“I guess if her idea of fine is never seeing me, then she wasn’t exactly lying,” I informed Ever.
“Why the hell didn’t you go to the doctor’s appointment with her?” Ever’s accusatory tone was starting to piss me off.
“What fucking doctor’s appointment?” I threw the anger-laced words back at her and she blanched. Once again, I had no clue what she was talking about.
“That’s why I’m here. I couldn’t go earlier because I had an appointment with an asshole who refused to reschedule, but I couldn’t turn the work down either. It’s probably going to be an award winning piece.” I just glared in her general direction, because I could give a fuck less about her work when I was trying to figure out why I hadn’t been invited to a doctor’s appointment for my own baby.
“Ever, get back on track. What doctor’s appointment?”
“She really didn’t tell you about it? She was going to be able to find out the sex of the baby today and everything,” she chirped happily until she remembered I knew nothing about that.
“No, she didn’t tell me about it.” I felt my temper rising as each word was spit out past my clenched teeth.
“What is going on that you live with my sister, but don’t seem to know anything going on with her?”
I laughed at Ever then. There was no humor in the sound, and yet there wasn’t a more appropriate response, because this had to be fucking joke. “Are you seriously asking me that? Don’t you think that’s a better question for your sister instead of me?”
“She’s not here to ask,” Ever pointed out.
“I don’t know what her deal is. I just told you, every time I try to be here to catch her while she’s here, and not locked up in that room, the truck is missing from the driveway. I’ve been working a lot of overtime trying to save up because babies are expensive and insurance doesn’t cover anything. Though, I don’t know exactly what I need to cover either, because I didn’t even know she had a doctor appointment.” My nostrils flared with the words that grew louder and angrier as I spat each one out.
“This isn’t okay,” Ever stated quietly.
“No shit!” I hissed at her. “None of this is fucking okay. I tried to talk to her when she first moved in. I thought we were going to be okay. Granted, I figured it would take a while to get to a good place, but still… It’s been a goddamn month and I’m still waiting to talk to her again. That’s my baby she’s carrying. I should at least know about appointments even if she doesn’t want me there. From what you’re saying, she probably knows about the sex of the baby and she’s out there with that knowledge while I’m here not even knowing that it was a possibility.”
“I’m sorry, Joker. You’re right. That isn’t okay. Let me see if I can get a hold of her.” Before Ever could get the number dialed on her cell phone, the front door opened and a beaming Anna walked in the living room of my house. She wasn’t alone as I expected though. A blonde little pixie walked in right behind her. Both of them were laughing before they looked up, obviously startled to see us here. It was then I realized Ever must have parked on the street instead of the driveway. She must have been afraid to block me in. Granted, I would have thought the two women who seemed stunned to see people in the house should have noticed my bike parked in the carport.
“Gretchen?” Ever asked, obviously the first to be pulled from the surprised stupor everyone else had fallen into.
“Hey, Ever,” the pixie responded shyly, ignoring me completely.
“What are you doing with Anna?”
“Am I not supposed to talk to her?” Gretchen countered defensively.
“I just didn’t realize you were friendly.” I didn’t miss the wounded tone in Ever’s words.
“Well, she works at my sister’s studio so we’ve become friends.”
“You work?” Ever asked her sister. “When did you get a job? Why? Is there something you needed?” Ever directed the question to her sister, but then turned accusatory eyes back on me. Great. I was the bad guy again. Never mind the fact that she didn’t even know her own sister had a job. Hell, I didn’t even know my own wife had a fucking job, a doctor’s appointment, or anything else at this point. Tomorrow I’d probably wake to find I’d already been divorced and missed it happening somehow.
Gretchen glanced around the room warily, guilt obvious in her features, as she realized she had just let the cat out of the bag. Anna didn’t look bothered one bit though.
“I got the job a couple weeks ago after I moved in.”
“Why?” I asked, speaking for the first time since the women had walked through my door.
She sighed and then sat down and took her shoes off while frowning. Anna started to rub her obviously sore feet. “I needed to be able to save some money. Baby stuff is expensive,” she told us, mirroring my excuse for working more hours. “Besides, apartment aren’t cheap and I needed to be able to get a head start on saving for one so that if anything happens and I’m out of work too long, I can still afford to pay my bills.”
“Apartment? What the hell? You’re moving out?” I felt like I’d just started watching a movie at the mid-way point. I was so confused about what was happening in my own life, and now I had frustrated, hurt, and angry to add to the mix with all the revelations coming my way.
“I told you I didn’t want to be a burden. You’re displaced on the couch and you can’t be comfortable bringing women home with a pregnant wife living here,” she added at the end, sending a spear of pain to lance through my heart. My hand immediately lifted to try to massage away the ache in my chest and it took everything for me not to double over the hit she had just given me.
“What?” Ever yelled at the same time Gretchen turned her steely eyes on me and demanded, “What the fuck?”
I ignored them both and stared at Anna. “You’re my wife,” I told her slowly so she could comprehend. “You’re my responsibility along with the baby you’re carrying. I have the bills covered and no woman, beyond you, Ever, and now Gretchen has ever even been to my house before. I wouldn’t bring one here anyway. I wouldn’t even be with anyone else because you. Are. My. Wife!”
She swished her hand in the air as if to bat my words away. “Everyone know our marriage wasn’t real,” she stated.
“It’s so real that it’s legally binding, sweetheart,” I spat at her, unable to control myself any longer.
She looked like she was about to say something. I saw the lively spark in her eye, a flash of something – fury maybe – that I’d never seen before. Instead she shook it off. “We don’t even share a bedroom, let alone have sex, and you’re not exactly faithful, so let’s not play pretend here – that’s what made you mad at me in the first place, right?”
This was not the same Anna sitting before me. She wasn’t pulling any punches. What was I supposed to say to any of that? It was all true, even if it didn’t feel right. “Anna, this freeze out has to stop,” I demanded. “What if something happened to you? No one would know. What if something happened to the baby? You didn’t even tell me about the appointment you had. That’s my baby in there. I should at least know that you saw a doctor, or get an update if you don’t want me there. Instead, I have to worry and use my imagination because you don’t tell me shit!”
“When am I supposed to tell you? You’re gone all the time.”
“No, I’m not. You just decided to hide from me when I am around.”
“Well,” she started to argue but her sister cut her off.
“Put the shoe on the other foot, little sister. If he was carrying the baby wouldn’t you want to know? This is part of growing up and realizing that the things concerning your child aren’t just about you. Don’t do to your baby what my parents did to me.”
“What do you mean?” Anna asked Ever.
“My biological mother turned my father into a ghost in my life, never talking about him, and look what happened when I lost her. I was sent to live with strangers. Then I was hated by my own father and his club b
rothers because of who my mom was. I had no control over who my parents were or what they did or didn’t feel for one another, but they all could have done me a favor and not punished me for their own bullshit decisions. Make no mistake – if you use that baby as a means to hurt him, you’re ultimately hurting your child too. They’ll feel that.”
I watched as Anna’s lip began to quiver and her hand moved protectively over her stomach. She only met my eyes for a brief moment before mumbling the word sorry and running from the room.
“Shit!” Ever started to go after her, but Gretchen grabbed hold of her arm to keep her back.
“She’ll be fine. She’s just hormonal right now,” the woman assured her. Then she turned to me. “I understand your situation isn’t ideal but you could try harder too. Pull her out of hiding and make her talk to you.”
“I won’t ever make her do anything,” I told her through gritted teeth.
“Well, then you’ll probably lose them both.”
“Why can’t she just grow the fuck up? I admitted to being an asshole. I apologized. And still she can’t even tell me about an appointment to see the baby?”
“Maybe you should also grow the fuck up and try asking her about it.”
“She’s already got a foot out the door, a thousand reasons plucked from whatever fantasy is in her head, and it’s all on my shoulders to get her to talk?”
Gretchen shrugged. “You both need to grow up and realize you have more to worry about than just yourselves.”
“Get out!” I finally yelled, losing it. Part of the fucking problem with Anna and me seemed to be with everyone else inserting themselves in our lives and giving advice when they didn’t even understand what the hell was actually going on. Hell, other people’s opinions are why she felt she had to lie to me to begin with.
“Get the fuck out if you think that’s what’s going on. I’m half-assed sleeping on a couch to appease her. I have a bed at the clubhouse but I can’t use it because God forbid she think I’m fucking someone in it. Why should I care though? Apparently, she thinks that anyway. I’m working doubles to make sure we can afford baby shit, so being gone all those hours gets translated to I’m sleeping around too.
“Then she gets a job and tells no one about it. She goes to the doctor and leaves me in the dark, she fucking hides from me and ignores when I try to ask about the baby or her when she accidentally runs into me if I’m late leaving for work. She literally has my schedule timed so she’s locked away or not here when I am. I can’t sleep at night for trying to figure out how to turn this around, but you’re gonna march your happy ass in my house and presume I’m being selfish? Based on what? Bullshit she’s telling you without telling you that she’s causing her own misery at this point?” Both Gretchen and Ever stood looking shell-shocked at my tirade. I didn’t want to see their faces any longer though. I was tired. Physically warn out from working doubles and sleeping on a couch not meant to be a permanent bed, and then the mental exhaustion were both bringing me to my knees.
“You know what? I’m fucking done here. I’m exhausted and I can’t fix shit alone. I can’t change the past or her mind, but I won’t continue being punished for caring or for trying.” I turned to Ever then. “You should probably go ahead and make room for her at your place. I’ll help get her set up with a place of her own once the baby is here. Hell, fuck it, she can have the house. I’ll move my shit out. I won’t be the reason she stays miserable and everyone blames me.”
“Maybe you should give this some thought,” Ever stated calmly.
“I did. It’s all I’ve done.”
“Okay.” She moved across the room and pulled out her phone. I knew she was calling Deck. I didn’t bother listening in on that conversation, because honestly, I didn’t have it in me to care any longer. What was the point? I’d fucked up enough that there was no fixing the situation and Anna had just finally proven that to me.
“I’ll send her out here while I pack my shit up,” I told Ever as I moved to go to the bedroom that once had been mine. The same bedroom I’d once dreamed of sharing with a beautiful girl I’d called Lise at the time.
I opened the door, which was surprisingly unlocked. “The girls are waiting for you out there,” I mentioned before moving to the closet where most of my things were still kept. I pulled a duffle bag down from the top shelf and started rolling my clothes and stuffing them inside.
“This is your house,” Anna insisted as she sat there on the edge of the bed watching me instead of going out to the living room where her sister and friend were waiting.
“Nah, it’s ours. I put it in both our names after we married.” That was a surprise to her judging by the shocked look she was giving me. “I’ll have my name taken off. I bought this house free and clear of debt when I came out of the military. You won’t have to worry about rent or a mortgage,” I informed her. “Though I will stipulate that you can’t sell it. The house can pass to our child when they’re old enough, but I want to ensure they always have a place to call home.”
“The baby is fine,” she whispered so low I almost missed it. “I heard the heartbeat today, nothing else. The machine they were supposed to use was broken. They rescheduled the rest of the appointment,” she mentioned with a little more excitement in her voice.
I’d missed it. I felt so far removed from the pregnancy, it was honestly nothing more than a remote idea for me. I turned my back on her when I felt the telling burn in my eyes. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I continued stuffing things in my duffle while trying to calm my emotions.
“I didn’t think you’d care.” Her words continued to gut me.
“If I didn’t care, you never would have been here.”
“I’m only here because your daddy threatened you and most likely your standing in the club.”
I turned, anger taking over. “You think so? Maybe you need to go talk to your daddy then. He suggested it in anger, but retracted his requirement of marriage the next day. He said he’d never do to you what Tiger Lily’s dad put her and Merc through.”
“But,”
“I told him I wanted it so our kid wouldn’t have to be handed off like a pawn in a game on visitation days. I was still mad at you, but I knew I’d regret not trying.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said meekly.
“Well, now you do,” I told her as I stuffed the last of the clothes I wore regularly into the bag, sealed it up, and left her there in the house with Ever and Gretchen.
I found myself on Merc’s doorstep a little while later begging for a place to stay where I knew rumors and wild imaginations wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass.
Chapter 10
I stared down at the words I’d left marring the page of my journal. It has been a long time since I’d felt like writing, but today I had to get it all off my chest.
Dear Diary,
I thought the house was cold and unkind before he left, but with each day that passes where I’m the only occupant – other than my baby I’m growing – my heart squeezes with the loneliness I feel, like a cloak it’s doomed to stay wrapped in.
I had taken for granted just how big his presence was here. It has been six days since he walked out promising the house was mine to keep. I hadn’t heard a single word from him. When he told the girls he was done, I didn’t think he meant it. Now, I was positive he had. My days since consisted of going to work, coming home, and then crying myself to sleep and crashing every night. Every once in a while, I’d glance down at my empty ring finger and wish for a different life. The life I used to dream I’d have before I made one lousy decision that cost me everything. All because I was too impatient to wait like Toby asked me to do.
My wonderful older brother had been the only person paying attention when he saw me watching Evan at a club family cookout. That’s where he was introduced to the club and Deck informed Merc that he was going to sponsor the man who wanted to prospect for the club. “Don’t even think about it, little sister,” my brother had
told me. “He’s too old for you, and he wants to join the club. If you try going after him now, you’ll ruin his chances of becoming a member.”
“I can’t ruin anything if he doesn’t want me the same way, T-Bone,” I told him purposely calling him by his road name because I wanted him, to know that I understood he was speaking to me as a club ambassador as much as from the perspective of older brother.
“Anna, it’s not like that. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. You, my darling little sis, have only seen everyone’s good behavior in the clubhouse, because you’re not allowed to be here after hours. Trust me when I say, our dad is a shining example for how to treat your woman. Many of these other men are not.”
“They hurt women?” I had asked him, not able to fathom that the gentlemen I’d grown up knowing as my uncles would ever be able to lay a hand on a woman in anger.
“Not physically, sis. Maybe not even intentionally. How would you feel if you dated that guy only to walk into the clubhouse one day and see him with one of the club whores?”
“I would hope that no man I would date would do that,” I told him honestly.
“Yeah me too. Now imagine if that happened and someone saw him doing it, or you told someone. You think any of the older men, J-Bird, Deck, or me would allow that to happen unchecked?”
“I guess not.”
“No, we wouldn’t. So then you’d have a broken heart and we’d have a rift in the club where one of the brothers was concerned.”
“He’s not even a member,” I argued.
“Not yet, but Deck sponsored him in tonight. He starts prospecting tomorrow. Besides, You barely just turned 17. You’re not old enough. Someone catching wind of him dating you before you turned 18 would mean an automatic no from the club.”
I remember poking my lip out then. It hadn’t been the first time I’d seen Deck bring the man around. Not that he had ever noticed me though. I always managed to get sent home before anything fun happened at the clubhouse, and Deck and Ever didn’t bother showing up there until late in the evenings when they did go hang out because Ever worked so late at the tattoo studio. Evan couldn’t be there without Deck. At least he couldn’t until he started prospecting, which apparently was going to be tomorrow since they’d voted to bring him on today. That was what this party was all about. Two new prospects were brought in today.
The Princess and the Prospect Page 9