Home | Happy Lowman/OC (Book 1)

twenty-two

HAPPY

Happy blasted down the I-5, going well over the speed limit with Kozik at his side. He had somewhere to be and not a lot of time to waste. The trip from Charming to Bakersfield took about three hours each way if they maintained a steady speed of seventy-five on the highway, but less if they could push their luck a little.

They'd set out first thing that morning. Clay'd given him leave to settle things with his ma and aunt while the rest of the club wrapped up some last minute Irish business concerning Jimmy O'Phelan. Kozik's transfer had been denied, so it made sense that he be the one to go with Happy.

He'd told Victoria he'd be back early, and he intended to keep his word. They had a lot to talk about. The thought made him uncomfortable, but he needed to know. Asking her to stay was selfish. He knew it before they even arrived in Charming, yet he was going to ask anyway. He saw the way she slipped into place here with his family, the way she tried her hardest to make a good impression on Gemma, and Tara had taken to her right away. Nothing had ever been so easy in his life, not like this.

Happy liked it. He liked the way she just seemed to fit into his world without much adjustment. He liked that he wasn't going to find new bruises on her face when he got back, put there by a man too coward to face Happy himself after their first round. If Happy had anything to do with it, the bastard would never get the chance to blemish her skin ever again.

As they rolled into Bakersfield, Happy was overcome with a sense of nostalgia. These were the streets he grew up on, that made him into the man he was today. The closer they got to their destination, the more memories flashed in front of his eyes. Getting into his first fight with a kid his own age at the stop sign on the corner of Greene and Burbank. Taking out the first girl he liked to the Bell Club drive-in—they saw a re-release of Stephen King's The Shining. He'd loved the movie more than he'd loved the actual date.

Happy's mother stayed with his aunt in the same house they'd been living in for the past twenty years. The street was past its prime, with quite a few of the houses vacant or close to, but theirs was nicer than all the rest. His aunt—Elena and his mother—Mariana loved to be outside, and their free time was spent gardening and keeping the place up. The colorful plants lining the sidewalks were thriving, the white paint on the porch no more than a year or two old.

Happy could still see her before she got sick, his mother, after she finally left his father and moved in with Elena, her sister, looking healthy and happy for the first time since he was a kid. When he laid eyes on her, he was pleased to see there was color in her cheeks, a brightness in her eyes. She was such a strong woman. Sometimes he didn't know how she did it. Sometimes he didn't understand how he came from a woman like her.

"My son," Mariana called from her place on her knees in their vegetable garden when he and Kozik came through the fence.

Happy reached down to help her to her feet and she wrapped her arms around his neck for a long, tight hug. He didn't visit enough. "You haven't called. I've been worried."

Happy kissed her cheek. She raised a hand to cradle his face like she used to do when he was little. She was the little one now, nearly a foot and a half shorter than he was.

"I know, I'm sorry, but I've been busy. Clubs in the thick of it right now."

There was a quiet melancholy to his mother. Beneath the smile and the positive outlook on life despite the hardships she'd suffered and overcome, it was there. Buried beneath the surface, he could see it in her eyes now. It was the long lasting side effect of a life filled with trauma. The wounds healed, but the scars remained. She knew something was wrong without him even having to say a word.