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“Every week, I tell her stories about her dad from before he got hurt,” Bear said. “Show her pictures of him as a hero, not as the broken man her mother wants her to forget. I’m the only link she has to who her father really was.”
Lily looked up from her coloring. “Uncle Bear was there when I was born. Daddy said he cried like a baby.”
“You cried,” she insisted, smiling now. “Daddy said you held me first while he held Mommy’s hand. Said you promised to always protect me.”
The officer handed back the documentation. “I’m sorry for the intrusion, sir. Thank you for your service.”
But Bear wasn’t done. He stood up, all six-foot-four of him, muscles rippling under his leather vest. The restaurant went quiet again.
“You want to know what’s really dangerous?” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “What’s dangerous is a society so scared of how people look that they’d call the cops on a veteran spending time with a little girl whose father is locked up. What’s dangerous is being so judgmental that you’d try to take away the only stable male figure in a child’s life because he rides a motorcycle and has tattoos.”
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