Therefore, letting him in further, I called him that day at work.

He answered in one ring. “Lady.”

“Hey. Things good?” I asked.

“Kids are gone, which is not good. Took ’em to school so they’ll do the switchover without me havin’ to see their mom, which is good. And got plans with my woman tonight and that’s definitely good.”

This was an excellent answer.

I didn’t tell him that. I told him, “I need to know the dress code tonight.”

“The dress code is, you wear what you want. You work anything you put on,” he told me.

This was also an excellent answer.

“But, if you gotta plan,” he went on, “we’re goin’ to a bar to watch a band and they probably don’t have martini glasses.”

I smiled into the phone and confirmed, “Message relayed.” Then I asked, “A band?”

“My buddy’s the lead singer, lead guitarist of a band. Been at it for decades. They’re good. He and me’ll connect during their breaks. You and me’ll connect before they play and after we get home.”

Now that was an excellent answer.

Therefore, I gave him my understatement. “Sounds fun, honey.”

“The first part will be fun. The second part will be wow.”

I remembered Hop’s brand of “wow”.

Definitely something to look forward to.

I was smiling into the phone again when I said, “Gotta get back to work.”

“Pick you up at seven,” he replied.

“See you then, Hop.”

“Later, baby.”

“Later, honey.”

We disconnected and I smiled through the day. I did this even with the knowing looks I got from my staff. I also miraculously did this even after calling my sister to give her the lowdown of the weekend.

Elissa was ticked because it happened, livid at what Dad said to me, but happy I finally found the backbone to lay down the law.

“Now stick to it, Lanie,” she advised. “The thing that business with Elliott should have taught you is not what Dad says it should have taught you, but that life is way too short to put up with dysfunction like that. If Dad didn’t get the wakeup call from that whole scene then there’s nothing more you can do. Now, I know you have to work but I want sister time, ironclad, in your calendar, at least an hour so you can tell me all about this Hopper Kincaid guy. And you’ve got forty-eight hours to fit me into your schedule, girl. If you don’t, I’m flying to Denver and I’ll find out about this guy myself. It isn’t like the Chaos MC and Ride Custom Bikes and Cars are located in secret bunkers so don’t force me to do anything dramatic.”

Obviously, I’d had to tell my sister about Hop to give her the whole scoop about Dad. Also obviously, the drama gene had been inherited from Mom by both of us.

“I’ll call you tomorrow at lunch,” I assured her.

“Holding you to that,” she returned. “Now, you get back to work.”

We rang off and I got back to work. I knew she got back to work, too, but this consisted of doing laundry, cleaning house, doing school runs and cooking for a family of four, thus she was probably a lot busier than I was.

Later, Hop picked me up and took me to the bar and Hop did all this again without pushing me to share what had happened with Dad.

For some reason, we weren’t on his bike. We were in the Ram, so there were opportunities to talk on the way to the bar, as well as when we shared a Lanie-approved evening meal of bar food including hot wings, fried mushrooms, and stuffed potato skins. He just didn’t force me to talk. Not about that.

We ate. We drank beer. We chatted. We laughed.

Hop, without my drama, his kids, or sex, was mellow and amusing. I knew this since I’d known him for years but having all that to myself, his body close, our knees brushing, his attention solely on me, felt so good it was hard to process. Not because I wasn’t letting myself do it, just because I’d never had anything so simple and good.

And right.

I’d dated a lot. I’d had more than my fair share of male attention. I’d been treated to posh restaurants, the finest champagne and effusive compliments. Elliott, in his geeky, sweet Elliott way, gave me all of that in spades.

Hop gave none of that to me.

But that date was the best I’d ever had.

Bar none.

Feeling very good about all of this, the remains of our grease fest laying in front of us, new beers having recently been added, I turned to Hop. We were sitting side-by-side at a round table facing a now empty stage so when I turned and leaned in, my breast brushed Hop’s arm and he immediately gave me his attention.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything,” he replied.

Another excellent answer.

I smiled and leaned farther in, something Hop liked and I knew it when he twisted to me, lifting his arm to lay it on the back of my chair as he moved closer.

“You know the Club talks,” I started and watched his face change. His expression wasn’t guarded but it was clear he was bracing for what I’d say next.

“Yeah,” he prompted when I said no more.

“Well, all the boys have nicknames,” I told him something he knew. “But you don’t. Your name is Hopper which is kind of… unusual.”

His expression cleared and he moved closer to me as he grinned. “You wanna know how I got my name.”

“I’ve always been curious,” I shared.

His grin got bigger and his eyebrows inched up. “Always?”

I took a breath.

Then I let him in farther.

“Yeah. Since I found out that was your real name. Always,” I confirmed.

He took his arm from the back of my chair, slid his fingers through the hair at the side of my head, then rested it back on my chair, all this while grinning, this time with approval.

Only after that did he begin.

“My dad, if given the choice, which he wasn’t, would have been in an MC. No doubt.”

There was not much there and yet, there so was.

“Uh…” I mumbled in an effort to communicate this to him. Hop’s grin became a smile and his arm gave my chair a jerk so our thighs were plastered together and I was super close.

“My younger brothers are named Jimmy and Teddy,” he told me. “Jimmy’s a high school gym teacher and basketball coach. He’s got an ex-wife who married a man who makes a lot more than Jimmy does and she doesn’t hesitate to rub his nose in it. They have two boys. Now he’s got a new woman who is the shit. She treats him like a king, loves his kids. So his ex can be as big a bitch as she wants. He’s got it good so he doesn’t give a fuck.”

I nodded and Hop went on.

“Teddy apprenticed to be a cabinetmaker, made journeyman and about two days later, decided he wanted to be an electrician. He went all the way with that and now he’s apprenticing as a plumber. His whole life, he’s been restless. The fact that he’s had three professions and five ex-wives and he’s in his early thirties lays testimony to that bullshit.”

Although this was all fascinating, most especially how it was even possible to have five ex-wives and be in your early thirties, it didn’t explain Hopper’s name.

“Well…” I started and Hop kept smiling at me.

“What I’m sayin’ is, Dad got in there before Mom could do shit about it and he named me a name he liked. The name he thought sounded like the name for a biker. Hopper, James, and Theodore don’t go together, so you can take it as Mom learnin’ her lesson and layin’ down the law after me. Mom was good at layin’ down the law. Dad was good at gettin’ his balls busted. Lookin’ back, I get this. She was a knockout and still is. Beautiful. But hard. Tough. Bossy. And sometimes mean. He took it as long as he could, and when I say that I mean he ate that shit every day of his life until he couldn’t eat it anymore. He left her and the next day bought his first Harley. Now he has three. I reckon it was part born in me, part given to me by my old man, since he took me, not Jimmy or Teddy, to the bike shops all the time. He talked to the salesmen, the customers, practically fuckin’ salivatin’, wishin’ he was livin’ his dreams. Now he lives the life he always wanted but he doesn’t live it how he wanted because she’s not in it.”

Oh dear.

“So, you’re saying, he still loves her?” I asked carefully.

“Yeah. I’m sayin’ that and I’m sayin’ the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I’m a lot like my dad, includin’ the fact I found a hard, bossy, tough-as-nails woman I thought I could fix and make happy. Unlike my dad, when I could take no more, I moved on. He didn’t. Like me and Mitzi, my parents don’t get along. This is because Mom still wants to control Dad and he’s not down with that, but Dad still loves Mom so he’s always strugglin’ with the idea that maybe he should be. It’s not cool and it’s hell on the kids. Dad comes out two or three times a year but he only does it anytime he hears word Mom’s thinkin’ of comin’ out. So he makes his plans and she gets shitty and backs off. Kids see their granddad but they haven’t seen their grandma in three years. He plays that shit with her all the time just to dick with her ’cause he’s pissed she isn’t what he needs her to be. Drives her nuts and she gives that anger to me, and while he’s here I have to listen to his shit when he crows about stickin’ it to her. It’s insane and a pain in my ass.”

It sounded like a pain in the ass.

“That isn’t very nice,” I noted, again carefully.

“Nope,” Hop agreed. “But I can’t find it in me to say she doesn’t deserve it. The best day of my life up to then was the day he left her. She busted his balls and he took it but that didn’t mean he didn’t go down without a fight. They fought all the fuckin’ time. Morning, noon and night. Loud. Vicious. Told you kids suck shit up like a sponge. With that, Jimmy, Teddy, and me didn’t have to suck it up. It was shoved down our throats. She was still a bitch after he left but at least we didn’t have to listen to our mother and father tearing into each other all the fuckin’ time. It was a relief.”