Conor Thames 2

by R. J. Lewis

  Thames was going to walk the fucking line.

  Reid left and now it was just the three of them.

  The tension was there. Thames could feel it in the air. He didn’t know what to think or how to process. If ever he needed a drink, it would have been now.

  He tried hard not to stare too long at Locke. At the raven tattoo. At the 1 inked on his wrist. He couldn’t help himself, though. He felt a mixture of conflicted emotions. One half of him felt proud of what Locke was doing, the other half was tormented for the lost soul.

  “What now?” he wondered, feeling directionless.

  Locke looked at him. “Now you live, Thames.”

  “You go back and work on that car,” Jem added. “And you look after your girl and your woman and you don’t have anything to worry about anymore.”

  “You’re free,” Locke added. “You’re not obligated to the crew. You never were.”

  “What about Dominic?” Thames questioned, panicked now. “I can’t rest my head easy at night knowing he’s alone in there.”

  “Dom’s a survivor,” Locke answered. “He survived years before you, he’ll survive the remainder of his sentence without you.”

  “Can’t you protect him?”

  “He’s rejected my crew. He’s rejected all the others from what I’ve heard. He is doing it alone. He has blocked us out. We can’t pause our lives for Dominic, but we’re waiting for him. We want him to come home alive. He’s going to need us more than ever.”

  Thames took a deep breath. Dom needed to be here. He needed to be in this room. That boy had so much goodness in him.

  “Go home, Conor,” Jem ordered. “We’ll clean this mess up. Enjoy your freedom, my friend. This is the new beginning you and Charlotte deserve.”

  Thames didn’t know how exhausted he was until he stood up and felt it wash over him. He wondered if it was the weight of all those years combined finally dissolving from his shoulders.

  “Stop by whenever you can,” he told Locke. “Please.”

  Locke nodded.

  Thames looked at Jem. “Don’t bury yourself in the bar.”

  Jem shook his head. “I won’t.”

  Taking another big breath, Thames walked out of the bar.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Charlotte

  I made the call while Reid hovered beside me. It was quick and painless. I gave the address of the bar to the “clean-up crew” and hung up.

  “Are you alright?” Reid asked me.

  I stiffened a nod. “Yeah, just…absorbing.”

  My head was pounding with revelations. This night was a clusterfuck of death and answers and I didn’t know how to compartmentalize.

  “I guess I should go back to Conor.”

  “Nah,” Reid replied. “The boys sounded like they were having a heart to heart. I’d give them that time, and you know, now that we’re both standing here, I might as well offer some kind of heart to heart, too.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Let’s not kid ourselves, Reid.”

  “I’m capable of it.”

  “You have a lot to make up for. An easy ‘sorry’ doesn’t cut it.”

  “Well, for the sake of our kids, at least let’s be on the same page.”

  “We’re civil.”

  “We can be friendly.”

  I was doubtful. “We’ll see about that.”

  Reid’s cheeky expression softened as he stared at me for a long moment. “I’m sorry for being an asshole,” he said seriously. “I’m sorry for that year of hell in high school. I’m sorry for being such a fucking cunt. I’m an asshole. I know that. I guess…I spent a long time thinking I had to be tough so others couldn’t see my weaknesses. That breakup of ours was very public and everyone was watching me, waiting to see the cracks in my armour, which made it harder to process. I know it doesn’t mean anything, but I do feel bad for hurting you because…I really cared about you, Charlotte. I should have known that treating someone like shit when you’re hurt doesn’t make you care for them less. I thought the more I pushed you away, the easier I’d be able to move on from you. It backfired and I’ve been in a haze for years. The only thing I have left is that boy, and I don’t want him anything like me. So, my point I guess in all this is…let’s be easy with our kids. Let them have the best friendship.”

  Wow.

  I offered him a warm smile. “That was an impressive speech, Reid.”

  He laughed. “Thank you.”

  I simply nodded.

  “I’m going home,” he told me. “I gotta see my kid.”

  “Your kid should be in bed.”

  He walked to the parking lot where his car was parked beside Locke’s. “He’s obsessed with that pixel game. Said something about building a palace for your girl.”

  Oh, God. I let out a soft laugh. Of course he was.

  I watched Reid drive off, and then I was looking at the stars and listening to the soft leaves rustle around me. It was dead quiet and peaceful. A gentle rainfall had started. Thunder broke out lightly in the distance and my heart squeezed as I thought of those boys on that day.

  I also thought of Billy.

  “Hey,” he whispered from beside me.

  I looked at him. The vampire looking guy with the personality of the little boy I loved.

  “Hey,” I whispered back, feeling swamped with emotion.

  He watched me tenderly, knowing it was that time.

  We didn’t speak for some time. I stared at him, memorizing him.

  I’d gone through the stages of grief to process losing that little boy. I didn’t think of the monster he’d become because that was part of the way I coped, I realized. I clung to the good in others, and with Billy, I clung so tight he’d become an extension of me.

  Like the therapist had said, I needed to confront him in order to let go.

  I’d advised Conor to stop running away, and there I’d gone, running away from the pain too.

  That was what made this so hard.

  He listened to my thoughts, his expression breaking apart for me.

  But it was time.

  “Who sent me to you that day?” he finally asked me.

  I sucked a breath in as hot tears fell down my cheeks. “You did.”

  He nodded sorrowfully. That little boy was not the older man capable of doing those horrible things to me. I’d finally accepted it.

  Billy smiled at me peacefully. I smiled back, taking him in one last time.

  Then he faded before my eyes, vanishing into the quiet night.

  When Conor found me, I was shivering and cold and still staring at the spot Billy had stood in.

  “Dove.” He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his chest.

  I cried into him, gripping him to me with all my strength.

  “It’s okay now, dove. It’s okay,” he crooned. “Don’t you feel it? Everything is going to be different now.”

  I did.

  I felt it.

  The truth was setting everyone free.

  Locke

  He slid his shirt back on.

  Locke needed that tub so badly. The cold water wouldn’t do. It had to be frozen or from the arctic.

  He paused briefly as he buttoned up his shirt, thinking of that goddamn girl.

  Shit.

  How could he have forgotten he’d tied up a girl in his apartment? Those knots he’d tied were tight. He liked seeing them around her wrists. They were probably chafed by now. That thought hardened Locke. He was such a sick fuck.

  She’d probably gotten that duct tape off her mouth, too. Which meant she was currently screaming up a storm.

  She had a serious filthy mouth.

  She probably thought someone was going to hear her. She didn’t know Locke owned that apartment building. No one was going to say a word.

  Locke didn’t know what to do. He stood in Jem’s bar, wavering now, not wanting to stare at the guy, either. It was getting more and more awkward between them.

  Jem was watching
Locke carefully, but at the same time he wasn’t meeting his eye. The tension was crippling, and usually that didn’t bother Locke much, but this time…well, this time it was personal.

  Locke didn’t want to think back at that time. It’d haunted him enough over the years, but…

  “Part of what I said when I was a kid was true,” he said aloud as he reached the top of his shirt. “Some faces I didn’t remember. They were blurry. I think I was so scared I couldn’t process my terror at the same time I was processing everything around me. But…that changed a while ago.”

  Jem was watching him now, hands still tight around the shotgun.

  “I saw those steel doors open, and for some reason they reminded me of open arms, kind of like they were saying, ‘hey, come on in.’ I hovered there like a wimp, but then I thought…what would Jem say when he found out I was in this hole? Maybe he’d start to finally like me. So, I stepped down. I was cold and scared but determined. I felt…brave.”

  Locke went still, remembering. “And then I reached the bottom, and I felt something tight in my chest. I grew scared again. I realized something wasn’t right about a hole in the ground. I turned around, looked up, felt my body grow hot with the urge to run and…there was your face staring down at me. I yelled to wait, but you slammed the doors down on me.”

  He finally looked at him.

  Jem’s eyes were red and raw. Tears slid down his face. He was holding the gun tight, but not in a menacing way. He was holding it tight to expel the terror he was currently feeling.

  “For so long I knew it belonged to a boy,” Locke said quietly. “I didn’t know if it was Dom or you. I…spent so many late nights trying to figure out whose face I saw.”

  Jem looked down, shame burning his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he rasped out. “I’m sorry, Max. I…I had no choice.”

  Locke figured that out ages ago. Jem was a mischievous little shit of a kid, but his heart wasn’t so cold he’d willingly let his friend suffer.

  “You were my friend?” Locke found himself asking curiously.

  Jem shut his eyes and nodded. “Yeah, Max.”

  Locke cleared his throat, not allowing any sort of emotion in at the sight of Jem falling to pieces. In the depths though something stirred at the sight of it.

  “Then you’re still my friend,” Locke declared quietly.

  Jem’s face was buried in his hands when Locke left the bar.

  The clean-up crew had just arrived, the black vans were parked so painfully obvious in the parking lot. He passed them on the way to his car, and then he sat there behind the wheel, aware as ever of the shit show he was going to walk into when he got to his apartment.

  He stared at the rain streaking the windshield. Thunder clapped over him and with it his chest lit up like lightning. He thought of the girl, and of his mother’s words.

  “You say you’re scared of everything,” she said, “but maybe you’re more in tune with danger than everyone else, Max. You have the gift of fear. Every day our brain catalogues our surroundings. When something is out of the ordinary, we sense it. You sense it more than most. Listen to it, Max. Always listen to your senses.”

  He sensed it with the girl.

  She terrified him.

  He blasted House of the Rising Sun and took off down the street.

  Chapter Thirty

  Thames

  Time.

  He treasured it every single morning he woke up with his love in his arms, with his baby girl bursting through the room and jumping on the bed to wake them. There was nothing like a good kick in the balls to get the day started.

  Thames usually took Penny to school in the mornings because Charlotte was sleeping in more and more. That was what happened when you got knocked up, though. You slept your little ass off because the bun in the oven demanded it.

  To be honest, though, he was surprised how many months it took for her to fall pregnant. She’d warned him so many times in the start that he was hitting the target every time, but he didn’t care, and he’d told her that. He had missed out on Penny’s life, and he felt like he needed to make up for it again.

  He immersed himself in his cars. The niche auto industry had a long memory. You had to with cars, he supposed. Eight years may have been a long time away in prison, but it was not so long of a time for a man wanting to sink more of his fortune in another custom car.

  Like Charlotte had said once, he had land and he needed it for all his projects. His work shed had still been left intact, though it needed a cleaning unlike no other. And with Reid funding the rebuild of Conor’s home, everything was slowly coming together. When the baby was a few months old, the house would be done and modified for a growing family.

  In no time, Thames had a client list as long as his arm. Sometimes, they’d show up and drop off their pile of precious junk for him.

  When Thames finished his first big project – a 1967 Dodge Dart in sublime green – it was only a few days before a buyer travelled all the way from the city. He bought it on the spot, didn’t even try to waver on the whopping price tag. That was the day Thames felt like a man again. It was also the day he waved the check in Charlotte’s face after he returned home to find her in bed and said, “It’s my turn to take care of you.”

  She was fresh on maternity leave. Had tears in her eyes for him.

  “I’m so proud of you, Conor,” she said.

  “You can take care of our babies in our new house,” he replied. “You never have to worry about late night meetings at Locke’s seedy club.”

  She laughed. “Actually, I’m still doing those for him on the side.”

  “I doubt he’ll need you anymore. He seems distracted.”

  “That’s true, but…that club is my responsibility. Those girls need me and those meetings are my thing.” She felt oddly possessive about them. “I like some of those weird ass clients.”

  “Except that woman hater guy. What was his name?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Mr Crane. What a guy. I think I’m going to see him sometime this week.”

  “What’s he going to do when he sees that ring on your finger?”

  She looked down at the opal wedding ring he’d proposed to her with only recently. Her face turned pink because she was thinking of that moment, too. The proposal was followed by the most savage fuck. Good times.

  “I think he will be very mindful of how he speaks to this very pregnant, very hormonal lady.”

  “Does this very pregnant, very hormonal lady want to celebrate this pay check with a tender romp in the sheets?” he asked innocently.

  She laughed hard and threw a pillow at him. “Nice try playing the gentleman.”

  He was moving over her already, hands feeling for every inch of her skin as he pressed kisses on her mouth. “You don’t like the gentleman side to me?”

  “I prefer the greasy man in overalls,” she managed between the kisses.

  “Shall I put them on?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “On one condition?”

  She pulled back to look at him. “Yes?”

  “You have to play the damsel in distress.”

  “Oh, God,” she groaned, face growing red.

  “Yes, dove, put on a dress. Your car’s just broken down and you’ve called the town’s mercurial mechanic, but he’s got a huge cock and you like getting fired up at him.”

  As she died on the inside, laughing hard because he’d snooped her Kindle and read a few pages he ought not to have of her latest mechanic romance, he rested his hand on her belly, grinning at the feel of his baby moving.

  “I love you, Charlotte,” he declared just then, unable to keep his smile intact.

  She looked back at him, glowing with love. “I love you, Conor Thames.”

  Charlotte threw a huge dinner that evening. Megan came with Lily. In tow was Jem and a piece of temporary fluff on the side. He’d tried to start dating again, but Thames could tell by the way he barely paid attention to the girl that it wasn’t
going anywhere.

  Reid had stopped by to drop Kane off, and now Kane and Penny were chasing after Dozer the Pitbull, still a clumsy puppy with too much energy.

  “When’s this baby coming out?” Jem asked Charlotte, hassling her with a teasing grin as he sat down.

  Charlotte was wearing a beautiful white summer dress. It accentuated her bump. She was glowing under the summer sun. She strode around the outdoor glass dining table and settled a couple salad bowls down in the centre.

  Letting out a tired sigh, she said, “The baby’s head down. Everything’s looking good but…she’s not moving.”

  She.

  Another girl.

  Thames couldn’t have been happier at the news.

  “There are ways to speed that along,” Megan said, putting down a tray of chicken roast.

  “Oh, I know,” Thames cut in, smiling devilishly at Charlotte as she took a seat next to him. “We’ve found some…useful techniques, wouldn’t you say, dove?”

  Charlotte avoided meeting his eye as she returned with, “Hardly useful if they’re not working, right, Conor?”

  “I’ll try harder.”

  Chuckles erupted around the table.

  Lily reached over and felt Charlotte’s bump. “I can’t wait until I know what that feels like.”

  “I don’t fucking think so,” Jem muttered under his breath, giving her a stink eye. “Not for another decade, at least.”

  Lily glared at him and then at the girl he was sitting with. “Just because you don’t want kids ever, doesn’t mean we should all never have them, Jem.”

  The girl he was with – Diane was her name? – whipped her face in Jem’s direction. “You don’t want kids?”

  Jem gnashed his teeth, glaring at Lily. “Some people shouldn’t have kids.”

  “Like you?” the date pressed.

  The silence was fucking awkward.

  Thames grinned into his glass of water. Charlotte found a spot on the table to stare at. Lily looked chuffed with herself as she took a bite of chicken.

  “Like me,” Jem eventually answered, forcing a smile at his date. “But I like dogs.”