by Voss, Deja
Tears sting my face as I walk from my car to my apartment. I wish it would stop snowing for at least a week, but it’s April in Pennsylvania and anything can and will happen.
I flick on the light as soon as I walk in the door and I feel insanely alone.
You’re not, the little voice inside my head reminds me. Just call him.
He promised me. He promised me I’d never be alone again in my life. My pain is his pain. If we’re going to make this work, then he’s going to have to love all of me. The good times and the bad. I pick up my phone and dial his number, my heart racing. I want to believe everything he said is true, but I’m nervous. Am I really the girl he fell in love with?
Chapter 30
Micah:
“I have to say, Goob, this was the most fucking fun I’ve had in a long time,” I say, as he pulls up in front of the clubhouse. I’m only lying a little bit. Hanging out with Amber has been really fun, but in a completely different way. Spending the day with my brother, barhopping all over town, and driving around the back roads smoking weed and shooting the shit makes me feel about twenty years younger.
“Don’t leave without stopping over first. I want you to meet my family,” he says.
“I’m not leaving!” I insist. “I’m here for good.”
“Whatever,” he mutters. “You sure you don’t want to go up to Esther’s?”
“I’m sure.” Being around Goob has me feeling all sorts of ways about where I went wrong in my life. Hearing about how happy him and Azalea are only makes me miss Amber even more. I really do think she’s my one. I really do think we could have a life that easy, that good. The only thing I’m thinking about right now is moving her up here with me, spending every day making her the happiest woman alive, and doing whatever it takes to start our own little happy family, white picket fence and all that shit.
Tonight I want to hang out in my old apartment. The last place we were together. I want to listen to her voice until I fall asleep while I smell her shampoo on the pillow. I don’t even care if she isn’t trying to get off tonight. I just want to hear her. It’s the only thing I need to make this a perfect day.
I try to call her phone, but it goes straight to voicemail. She’s probably busy teaching a class. I picture her walking around, adjusting her students’ form, all proper and pristine, the whole room hanging on her every word. She might be young, but she knows how to get your attention. Her maturity, mixed with her inexperience, is definitely a turn-on. If anything is for certain, it’s that Amber is one in a million, and letting her slip through my fingers would be the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my whole life.
The last time I walked into this apartment, I felt like I was being drowned in wet cement. It all felt so heavy to me, the only thing I could see was my past, but now, it’s not so bad. Sure, I’m a little buzzed, but the paint job and all new furniture, the hardwood flooring and the pretty floral quilt on the bed don’t look like that place of sadness and the past. It looks like the place where I first spent the night with Amber. It looks like the future.
I take off my boots and sink back into the bed, imagining she’s here with me. The faint smell of her fruity peach shampoo lingers on the sheets and I hug her pillow tight to my body and close my eyes and picture her blonde curls, her perky tits, her plump lips turned up into that sweet smile that makes me feel like I’m the only man in the entire world.
I go to take off my jeans and get under the covers. It’s pretty early, but Goob and I had a long day, and tomorrow I want to start getting the trailer ready so that when she comes to visit this weekend, I’ll have at least a semidecent place away from the ranch that she can stay at. Hell, we don’t even have to leave the house if she doesn’t want to. The idea of being holed up with her for three days straight is the best thing I could ask for. We definitely skipped over a few important parts of building a relationship, our passion burning bright and fast. The thought of cooking her dinner and watching a movie together, or even sitting on the porch listening to the coyotes howl and just talking about our lives makes me feel warm inside, I want to do everything with her. I want it all, even the mundane.
I grab my wallet out of my pocket and toss it on the nightstand and tuck my pistol under the pillow. As I drop my pants to the floor, it catches my eye. The journal that I tucked in my back pocket. Ava’s journal.
I really shouldn’t be carrying this around. Hell, I don’t even really care what it says. It’s crazy how something that had such a huge impact on my adult life as I know it is now something that I don’t even feel like thinking about anymore. Obviously, everything wasn’t as it appeared.
I get under the covers and go to reach for the lamp on the nightstand to turn it off, but I can’t stop looking at it, the little brown leather book. What kind of secrets could it possibly hold? What were her and my dad actually up to? She wouldn’t be so stupid as to spell it all out for someone to find one day.
She wouldn’t be so stupid, but she might be so egotistical. She was always a proud girl, proud of her body, proud of her charm, always cocking off about how she manipulated some poor guy out of money, drugs, whatever. Hell, she did it to me more than once.
I pick it up and thumb it open to the first page.
“Here’s to new adventures,” it reads, in scrawling cursive. “On to bigger and better things. Running away from home was the best choice I’ve made in a long time. It sucks I couldn’t bring her with me, but this place is no place for a kid. Besides, she’d only get in the way. She’s better off with mama. Up here, I’m not that girl anymore, and soon I’m going to be running a powerful motorcycle club with my man, living in a mansion and never having to work a day in my life.”
It makes my skin crawl. Did she really bail on her family to come be my dad’s old lady? And was she really so deluded that she thought my dad was going to let her live the life of her dreams?
My eyes grow tired reading page after page of childish shit about all the guys who think she’s hot and all the girls who are jealous of her. When I get to the part where she starts to reference ‘the big plan,’ I’m already over it. It’s obvious her and my dad were trying to play Brooks and I off of each other because he felt threatened by us. He knew the older and smarter we got, the harder it was going to be for him to hang on to his power. It sucks that she had to get wrapped up in his scheme, but after reading some of her journal, I think she was made for him.
My eyes are getting tired and I think I’ve seen enough. I open the drawer of the nightstand and go to tuck the journal inside, when something else catches my eye.
It looks like it’s a page that was ripped out of a magazine, yellowed and creased like someone had been hanging on to it for a long time. This nightstand wasn’t here when I lived in this room, so it’s definitely not mine.
I pull the photo out and look at it.
I feel like I’m going throw up. It’s Ava, staring right back at me in her tight little jean shorts, her long brown hair covering her bare breasts. She’s leaned up against my dad’s motorcycle. I remember this picture. I remember this day. I remember how she was so proud of that photo shoot, she handed out autographed copies of that magazine to all the guys in the club. She really thought she was going to make it as a model. Hell, if she wasn’t constantly covered in bruises and freshly healing tattoos, she probably could have.
Why the fuck is this in here, though?
Somebody had to have planted this. One of these sick fuckers is probably playing a joke on me, knowing that I’d find it. Maybe it’s their way of hurting me. Maybe they thought it was funny. Either way, I need to get to the bottom of it.
I get dressed and tuck the picture into my pocket. I’m sure the guys are still hanging around the clubhouse. Hopefully someone up there will have the answers that I need. I sprint from the apartment, half pissed and half perplexed. I pull back the big oak door that separates the strip club from the clubhouse.
“Damn, brother,” Gavin says as I stand in the doorway.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Chapter 31
Amber:
Right about now, I wish I had a close girl friend to talk to.
I’m feeling pretty numb, pacing around my apartment from the couch to the bed to the kitchen, mindlessly picking at snacks in the cabinet, not really any purpose to my activity other than trying to process the day I just had. I’m not tired, and I’m seriously regretting not taking Tony up on the offer of a couple more glasses of wine. At least then I could pass out.
I pray, I try to talk to Mama, I change from yoga pants to sweatpants to shorts, taking my bathrobe on and off, turning the TV on and off, shaking my head at what a joke of a yogi I am for not even being able to find stillness. Instead, I’m a restless disaster.
It doesn’t help that Micah isn’t answering his phone.
I’ve called four times now, and I even sent a “you ok,” text message. I know he has his own stuff to worry about, and I know he’s probably busy, but thinking about all the potential reasons he might not be answering is driving me even more insane.
I know the kind of women who hang around up there, and I know what a good-looking guy he is. I don’t think he’d be like that, I mean, I don’t want to think he’d be like that, but you never know. I put a lot of faith in this man who is basically a stranger to me.
I pull out Esther’s business card from my purse, debating whether or not I should call her. Am I going into crazy stalker territory? It’s only been an hour after all. I probably just need to give him some time.
I’m being crazy, and I’m being selfish. Some guy I fooled around with for a few days shouldn’t be my top priority right now. My top priority should be my family. The people who have been a part of my life all along. I have a funeral to plan, and I have an aunt who is grieving and needs me. Hell, I should be grieving too, not climbing the walls and obsessing over a guy.
I start to draw myself a hot bath, hoping that soaking in a tub of bubbles will quiet my mind and put me to sleep. I rest my phone on the toilet nearby, just in case. Just in case he’s getting ready to call me.
But he doesn’t.
The water is ice cold and I’m a prune and I still haven’t heard from him.
I know he was on a run with his brother today. What if something went wrong? What if he’s hurt? What if he died? Is this the life that I am signing up for? Constantly worrying about whether or not he’s okay?
I get out of the tub and dry off hastily, my skin covered in goosebumps. I grab Esther’s business card and pick up my phone to call her. Hopefully she can give me some answers. Instead, it goes straight to voicemail.
Maybe I am being a crazy stalker, but I need to know what’s going on. I know I’m not going to get any sleep tonight, and I fire up my coffee pot as I throw on a pair of jeans and a hoodie. This three-hour drive might not be the most practical choice I’ve ever made, and I’m going to be tired tomorrow, but the only thing on my agenda is planning Mama’s memorial and hanging out with June. I doubt she’ll be wide awake herself.
I fix my thermos of coffee with extra sugar just for good measure. I don’t even bother to fix my hair or face. I grab my purse and run out the door, ready to drive all through the night just to make sure the man I’m falling in love with is safe.
Chapter 32
Micah:
“What the fuck is this?” I growl, slapping the picture down on the bar. “Which one of you jokers put this in Amber’s room?”
The guys all gather around, looking at the photo and looking up at me in confusion.
“God, I haven’t seen that picture in like twenty years,” Heat says. “I remember it, though.”
“Seriously,” I snap. “Who would do this? Are you trying to fuck with me?”
Esther grabs her flask out of her purse and hands it to me and I push it away.
“Other than Amber and I, who was in that room?” I ask her. “You? The housekeeper?”
“Housekeeper doesn’t come til Wednesday,” she says. Her face looks robotic, but she’s about to short circuit. I can tell she’s thinking really hard. “I haven’t been in that room since I moved her in.”
I’m baffled. I trust everyone in this room with my life, I have no reason not to. They’re my brothers, blood and patch. There’s only one explanation to how that picture got here.
“I need to sit down,” I stutter. I can feel all the blood rushing to my head, that familiar pounding in my ears. I’m about to freak out, my blood pressure tanking to the point that I feel like I’m going to faint.
The guys help me to the floor and I sit with my back propped up against the wall, trying to breathe, trying to make sense of this situation as a whole.
“I knew that girl looked familiar,” Esther says. “Amber Jameson… Ava James… I didn’t put two and two together.”
“You think they’re sisters?” Gavin asks.
My chest feels so tight, I can’t respond, all I can do is focus on trying to breathe.
I don’t think they’re sisters at all. Amber is the “she” Ava couldn’t bring with her. In the journal. She’s Ava’s daughter.
“She’s calling me right now,” Esther says nervously. “Shit, I have like five missed calls from her? What do you want me to do?”
I lay flat on my back on the floor and stare up at the ceiling. The last time this happened, she was the only thing that made it better. What does it matter now, though?
Once she finds out what happened to her mother, she’s never going to want to talk to me again. Rightly so.
“What do you need?” Gavin asks, crouching down next to me. “Water? A paper bag? Weed?”
What I need is to see her. I need to go to her and explain everything. I need to do it in a way that isn’t going to push her away. I can only imagine how disgusted she’s going to be, hell, I’m mildly disgusted myself.
There’s a pounding on the back door, an urgent knocking followed by the sound of a woman’s voice yelling.
“Hello!” she shouts. “Hello? Is anyone here?” It’s her. Maybe I am blacked out and hallucinating.
“What do you want us to do?” Gavin asks.
I’m not hallucinating. I have no idea what to do right now, but we can’t leave her standing out there alone and confused.
“Let her in,” I rasp.
Chapter 33
Amber:
“Oh my God, are you alright?” I yell, rushing to his side. The way he’s laying there on the floor, grabbing his chest, his face white as a sheet, I know he’s having another panic attack. Nobody really seems like they’re in a hurry to tell me what’s going on, everyone just keeping their distance as I get down on the floor to feel his pulse.
“Hey,” Esther says, “I was just about to call you back.”
I don’t care if she’s telling the truth or not. I only care about one person in this room right now.
“Do I need to call an ambulance?” Gavin asks.
“I don’t think so,” I say. “He’s having an anxiety attack. Right?”
He nods, staring up at me like he’s happy to see me.
“You just need to breathe, babe,” I say, helping him out of his shoes. I start to pull his shirt off over his head. “We are making you a doctor’s appointment this week, no ifs, ands, or buts.”
“You’re really going to do that here?” Heat laughs. “You’re kind of kinky, Amber. I like it.”
“Shut the fuck up, Heat,” Esther says. She hands me a bottle of water and I offer it to him, his chest rising and falling at a rapid pace, his brow dripping with sweat.
“What happened?” I whisper. “Are you ok?”
“Amber,” he gasps, “I need to talk to you. There’s something you need to know.”
I look into his eyes, unblinking. What could it be that he has to tell me that has him so rattled? Did he cheat on me? Is he married?
“Okay,” I say. “Anything. You can tell me anything, Micah.”
He works his way to standing, using my shoul
der to steady himself. He walks across the room and grabs a piece of paper off of the bar. That piece of paper I’ve been carrying around my whole life. I’d gotten so wrapped up in him this weekend, so distracted by wanting to spend every last second we had together, that I forgot I left it in the drawer.
“Is this yours?” he asks.
Everyone in the room is silent, watching like this is some kind of soap opera.
“Yeah,” I nod. “I left that here.”
“Why?” he asks.
He deserves the truth. So does Ava. So does everyone in my life. It’s time for me to man up and let all these people know exactly why I’m here so I can finally get some closure. It’s what Mama would’ve wanted.
“I didn’t mean to leave it here,” I say. “but it’s what brought me here in the first place. I’ve been carrying this around with me for the last fifteen years. I was about five years old when Ava left. I spent my whole childhood wondering what happened to my big sister. Do you know her?”
“Ava was your sister?” Micah asks, and for some reason, I don’t like the expression on his face. It’s unnerving how relieved he looks.
“No. I thought she was, but a few weeks ago, I found out she was actually my mother. That’s when I set off on a mission to find her.”
“Holy shit,” I hear Gavin mutter. Esther punches him in the shoulder and he winces, but doesn’t stop staring at the two of us.
“I’m sorry, guys. I never meant to deceive any of you. I thought if I hung around here a little while, I’d find what I was looking for. Instead, I got everything I could’ve ever asked for. I loved dancing at your place, Esther, and Micah, well, I don’t think I have to say it. You’re amazing. I want to be with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”