Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Once they had their ice cream, they walked back toward his bike, and there was a small bench. She stepped onto it, and Hawk sat on the opposite side.
“You like that?” he asked.
“The ice cream, or riding on the back of your bike?”
“Both?”
“I liked it,” she said, and was unable to keep the smile off her face.
“Ah, that smile says you more than liked it.”
“What can I say, I’m a sucker for ice cream.”
He laughed. She loved the sound. It was deep, guttural, and above all else, it was real. He wasn’t faking his laugh.
Glancing around, she watched several people looking down at maps, and kids running around.
“What is this place?”
“It’s a walker’s pit stop, also a picnic hot spot.”
He pointed past her shoulder, and she looked over and saw there were several families on a large field.
“Wow, I had no idea this was here.”
“So, tell me about yourself, Nikki,” he said.
She turned back to look at him. “You want me to talk about … me?”
“Yeah, I’m curious.”
She shrugged. “There’s nothing to be curious about. I’m twenty-two years old. I work at a supermarket. Live in a trailer. Got a car that needs to go in the shop.” The engine light kept flickering, which was bad news. If she didn’t get it in there soon, she had a horrible feeling it was going to blow up on her.
“What about your mom?”
Nikki looked at him, and that warm feeling she had felt turned to ice. “My mom?”
“Yeah, what about your mom and dad?”
“Do you know who my mom is?” she asked, staring at him intently.
If he thought she was like her mother, then she was done eating ice cream and would walk back home. Not that she completely knew what direction to start. Also, her cell phone was dead. She hadn’t charged the damn thing last night, because she’d forgotten.
“No,” Hawk said.
She doubted it, but then, there were no bikers Nikki could recall being her mother’s regulars. Nikki was tempted to lie. She hated lying. Growing up constantly making excuses for her mother had been exhausting. She used to lie all the time about what her mother was doing, about the bruises she had. The thought of going into the system terrified her. Her mother had told her so many horror stories over the years, and she didn’t even think to question what her mother was saying. Why would she?
“She’s a … whore.” She whispered the last part.
It was the first time she ever admitted what her mother was to anyone.
Hawk didn’t say anything. She couldn’t look at him at first, but when he continued to be silent, she had no choice but to finally see if she could understand what he was thinking. There was a bland look on his face.
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard,” Hawk said.
“And you don’t care?”
“Why would I care? I’ve never met your mother. I guess it couldn’t have been easy for you, growing up with that?”
She shrugged and glanced up. She took a deep breath and then expelled it. “I don’t know. I guess. I think I just got through it. It wasn’t easy. I mean, it still isn’t easy. The only reason I’m working at the supermarket is because it was the only job I could get.”
“Why?”
She opened her mouth and closed it.
“There is no reason to keep secrets from me,” he said.
It was strange. She didn’t know this man, yet she felt comfortable telling him … stuff. She had never told anyone anything, not even Diana, not even a teacher.
“My mom liked a lot of married men, which I never understood. She would always tell me he was going to be my new daddy, that he was going to leave his wife. That never happened. He never left the wife, and usually the wife came around, beat the crap out of my mom, and I never saw him again.”
“You don’t seem too upset about that?”
“I think it became a regular occurrence, I could pretty much time it.” She shrugged. “My mom never cared. Well, she did when she needed money. Then she got into drugs, and that was hard.”
She felt tears fill her eyes and she hated that. She didn’t cry about this stuff. There was no point. And yet, they were there. She licked at her ice cream and tried to think of anything but her mother.
“Did any of them hurt you?” Hawk asked.
She looked at him and nibbled her lip. “Uh, I think it is time we took a walk.”
She got to her feet because she really didn’t want to talk about the past. This was why she never dwelled. It was a lot easier to sink into that horrible bottomless pit with no way out. She thought about the present. The warmth of the sunshine on her face, the taste of the chocolate ice cream that was so soft and delicious and melted on her tongue. The good things in life, like the fact she had a job—a job she hated, but it paid the bills.