by Emily Rose
I watched as he poured the shots until the glasses were nearly overflowing and then held one in the air as if to make a toast. “I wish you the best if it turns out you’re a father, but I’m downing this shot in hopes that you escape the death trap that awaits you in the near future, because baby momma’s are crazy bitches,” he said and then downed his shot in one motion before slamming the glass on the counter.
I laughed and then stood up, grabbing my own shot and holding it up in front of me. “I’ll drink to that,” I said and then downed my own shot. The whisky burned like a bitch as it went down, but it was exactly what I needed.
“Seriously man, I’m still paying my ex child support and that is the last fucking thing you want. I don’t mind helping out my son, but fuck me, the child support pretty much takes my entire check,” he said.
“Wait, you have a son?” I asked in surprise.
Kason poured another shot and downed it before answering, “Yep, he’ll be five this month.”
“Holy shit,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s crazy isn’t it? I love the little guy and I wouldn’t trade him for anything, but I sure do wish I could push his mother in front of a damn train,” he said.
I laughed. “That’s fucked up.”
He shrugged, “I don’t care. That bitch doesn’t care about anything other than taking as much money from me as possible. It’s not like she’s buying shit for Brayden with it either. I’m still the one buying all his stuff. If I don’t do it, he comes every weekend with dirty ass clothes or wearing shoes with holes in them. It pisses me off, but what can I do besides what I’ve been doing?”
I felt bad for him. “I don’t know how your situation is or anything, but have you thought about maybe trying to get full custody of Brayden?”
Kason nodded, “I have, but until I can afford it and I have something solid to bring to the judge, they won’t grant me full custody. That’s why I’m working overtime every day I can. I’m trying to save up the money to get a lawyer.”
I grabbed the bottle of whisky and poured two more shots before I held one out to him, “Well, here’s to getting full custody of your son. I hope it all works out for you man,” I said as I picked my own shot up.
He nodded and tilted the shot back, downing it the same time I did.
Once again, I felt the burn and sat the glass down, “Okay, I can’t take any more of those or I won’t be able to drive home tonight,” I said.
He laughed and then put everything away before we both went back to work with just a slight buzz. It helped, but as I worked with Kason on the current car, my mind drifted back to the fact that I might be a father.
Or I might not be.
Chapter Forty-One
Ray
After I left Jaxson, I had gone straight back to my hotel and crashed. I couldn’t face Miles yet and plus I was exhausted from the drive up here.
I had no idea how long I ended up sleeping, but I could remember falling asleep when it was still daylight outside and then I woke up to more sunlight. I groaned and rolled over to check my phone.
That was when I saw it was nearly noon and it wasn’t even the same day. I had slept a whole freaking day away. I shot up and caused dizziness to wash over me as I stared down at my phone.
“Shit…” I said as I scrolled through my contacts and found my mother’s number. I promised her before I left that I would let her know when I made it. Even though we hadn’t left things on good terms the last time I was there, she hadn’t questioned me when I showed up months later with a baby bump. Instead, she opened her home to me and asked the questions any mother would ask. I could tell she loved me in her own way, so I owed it to her to be a better daughter. She had gone above and beyond to be a better parent after all and I was proud to see that even after several months, she was still clean and she was still just as in love with my step-dad.
I decided a text would do and typed one out quickly before I hit send.
I threw my phone on the bed and got up to head to the bathroom. My mother was never that good at checking her phone, so I knew it would be a bit before she responded. In the bathroom, I turned on the shower and stripped my dirty clothes off.
The warm water felt nice on my skin as I washed off slowly, making sure to scrub every inch of my skin more than once. After washing, I stayed under the water until it started to run cold and then I stepped out. As I grabbed the towel from the rod next to the shower and wrapped it around myself, I made my way to the sink where I ran my hand over the foggy mirror. It was strange looking at myself now. My hair was still the same color red, but I had cut it over the past few months and my eyes were the same verdant green, but the brightness that I used to see in them was gone. I had dark circles under them, and I could see the puffiness around them from all the damn crying I’ve done the past several weeks.
I knew some of it was due to my pregnancy, but not all of it. I sighed and turned away from the mirror to head back into the room where I dug out my clothes for the day. Once I was dressed, I threw my hair into a messy bun. My face was another story though. I ended up putting on a small amount of makeup to cover the tiredness and then went back into the room to grab my purse, keys, and phone.
Honestly, I had no idea how I was going to go about today’s plans, but I didn’t really have a choice now that everyone else knew the truth about my pregnancy. I had to tell him, even if he was the last person on Earth that I wanted to see. Not because I didn’t love him. Just the opposite. I did love him, and I knew the pain that was to come seeing him after everything I’ve done wouldn’t be easy.
I hadn’t seen or spoken to Miles in weeks. He hadn’t been able to come to the funeral either. Jax was pretty much held overnight at the hospital for smoke inhalation, but not Miles. He had severe burns and they ended up keeping him for a while. And maybe that made it worse. I left when he was still in there and I hadn’t said goodbye. I just ran without thinking and that made me the most selfish person on the planet.
Those were the thoughts running through my head as I drove down the main street. Danny had told me to take a trip down memory lane and I would find Miles, so the first place I decided to look was our house or I guess, his house.
I felt numb as I turned down the street that would take me to his house. When I got closer, the first thing I noticed was the strange car sitting in the driveway. It was a Mustang and then as I slowed to a stop at the curb, I realized who that car belonged to. It shouldn’t surprise me, but the anger that swelled in my chest right then nearly took the breath right out of me, because that car belonged to the person who brought Hell upon our lives in the first place.
Mia Henley.
My eyes scanned the driveway and I realized I had totally looked past Miles’s Camaro that sat right in front of her car, which only told me that he was home.
As the anger burned inside my chest, I turned my engine off and stepped out, slamming my car door harder than I meant to as I marched up to the front door. I could just walk in. He was still my husband after all, and this was still my house, but then again, I also knew that was probably a really bad idea considering I hadn’t been here in four months and I wasn’t even sure if I could call Miles my husband at this point, even if that was all I wanted to do.
I slowed my pace as this dawned on me and then I let that thought really settle over me. It didn’t matter how much I still loved Miles, what had been done couldn’t be fixed and I already knew that there was a good chance my marriage was already over. That hurt, that made me want to scream and cry, but that was the cold-hearted truth.
And I was done with the lies, even the ones I kept trying to tell myself.
So, before I knocked on the door, I took a deep breath and prepared myself for what was on the other side of it. A second passed and then I heard footsteps inside. It felt like my heart was going to explode inside my chest as I watched the doorknob turn and then the door swung open, revealing the person I expected to see first.
Mia didn’t
look any less beautiful. Her long dark hair was in loose curls over her shoulders, and her bright green eyes were trained on me. As if it took her a whole minute to process the fact that I was standing in the doorway. Like Rachel and Danny, Mia’s gaze dropped to my stomach for a split second before she met my eyes once more.
She laughed once, harshly. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
For whatever reason, her reaction kicked the motherly love instinct inside me into high gear and I crossed my arms over my stomach in a protective manner as I cleared my throat and tried to act brave. “Is Miles around?” I asked, ignoring her response.
Mia crossed her arms under her breasts, which only made them look bigger than they already were and shook her head at me, “And why the hell would I tell you that?” she asked.
“Because he is my husband and I need to talk to him,” I said firmly.
She dropped her arms and stepped closer to me, so that I was forced to take a step back.
“You need to leave. You have done enough, and I won’t let you hurt him again,” she said with a voice that held a warning.
I was about to say something when I heard it. That deep, calm voice I had missed so much.
“Mia, step back,” he said.
I blinked and looked over her shoulder to see Miles. My air caught in my lungs as I took him in like it was the first time I was seeing him.
He leaned one shoulder against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, revealing his tattoos even more. His ink black hair was wet, shaggy around his forehead and ears, and those eerie colored eyes blazed into mine. He had on dark jeans that hung low on his hips, a black sleeveless t-shirt, and he was barefoot. Those weren’t the features that took my breath away though.
Flashbacks of the night Kevin died hit me as I took in the scars on his skin. They covered his entire arm, and stopped just above his collarbone, so that his face and neck had gone untouched. Miles pushed off the wall and walked toward me. Mia seemed to listen to his demand and moved out of the way as he positioned himself right in front of me, so that I had to look up to see his eyes. Unlike everyone else, Miles didn’t look at my baby bump at all. No, his eyes were deadlocked with mine.
“See something interesting? Go ahead, take a better look…” he said and then lifted his shirt up, so that I got a clear view of his muscular torso.
That was when I saw that the scars continued down his side, and vanished beneath his jeans, which only told me they went down further. I couldn’t stop myself as my breathing quickened. Miles dropped his shirt and I looked up to meet his eyes again.
“I….” I stuttered, because I had no idea what to say.
“What the hell do you want?” he asked coldly.
“I…I just…” I couldn’t speak as I stared into his blazing eyes. I could feel my heart beating madly inside my chest as I realized how far away Miles was now. “I was just… I’m pregnant,” I said.
He didn’t even blink twice before he spoke again, “I know.”
I blinked up at him. “What? How did you know?” I asked weakly, almost fearful.
Miles spoke evenly, almost calmly. “I figured it out the night you got sick in my bathroom. I also had a feeling that you fucked Jax at that point too.”
“I don’t know if it’s yours or…or…” I choked up on the rest of the sentence as tears threatened to spill from my eyes.
“You don’t know if it’s mine or his, right?” he finished for me in a voice so hollow and cold that I felt like I should be looking for a stab wound somewhere.
I bit my lip as I looked up at him. The tears fell and I couldn’t stop them, no matter how hard I tried to. Miles might look the same aside from the scars, but he was a totally different man.
“I’m sorry,” I choked as tears fell down my cheeks.
Miles didn’t seem fazed at all by them as he watched me with cold eyes. “If you came here to find out my thoughts on it, then I’ll save you and myself a lot of bullshit conversations. I think that if it ends up being mine, I’ll be a man about it. I’ll help take care of it. If it’s not mine, then I guess you will have to talk to Jax about it, but either way, me and you are done. You have my number, so when you find out what you need to do to figure this shit out, you can let me know.”
“Miles….” I said his name through the knot in my throat, but he didn’t let me finish.
“Stop, I’m done Ray. Just stop fucking with my head. Let’s just get through this and then we can figure out the best way to handle the divorce,” he said.
“I love you. I don’t want that,” I said weakly.
Miles blinked slowly, “If you loved me, you wouldn’t have fucked my best friend.”
“And if you loved me, you wouldn’t have lied to me about Mia in the first place,” I shot back.
“I didn’t fuck Mia!” he shouted angrily.
I flinched.
“She tried, but I turned her down, because I loved you. I was going to tell you that too, but then I came back and figured everything out, so at that point, I didn’t give a shit about telling you. I lied to you about her, yes, but I tried to fix that, even though I wasn’t down there to get back with her. I was down there to help a friend that helped me, because believe it or not, I had a life after you fucked me over the first time and I’ll have a life without you again,” he said in a harsh, almost deadly voice.
I was lost for words. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be feeling at this point. I was numb, broken, angry, disappointed, ashamed, and so much more.
“So, that’s it then? Everything is over?” I asked as evenly as I could.
“I don’t know what else you honestly expect me to say. I can’t keep doing this with you. It’s been an endless rotation of bullshit and I’m tired of it,” he said in a voice that indicated he was speaking the truth and only that.
I stared at him through blurry vision and then my eyes glanced to his side where they met with Mia’s as she stood behind him a few feet, watching the whole thing smugly. An anger swelled inside me, but before I could say anything to her, Miles stepped into my line of vision again and I was forced to look up at him.
“By the way, since we’re getting everything out on the table, I might have turned Mia down the first time, but I didn’t the second time she tried,” he said in a cold, emotionless voice.
Anger and heartache burned through me as I pictured them together the same way he had been with me. I didn’t know if he was telling the truth or not, but it didn’t matter. His eyes were hard and cold as he stared down at me. I bit my lip as tears fell down my cheeks. There was clearly nothing else for us to talk about other than the baby and our divorce, so I did the only thing I could do. I turned my back on him and walked away with my head held as high as it could possibly be at that point. I didn’t look back as I got back into my car and started the engine, taking off down the road. As I drove, I pulled my ring off my finger and threw it over my shoulder into the backseat.
Miles might be the father to my child, but there was one thing for certain now.
He wasn’t my husband.
Chapter Forty-Two
Miles
Anger boiled through my veins like the fire that burned my skin as I closed the door. I would never be the same Miles everyone knew.
My eyes closed on their own and I rested my forehead against the cool wood. I could feel my hand tighten on the doorknob, but it didn’t matter what I did at this point. The anger was still there, and it controlled me.
“You okay?” Mia asked from where she still stood behind me.
I released a long breath through my mouth and tried to calm my nerves. Without lifting my head off the door or opening my eyes, I answered. “No.”
That was the truth. I wasn’t okay. The night Kevin died flashed through my mind. There were only four people on this godforsaken Earth that knew what really happened that night, and I was one of them. Of course, everyone asked about it after I woke up in the hospital and I gave them a story, but
it wasn’t the right story. The truth wasn’t there and to this day, I wasn’t sure if I could ever tell them.
When Jax came into my room after I woke up, it wasn’t just to tell me what he had done with Ray behind my back. He came in there to talk about that night and despite our brotherhood being ruined, we still managed to agree that it was best if we kept the details between us.
But even Jax didn’t know everything.
Our family was broken.
Split into pieces.
And I was guilty of more than one Goddamn lie.
I knew Mia thought I was acting this way, because of the bombshell Ray just dropped on me, but that wasn’t it at all. I had a suspicion about her secret before she ever left. I knew something was off about the whole situation the moment I got back, but I watched and waited.
And just like I had thought, I was right about all of it.
“Miles,” Mia’s hand gently touched my arm, startling me.
I blinked my eyes open and looked over my shoulder at her. I could see the sadness in her bright eyes, and I wished it would go away.
“Why did you lie to Ray about me? You said you slept with me. You and I both know that isn’t true. We haven’t even touched each other the whole time I’ve been here,” she said.
I lifted my forehead off the door and stepped out of her reach, “I don’t know, maybe I just wanted her to feel the same thing I did.”
“Was any of that true then?” she asked as she crossed her arms as if that would help her from reaching out to me again.
“Some of it,” I admitted.
“Which part?”
My eyes met hers. “If that baby is mine, I’ll help her. I’m not going to punish my child for her mistakes, but either way, I’m done. I can’t do it anymore.”
Mia nodded, “I understand that. I’ll help however I can.”
I gave her a half-smile, “You’ve helped a lot already. You drove all the way here to help around the house, take care of the bills, deal with the insurance companies so I could heal.”