stool. “But she is hungry and hoping you can make her some pancakes and sausage.”
She pours herself a cup of coffee and looks at Lilah. “What’s your name, honey?”
“Lilah.” She kicks her feet in the air, her small body looking so small on the stool I usually see two hundred-pound men sit in.
“Lilah, you want some pancakes and sausage?”
“Yeah.” She gives a toothy smile.
