34 - Practice

*I’ve missed this. Who the fuck knew you could miss the damned smell of chlorine? – Sid*
Sid was sitting in the stands at the LSU natatorium. They had arrived the day before yesterday and were still waiting for some type of updated news. With the evidence that Carl had acquired, they were all anticipating that Darkness would be released.
Last night, Dom had stopped at the Cajuns compound on her way back to Biloxi. Millie had recanted her story, but the DA did not believe her. They were going forward with charges against Darkness.
Celt was working with the local attorney in Austin to get the man released. Since Darkness was in the Cajuns and lived in Louisiana, the judge was not allowing a bond.
But they now had credit card receipts, toll tag activity and affidavits from Peanut, Danisha and Camille. Earlier that morning, they received video footage from IHOP and two gas stations. Celt pulled some strings and was trying to get them before a different judge. If anyone could pull those strings, it would be Celt. And his very influential US Senator uncle.
Sid watched as Trigg came back in from his phone call outside. He sat down next to his wife and linked their fingers. She looked at their hands sitting on his denim clad thigh. They both wore thick jeans, motorcycle boots and T-shirts. Grinning, she looked at the dark gray New Orleans’ Saints shirt that her husband wore which matched her pink one.
“Just seems appropriate,” Camille told them as she handed them both the new shirts. “Saints wearing Saints. Look mom, they even have pink.”
The thick leather jackets that they wore this time of year up in Massachusetts were too hot for down here. They each wore their Saints’ cuts; both were covered in patches from various rides and events. After checking a text on his phone, he tucked it away in the inside pocket of his cut.
“Dom’s here. We head back tonight.” Trigg said quietly.
“Home?” Sid asked, never taking her eyes off her daughter.
“Austin. Darkness has court tomorrow.” He replied as they watched Camille twist and turn before slicing into the water. “Was that a triple or a quad?”
“I think a quad.” She leaned against her husband who turned to kiss the top of her head. “Did you know that he comes to watch her?”
“Hmmm…”
“Be nice, he’s trying to walk a very fine line.” She smiled as she snuggled against him.
“What line is that?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her.
“Obeying his president, listening to his heart, learning to quit fighting with himself over the age difference and then there’s you.”
“Me?” Trigg asked innocently.
“Yeah, you.” She laughed lightly.
“I offered to talk to Gator.”
“And what did she say?”
“I didn’t offer it to her. I offered it to Darkness.”
“Okay, what did *he* say?”
Trigg chuckled at the memory of the conversation by the bikes. “That if Gator removed the restrictions, he’d have to let all the other bastards have a chance at her and he couldn’t handle that.”
Smiling, she looked up at her husband, “What does that tell you?”
“That tells me,” he looked down and cupped her cheek, “my beautiful wife,” he kissed her lightly, “that someday we’re going to have some very beautiful milk-chocolate grandbabies.”
Her eyes glazed over as she melted at the thought. “They are going to make some beautiful babies.” With hardened eyes, she tugged on his beard. “But only if she ever cashes in those cards of hers.”
“I’m not stopping her.”
Sid tugged hard on his beard. “Weekly reports?”
“I get that on any of the brothers that are at different clubhouses.”
“But you don’t get an update on their sexual exploits, do you?”
“Our baby girl doesn’t have any sexual exploits.”
“Trigg,” she said roughly as she sat up met his eyes, “she’s nineteen. She *should* have some sexual exploits. And not just what she watches on the back hallway.”
“Does *everyone* know about the back hallway?”
“Not only does everyone know what she likes to watch in the back hallway, but we all know about him fingering her while she watched Clay and Trev.”
“Oh.” He cleared his throat as his cheeks turned red behind his beard.
“Okay, *most* of us knew about it.”
“You know that I ask the girls not to kiss and tell,” he reminded her. “I prefer to think that all of our grandchildren were found under the leaves in Molly’s greenhouse cabbage patch.”
“Bad news,” Sid laughed, “all our grandkids were made the same way that we made our kids.”
“I don’t need to know if any were conceived on the back of a bike.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. We also know that her odd kink is why so many of the Saints stayed away from her.”
“It’s not exactly normal.” He grumbled as his face reddened again.
Grinning at him, she pointed out their own relationship. “Babe, her father married his stepsister. All of our kids were doomed from the beginning.”
Chuckling, he pulled her back to his chest. “Truer words have never been spoken. “Love you, little sister.”
“I love you, too, big brother.”
Her father and his mother had married when Trigg was a junior in high school and Sid was a year behind him. They had fought the attraction because they were being told that they were now siblings. He graduated, went to boot camp and came back to find their parents divorced and Sid pregnant with Trigg’s child.
Occasionally, they would still use the annoying nick names that their parents had given them. Looking back, they realized that their parents could see the attraction between the two teens. The adults were trying desperately to keep their kids from becoming involved with each other.
Charlotte was born shortly before Sid graduated high school. Eight more children followed until an emergency hysterectomy during Camille’s birth. She was breach with placenta abruption that led to hemorrhaging and Trigg nearly became a single father of nine children.
There was never any doubt that Camille was his favorite. He never treated them any differently. Never gave her special treatment. But where the three brothers were his boys and the five other sisters were his girls, Camille was his baby.
Sitting in the bleachers of the natatorium, Trigg and Sid watched his baby and her team for another thirty minutes. Finally, the coach called for the team to huddle. As they stood by the edge of the pool, Sid and Trigg made their way down.
“Camille.” Trigg said after the coach released them and she turned towards them with a look of hope. Nodding, he opened his arms to her, and she moved into the embrace.
“You’re Camille’s parents?” the coach asked as he approached them.
“Yes.” Sid smiled as Trigg hugged his daughter and quietly whispered in her ear. “I’m afraid that we have to take her away for a few days.”
The coach nodded. “She told me that she might have to testify in a trial. Didn’t tell me about the case.”
Sid knew that the coach was fishing. But if her daughter didn’t give details, neither would she.
“She shouldn’t be gone for long. Just a few days.” Sid said as Camille and Trigg joined them.
“Coach.” The teen said with a slight tremor in her voice.
“Your mom just told me. Let me know when you get back. And as always, keep me in the loop.”
Camille nodded and he walked away to talk with another swimmer.
“I’ll be quick with my shower.” She quietly told her parents, and they said that they would be outside when she was ready.
The couple walked outside, hand in hand and approached the blue Roscoe Reagan Original. Trigg sat sideways on his borrowed bike and Sid stood between his legs.
“How serious do you think this is between them?” she asked as he wrapped his arms around her waist. Her fingers automatically threaded into his hair.
“He disobeyed his president when she had a shit day. I’d say it’s serious.” He admitted looking up at her. “Gator is still pissed at him.”
“If he was yours,” she asked with a smirk, “what would you do?”
“He’ll be punished.” Trigg sighed. “But we’ve all broken the rules when it comes to our women.”
“Even you?”
“Even me.” He smirked. “If I thought that your dad was scary as my stepfather, he was even scarier after they got divorced and he was a patched brother.”
“My sweet daddy?” she said with a smile. “No? he’s nothing but a big teddy bear.”
“Teddy bear? More like Teddy Boar.”
Sid laughed before leaning down to kiss her husband. “Hog would love to hear that.”
“Man’s been dead ten years, and he still scares me.”
“Good luck at scaring Darkness after your death.”
“Nope, I’m going to leave that to my lovely wife.”