A Twilight motorcycle club romance.

Character and world belong to Stephenie Meyer.

Chapter One.

Nobody tells you that feeling like an adult will hit you at the most random time. I didn't feel like an adult on my eighteenth birthday or that same year when I went to college, living alone for the first time. I didn't feel like an adult on my twenty first birthday, when my friends and I got drunk… legally, for the first time, or that same year, when we got arrested for kicking a bar tender in the balls. I like to think I'd grown up a lot in the four years since then, but the truth is, until the day I was sitting on the garage floor, surrounded by boxes of treasures from my childhood home, the home my mom was leaving for a new life with her new husband in Florida, I had never truly felt like an adult.

The house stood empty except for these few keepsakes; she had sold almost everything. Whatever I couldn't take would go to goodwill. Mom had one box of memories. Just one. I had another. My whole life, my whole childhood, condensed into two boxes.

I felt homeless, directionless.

I had a crappy one bed apartment in the city, but it wasn't my home. This place was. With the scratches on the kitchen door frame chronicling my growth from the day we moved in when I was five, the pink wallpaper, with little flying elephants hanging from air balloons in my room, I never let mom replace it, and the porch swing where we'd spent so many nights gossiping and laughing together as I grew up.

It had always been just the two of us. Like Loreli and Rory. She was the hip, fun mom, - her words not mine- and I was the studious, overthinking daughter. Not that being studious had got me anywhere. Three years out of college and I was still doing online tutoring to make rent. The plan was to become a high school teacher, but the six months I had worked at a school in New York had been the worst of my life. The principle had called me soft, a pushover, too scared of the kids and not enough… spunk. Who used that word to describe teachers anyway? A weirdo, that's who. But he was right, I had always been the quiet, shy kid and apparently, I didn't grow out of it.

Now… my mom, she was spunky. Renee Higginbottom. Tall, leggy, box blonde and a total knock out, -an old school chick, she looked like the groupie of an eighties glamour rock band when I was growing up but somehow she had made it look like the classiest thing you'd ever seen. The exact opposite of me. She'd toned it down slightly in my teenage years, going back to her natural brown and wearing slightly less leather, but she still turned heads everywhere we went. She had never cared.

She only cared about me. Her little wallflower.

Maybe that was part of the reason I was taking her move so hard. She had found her new number one. Phil. Or P, as he preferred. Insert dramatic teenage eyeroll. She met him on a girls trip to Florida two years ago, he owned some big hotel in the Keys but you wouldn't think it. According to P, the hotel practically runs itself, leaving him with more than enough time to start his dog surfing lessons, or was it dog yoga, maybe it was dog skateboarding. Honestly, I'd stopped paying attention after the first few business ventures. I guess you can do what you want when you're a millionaire.

If I were reasonable, I would have explained that Phil was a nice yet quirky guy who had worked hard to accomplish his dreams and was taking a well-earned backseat. That he had treated my mom like a princess since the second they met, keeping up a long-distance relationship and flying to New York every chance he got, until she finally decided to move to Florida. But I wasn't being reasonable. I was being childish.

I sighed and opened the box Renee was taking with her.

I really was happy for her, it was myself I was angry at. I didn't like feeing resentful. Sometimes I wished she had found love when I was a child, at least then I would have been part of the family.

But now… all I felt was left behind.

Despite the fact that I had never told her any of this, I think she always knew. It was the reason she had taken so long to make the move across the country. She had stuck around for me.

As I rummaged through her box, taking in all the memories, I smiled to myself. A Christmas tree decoration I made in first grade stuck out from underneath my baby blanket, a small cardboard tube, covered in glitter and painted macaroni. She was sentimental, even if she pretended not to be.

As I tucked it back under, the corner of a small leather folder peaked out from under the baby blanket.

I unfolded the corner to reveal a photo album. The cover was worn,- originally white but turned yellow with age,- the edges were frayed, and the spine held together with decades worth of tape.

I had never seen it before.

My hands were shaking as I opened the cover and saw the faces staring back at me. My mom, only younger and a man. With dark brown hair and brown eyes… exactly like my own.

There was no doubt in my mind. This was my father.

I had asked of course, - about who he was, where he was, why he wasn't with us, - as I grew up. It was the one thing me and Renee had fought over. Eventually I just stopped asking. it wasn't worth having the same argument yet again and she would not budge anyway. She would tell me we were better off without him and that was that. If I pushed her too far, which I often did, it would end with her crying alone in her bedroom and me feeling like the most ungrateful daughter in the world.

But that didn't stop me from feeling let down. It didn't stop the empty space in my heart where a father should be. A father who wanted his daughter, who loved and cherished and protected her. A man who would build her a tree house, teach her to ride a bike and kick the wicked older boys down the block who tormented her.

As I got older, I realised that we did all those things perfectly well without a dad and I was able to let it go. But as I sat on the cold concrete of the garage floor and looked down at the face of the unnamed man I had wished so hard for as a child, all those feelings came rushing back.

He looked exactly like the type of guy I would image my mom with as a teenager; full of tattoos, holding a cigarette in one hand and the other wrapped around her shoulder. They were leaning against a motor bike. One of the big shiny behemoth bikes with the long handles that you'd image an old, grey haired, beer bellied man to be riding. Who knows, maybe he looked like that now.

I turned the picture over and saw a note scribbled on the back, almost too worn to read.

Charlie and Renee, 1999

She was eighteen, maybe nineteen, maybe already pregnant with me.

They looked happy. Perhaps with the news of their new arrival? Or was this the calm before the storm and an unexpected pregnancy had taken away those smiles?

I flipped the page slowly, scared to discover what else I might find. There were two more photographs, each a slightly blurry polaroid. One showed the pair standing in front of an old cabin on the edge of a forest, wide smiles shining through even in the aged photo and the other was of the man sitting a vintage car, - beer in hand and rolling his eyes at the camera, - with a slight smile. I wondered what could have happened to make this young couple, so obviously in love, break apart. And if it had anything to do with me.

I flicked through the rest of the album. There were a few more of them posing with other people. They too were full of tattoos and leather. One symbol repeated often on jackets and helmets, of two roses twisted in vines with what looked like a wolf baring its teeth in the middle. But that wasn't the only thing in the album. Tucked into the plastic sleeve on the last page was a letter.

January 1999, my mom would have been two months along by that point, but still she could have been in the dark about being pregnant. There were old stains where the ink had ran, as if tears had fallen on the page.

You know I'm not one for the romantic shit, but since you won't listen to me I'm gonna spell this out for you in writing.

Its you and me, nothing is going to change that, not my family and definitely not yours.

Just trust me to fix this.

Please.

Your Charlie

My head was spinning with all the possibilities. The letter suggested they had problems with their families and the pictures showed what could only be a motorcycle group, gang, club? Whatever. No mention of a baby. You and me, he had said.

I noticed that the photo album wasn't stuffed full of photos, but it did not close all the way. I dug around and found tucked away under a rip in the leather, two keys. One was a car key and the other… I didn't know, but it was attached to a scrap of paper with an address and a code on it. I had so many questions and absolutely no answers. Lucky for me, just as my legs were starting to go numb from sitting cross legged for so long, I heard my mother open the front door.

"I've got Chinese food," She called out, closing the door with her hip, "and an entire red velvet cake…" Her words trailed off, eyes widening as I rounded the corner of the stairs and she took in what I was holding in my hands. I didn't want to be mad at her, not on our last night living in the same state. But I would not be deterred. Not this time.

"We need to talk."

We were sitting on the couch ten minutes later, take out going cold on the coffee table. "He was my high school sweetheart," She started, staring down at the first picture. "Except we didn't go to the same high school. We didn't run in the same circles."

"You look like you did. What were you, stoners?" I said, "You look like you were in a gang or something."

She shut the book, finally looking at me. "Oh honey, we were." She said. "But neither of us had a choice, we were born into it."

"What do you mean?"

"My dad was the head of the Reapers and his uncle ran the Devils. Rival biker gangs." She paused, her eyes glazed with memories, "We were never supposed to meet, let alone fall in love."

"Or have me." I whispered. Sympathy shone through her eyes, and regret. "No sweety. He… he doesn't know. I ran before he found out."

A part of me had wondered, even hoped that he hadn't known. That would mean he hadn't abandoned us, but I was still hurt. Unreasonably with him, not so much her.

"Before you go making assumptions, know that it was for the best. Believe me." She pre-empted my anger. "If my family had found out I had a child with a devil." She shook her head. "Just trust me, it wouldn't have been good. And there were plenty of Devils who didn't like me either."

"The pictures of all those people, they were the Devils?" I asked, wondering about the photographs.

"Yes, they took me in. When things got… bad at home." Again her eyes drifted, I doubted she had thought about this part of her life in a long time. "But my family were never far. The night I left, I got into it with my brother. I don't know how, but he found out about Charlie."

I tried to take in what she had told me, but I couldn't understand. "So what? Your family hated my dads family, why did that mean you had to leave?"

"This wasn't some neighbourhood feud, honey. These kinds of clubs don't play around. It was a war zone, that whole town. People were dying every month." She explained, "If I hadn't gotten out when I did, I would have been next. And you."

"So how did you manage to leave? Have you ever been back?" I asked. Hinting at something I wasn't sure I wanted confirmed.

"There was a barmaid, Esther. She was Charlie's aunt, she helped. She didn't know about you either, but she knew my family were out for blood, mine and Charlie's, so she got me out. Made sure everyone knew what a raging bitch I was for breaking his heart, stopped anyone from wanting to come after me. As for my family, my dad and brothers… They were happy to think of me dying homeless in a ditch somewhere."

Everything she said was so at odds with how I grew up, sheltered from such horror that I couldn't wrap my head around it.

"I kept in touch with her over the years. Esther." She continued. "Apparently things have calmed down. My dad died a few years ago, my oldest brother took over. He was always the reasonable one. Which isn't saying much."

"And Charlie?" I asked, with trepidation.

"Married. About 15 years ago. I stopped asking after that." She sounded so sad, I walked over and hugged her tight.

"I'm sorry for dragging this all up." I said, and I meant it. I didn't want her reliving a past that was so painful. But she released me and smiled.

"No, I should have told you years ago." Holding out the album, her hand stopped on the lump in the back pocket, "Oh shit." She said, going pale.

"I saw that, its keys for something." I said.

"I took his car." She whispered. "Fuck, I forgot."

"What!" I exclaimed. "How do you forget stealing a car?"

"I put it into a storage unit twenty three years ago, Bella! " She shrieked, "I've had other things going on since then." She paced back and forth, "There is no way he would have forgotten about it, he loved that car."

"What about storage costs?" I asked, ignoring her comments. "Whose been paying it?"

"Me, I suppose," She pondered, "You know me, Bella. I have at least two hundred dollars coming out in this subscription or that. I sponsor that panda in…" I had to cut her off, I knew she was a bit of a loose screw on occasion, but this was ridiculous.

"So, what are you going to do with it?" I asked, too lightly. Her eyes narrowed at my innocent expression.

"Absolutely not." She stated.

"What? I didn't say anything." But she knew where my mind was going.

""You are not going there Bella. No way." She was serious, I saw the storm in her eyes, ready to break. "It's out of the question. He doesn't even know you exist."

Ouch. I knew it, but it still hurt. She must have seen it in my eyes as she softened her voice.

"You don't know what it was like, what they are like. They'd eat you alive." Her tone was soothing, but her words stung.

"I'm not some weak little idiot-"

"I know you're not. But you are sensitive and trusting and… sheltered." Her hand gripped mine as she saw the determination in my face. "Please."

"I'm sorry, but I'm also stubborn." I said, "and I won't give up an opportunity to know my father."

She paused, looking at me intently and knowing from a lifetime with me that I wouldn't let this go. She sighed and her hand dropped mine. "Ok. Fine. If I can't stop you, at least let me prepare you."

I nodded and we talked into the night.

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Thank you for reading x