"You can leave the apartment, you know," her voice sounded quiet, and I was shocked by her speaking directly to me. So much so, that I found myself unable to breathe, let alone reply.
Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I finally became able to move, turning to face her. "That doesn't seem like a good idea right now."
"He doesn't…… you should get some fresh air, Nala" she had noticed I hadn't gone outside? Considering her refusal to acknowledge my existence, I assumed she wouldn't notice my comings and… well, there were no goings to notice.
Turning her back to me, I wanted to ask what she was going to say. Beg for her words.
"I'm sorry," my voice almost cracked on that last word. It didn't feel big enough. It needed to be more substantial.
She froze, mid-step, on her march back down the hallway to her bedroom. Right next to mine.
"Claire, please," I could feel tears filling my eyes. "I just, I want my friend back."
Spinning on her heels so fast, I was expecting a tirade. But she just looked at me with her large blue eyes that were swimming in tears. Threatening to fall at any given moment.
"I needed my best friend for the last five years."
"What happened, Claire?"
"My dad died"
What? "How?"
"Then we lost the apartment and mom, well she couldn't live on her own… it’s been really bad."
Dropping down onto the edge of the couch, I found myself unable to speak. Her dad was dead? Where was her mom? I knew that she wasn't living here, and I hadn't heard Luke mention her. In fact, looking up at the photos on the wall, there weren't any taken recently, of either their mom or dad.
"I hated you for leaving," she took a couple of steps closer "When we couldn't find you, and I didn't hear from you, I thought that you had just abandoned me."
"I didn't want to go, Claire, I was held in a house the whole time I was gone. I couldn't leave" no matter how much I wanted too. Maybe I should have just tried, even if I would have ended up with a bullet in my head. I should have tried.
"Luke said," He’d told her?
Had he told her everything?
I wasn't sure if I was angry that he had broken my trust and told her things, or relieved that I didn't have to go through it all over again. Not right now, anyway.
"Your dad is a real piece of shit" there was nothing to add, so I simply nodded my head in agreement. He really was.
"What happened, with the clubhouse and everything."
"I can't, sorry Nala," swallowing, she wiped a solo tear that had escaped. "It's too painful."
"You can talk to me, Claire, tell me what I can do, please, tell me what I can do to make you forgive me?"
She turned slowly away, and for a second, I thought she would go back to her bedroom, but she didn't. Instead, she came even closer and sat on the opposite end of the couch, and I must admit, I was more than surprised. She usually acted as if I was not here, as if I was a ghost in her home, that she couldn't see, and here we were having an actual conversation.
"Please," tears began to fall run down her face, and everything in me wanted to go to her, to wipe those tears away and hug her. The trouble was I didn't think she would let me, not yet at least.
"Where were you?"
"My dad took me to England, I didn't…. Claire, god, the first time I stepped out of that house was the day before I arrived here."
"What?" She almost paled as her mouth dropped open in shock. "He really is Weston?"
This time I was the one to pale. "How… how do you kno…." I didn't bother to finish that question. She already wouldn't tell me that had happened, and I was ninety-nine percent sure that her knowing just who Weston was must be part of it all.
"I.. he was a bad man Claire, the worse of the worst" there were times when I didn't think he could possibly be crueler, and every time I was proven wrong "He killed people right in front of me before I escaped that house" and not just at the clubhouse. I had watched him kill over a dozen people in those five years. God knows how many others he had killed in cold blood outside of it.
"You escaped?"
Nodding my head, "Kind of, Lizzy, she was the maid, kind of… well she did something, and he got taken to the hospital and then.."
"You came here, you came home?"
Nodding, I found myself unable to form any words as sobs wracked my body. I wanted to fold in on myself. Just curl up in a ball and wish that everything would just disappear. I'd lived with so much pain and hurt for, well basically my entire life. I needed some peace, some lightness.
Claire moved again until there were just two or three inches between us. All I would have to do was raise my arm and I would be able to touch her.
"I won't ever be able to forget what happened, Nala," she was almost sobbing herself. As I rose my eyes to my beautiful friend, her next words filled me with more hope than I'd had in so long "But I can forgive you for leaving, you didn't abandon us, me, I'm sorry for how I have been acting since you came back. I'm really sorry, Nala."
"What happened Claire?"
"I can't" is all she says before launching herself at me, crushing me into the back of the couch.
The warmth of her arms as she pulled me so close made me smile. We were crushed so closely together that I could almost feel her heart racing. We stayed like that, sobbing on the couch until her brother came upstairs.
Last night Claire dragged me down to the bar with her after Luke had starred at us for almost a full three minutes. Shocked that we were hugging and not trying to physically harm one another, I assume.
Thankfully there had been no sign of The Unholy Confessions biker’s insight when we had gone down to the bar below. I guess that was why she has wanted to go and have some drinks in the bar. Because whatever it was that had occurred between her and Pinky, well, it was pretty damn obvious that she did not want to so much as look at him. I wish she would confide in me what it was exactly, but hopefully, with time, that would change.
It felt odd to be around so many people again without someone watching me like a bomb about to explode. Actually, maybe that was not true, both Claire and Luke kept sending me these looks, ones that I could not name. Looks that made me feel like I was still a teenager and not twenty-three years old.
Although we had made up and were friends again, the looks from Claire felt like daggers at times more than anything.
Was she ever really and truly going to be able to move past what had happened?
What she thought I had been the cause of?
I had almost forgotten where I was when I heard Luke speak from behind the bar as I sat at one of the tables. It was almost lunchtime; maybe I would be brave enough to go for a walk on my own today. Maybe.
"I'll just get it, one minute" his voice sounded tight, who was he talking too?
Looking up, I saw a guy standing on the other side of the bar while Luke disappeared into the stock room.
A breath stuck in my throat.
The god damned man himself was just standing there.
My eyes unable to blink, I was just staring. I felt like I had forgotten how to breathe.
Ashby Bronx.
He turned his head and blue eyes connected to green. Neither of us dared to move, or blink.
He looked almost exactly how I had remembered him but not at the same time. His hair was shorter, above his shoulders.
Those eyes of his almost looked full of… pain?
"Here you go," Luke dropped two cases of beer on the side. But he doesn't drink?
Breaking our eye contact instantly, Ashby grabbed the crates of beer and almost ran out of the bar like his ass was on fire.
I guess he hates me too. Asshole.
Looking down at my lap, I could feel traitor tears begin to fill my eyes.
Do too cry over that goddamned man again, Nala. You have shed way too many tears over him. No more tears.
It was clear with that reaction that there was nothing there between us for him anymore
. That broke my heart even more than I thought possible. If I even had one left at all, that is. Doubtful.
"You okay?" Luke came over, dropping down in the chair opposite me. Those eyes that reminded me of his sister kept looking back over his shoulder. As though he expected him to come back at any given moment.
"What do you mean?" Forcing words out was more challenging than it should have been. My voice sounded hoarse like I had indeed been crying. Fuck.
"He comes in here every week and never even so much as looks me in the eye, just slams down his cash, waits for his beer, and then goes."
Is that not what he had just done?
Every week?
He doesn't drink, why was he getting that much beer, and so often?
"You two had a stare off to rival Claire and me at Christmas when Gramps wants to play bingo with his favorite grandkid. Neither of us wants to be his favorite."
A small smile tugged on my lips. "It doesn't matter."
"It was him" It wasn't a question, but a statement. He knew I had been involved with one of the bikers, but I had never said any more than that. He must have known it was with him, with Ashby. I didn't know if I could even if I wanted to. It was too painful.
Nodding my head, I was shocked when he spoke, "He is not a good guy Nala, whoever he is now, he is not the same guy you knew before he left that biker gang."
Left?
Was he not with them anymore?
They were his family. Maybe not all of them by blood, but that is what they had been. How was he no longer with them?
Was it connected to the burnt-out building that used to be their clubhouse? The reason Claire had reacted the way she had to me?
"He, he is dangerous, Nala. He burnt that clubhouse of theirs to the ground. People were still inside of it."
No.
He wouldn't.
My Ash… he isn't your Ash. That man may as well of burnt in that clubhouse because that was not the man who I faced today. What happened?
Silence passed longer than I was comfortable with, and my mouth began to run.
"I was in love with him a long time ago" Saying the words out loud almost broke me. I had never got to say the words to the man himself. That was almost worse than anything.
"Bullshit" That one word pissed me off, and quickly looking up into his eyes, I could see him smiling at me. "You're still in love with him"
Was it that obvious?
No part of me believed that I would ever get over him. Ever.
"He's bad news, Nala," he tapped his fingers on the table. "What went down, well, it fucked a lot of shit up."
"Tell me, tell what happened Luke?"
"I already told you everything I can" Shaking his head. "You are still in love with him, though. You can't lie to me about that."
"I hate him," and he obviously hated me; he'd left me in that house with them. Look at how he just practically ran away just now. "It’s been five years; I wrote to him and he never responded. Not even once."
"You wrote to him?" I know what he was thinking, why didn't I write to them, to his sister. "There is a very fine line between love and hate, and sometimes people make you think you hate them, but in reality, it is just love with a bit of anger and fear mixed in. Nala, if it is meant to be it will find its way. And if not, well that is what god invented booze for"
"When did you become an Agony Aunt?" His cheeks flushed slightly at my comment.
"Dude, I live with my sister!" Laughing, he added, "And now my adoptive sister too, I'm outnumbered. Maybe I should get a dog!"
I don't know what it was about the Rivers siblings, but they always seemed to lighten the mood, give me a slither of happiness exactly when I needed it. Well, eventually, at least, thinking back to Claire's reaction to me coming back.
"Labrador!" I shouted after him as he made his way back to the bar, "I won't accept anything else, and we will call him Bruce!"
"Oh, good god."
He is laughter was bright while my soul stirred like a dirty cocktail.
My mind had always come up with these intense and dialog filled exchanges when, if, we ever ran into each other again.
Nothing could have prepared me for the complete stab of pain in my chest.
No words were exchanged.
Not one single word.
He looked so sad. Like a shell of the man I had once known, loved.
Ashby.
What happened to you?
He came back to the bar the next day.
I had been brave and left the apartment to sit in the cafe across the street, people-watching while Claire was at work. When a blue Dodge Ram pulled up outside of the bar, parking across three spaces. The door almost flew off its hinges before he stepped out of it.
Where was his bike?
Watching him move, I felt my heart breaking all over again.
How could I be this close to him and not touch, feel him?
It felt wrong.
Everything had felt wrong in my life since the day I was dragged out of this town.
Abandoning my half-drunk coffee and uneaten donut I closed the laptop Claire had loaned me shut, finding myself storming towards the bar. Anger fuelling ever step.
If he thinks I am going to just take the silent treatment, then he can think again. We were going to have the god damned intense exchange I deserved. He owed me that.
Walking in through the open door, I found him standing at the bar, with his back to me. Both hands were resting on top of the bar, as his head hung down.
"Ashby?"
Swinging towards me, almost violently my heart dropped a sad beat as our eyes connected once again.
Those eyes roamed from my face down to my legs before shooting back to my eyes as he finally spoke. The first words I heard in five years fall from his lips.
"You're back?"
Unable to find words to respond, I just nodded. My entire being seemed to be in shock.
"You shouldn't have come back here, Nala" his voice sounded so broken, and I wanted to ask him why.
Something bad must have happened to him.
Was it because of me, because I left?
The same reason as Claire?
"I hate…"
Stalking forwards and cutting my words off, my back crashed into the wall by the bar's front door. Mirroring our night at the cabin. Swallowing, I could not take my eyes off of him or say a god damned word. Just starring into his blue eyes with everything I had.
Placing a hand on either side of my face, he almost growled. "You should go back to wherever it is you've been hiding before you rip this town apart any more than you already have."
And then he was gone, again, slamming the door shut behind him. This, I hate this, that is what I wanted to say. I really was falling into complete and utter hate with the only man who I had been in love with.
I wanted to shout something back at his retreating form, but instead, all I could think of is how he had called me Nala and not Peaches. The one word that I had craved to hear him say. Peaches.
And that broke my heart more than anything. More than his lack of response to any of my letters. More than the words that he had just spoken to me.
Pulling open the door, I did just that, shouting at his retreating back "Yeah, well maybe you should have replied to my fucking letters, maybe I wouldn't have if I knew you hated me as much as I hate you!"
Fuck you, Ashby Bronx.
"Whoa, what's going on?" Spinning on my feet, I missed Ashby's reaction to see Luke standing wide-eyed behind me.
"I think I'm going for a run."
"You run?"
"Nope," A dark chuckle fell from my lips, but maybe I should start. The tension in me needed to be released, especially after that exchange.
She was back.
She had been sitting there in yesterday without a care in the word in that god damn bar.
How did she look even more beautiful now?
Slamming my hands down on the stirring wheel, I let out a s
tring of curses.
“Mother fucking, shit, fuck, fuck FUCKKKKKKKKKK!!!”
An old lady passing stopped to glare at me, shaking her walking stick. She was braver than most.
Peaches: MC Romance (The Unholy Confessions Book 1) Page 15