Chapter 6: The First Motel Stop
The neon sign of the Neon Crescent Motel buzzed and flickered against the deepening twilight sky, casting long, bruised shadows of purple and red across the cracked asphalt parking lot. Jax cut the engine, the sudden quiet feeling heavy after hours of high-speed highway noise. He swung his leg off the bike and immediately reached back to steady Leo as the boy climbed down, his legs stiff and wobbly from the long ride.
"You okay, kid?" Jax asked, pulling off his own helmet and running a hand through his damp, dark hair.
"My legs feel like jelly," Leo admitted, flashing a tired, lopsided grin that bore an uncanny resemblance to Jax’s own rare smiles. "That was the fastest I've ever gone in my whole life."
"Well, get used to it," Jax muttered, though his tone was unusually soft. "Come on. Let's get you inside before the night air gets into your chest."
The motel office smelled faintly of stale carpet cleaner and old dust. A weary-looking clerk with thick glasses barely looked up from her crossword puzzle as Jax laid down a twenty-dollar bill for room fourteen at the end of the breezeway. They walked down the damp walkway, the metal doors of the rooms rattling slightly in the evening breeze. Jax unlocked the door, pushed it open, and flicked on the single overhead light.
The room was modest—a sagging double bed with a faded floral quilt, a small wooden dresser with a cigarette burn on the edge, and a small television bolted to the wall. To Leo, who had spent the last three weeks sleeping behind a laundromat, it looked like a palace. He dropped his small canvas bag by the door and walked straight to the window, peering out at the highway where semi-trucks thundered past in the distance.
"Are we going to live on the road now?" Leo asked, turning around to face Jax, who was locking the heavy deadbolt.
"Not forever," Jax said, setting his heavy leather vest over the back of a chair. He looked at the boy, realizing they had no food, no clean clothes, and no real plan beyond surviving the next twenty-four hours. "We need to figure out our next move. Your mom left any other papers? Anything at all in that bag?"
Leo shook his head, his messy brown hair swaying. "Just an old sweater, a box of crayons, and the Bible. She said the Bible belonged to her grandfather."
"Get it," Jax instructed gently.
Leo unzipped his worn canvas bag and pulled out a heavy, leather-bound book with cracked binding and yellowed pages. He handed it to Jax as if it were a fragile artifact. Jax took it with both hands, his calloused fingers tracing the embossed cross on the front cover. He opened the front leaf, and a small piece of folded parchment slipped out, fluttering silently to the linoleum floor.
May you like
Jax knelt down, picked it up, and unfolded it. It was a birth certificate, officially stamped by the county clerk in a town two states over, bearing Leo’s full name and Jax’s own name listed plainly in the father's box. Seeing it in black ink made the reality undeniable. He wasn't just a guardian by circumstance; he was a father by law and blood.
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