Now almost everyone crossed the sidewalk to avoid me.
The hate, the death it poured off of me.
Even more so than before.
Before all, hell broke loose in my life.
What fucking letters?
The sound of bikes revving got my body to finally move.
The line of bikes outside of the bar should have been enough to deter me, but no, apparently, when it came to her, I had lost all sense of fucking control.
Nala fucking Reeves.
I needed to get some answers from her.
Before I lost my mind any more than I already had.
Coming down to the bar that evening, I was on edge. My google searches of my dad had come up empty when I had finally been able to type his name into the webpage. Each and every one of the names he used, well at least the ones that I knew of. There was every possibility that he had more alias out there in the world. Hell, at this point, I would not have been surprised to find out he had other families out there too.
Something inside of me felt as though searching for him would be like a beacon, and he would suddenly appear, like batman or something. If he was dead, there was nothing online about it. It was as though neither had existed. His true self or any of the fabricated ones.
I had not seen Claire since she left for work this morning, and I knew that there were still things that she was keeping from me. That she felt as though she couldn’t say. More than just what had happened so many years ago, what she had blamed my disappearance on. It was as though she was avoiding spending much time with me because she didn’t want to break down and tell me. As though being in my sheer presence would break down those walls she had built, keeping those things inside.
Claire Rivers may have been the human lie detector when we were kids, but I was learning that may be because she was able to lie to everyone around her. Knowing that I had to find out what she was keeping from me only caused my head and heart to ache further. Was this what my life was to be surrounded by people who were dishonest? Even if they thought they were doing it to protect me, I didn’t want that. The only thing I wanted now, and forever, was to be surrounded by people who loved and cared about me, genuinely.
One day, and hopefully soon, I was going to get the truth out of her. Every single thing that had happened during my absence. I was sure of that.
With every step descending downstairs, I could both feel and hear that the bar was busy tonight. I knew that they were here, the bikers. I’d heard the rumbles of their bikes arrive an hour or so earlier.
Pushing the door to the bar open, my eyes instantly fell onto their table. Pinky’s eyes followed me as I moved through the bar. Mr. Bronx, Harley, had his cast downwards onto the table. As though he was in pain.
What had happened to him, and why was he back with the crew? He’d had his tattoo blacked out, way before I was on the scene, and I was pretty shocked to see him with them. From what Ashby had said, he didn’t want anything to do them anymore. Time changes all things, so it seems.
I could feel Pinky’s eyes burning holes into my skin, as I turned my back to their table and sat on a stool at the bar. He hadn’t attempted to talk to when I first had back arrived home, when they had been in the bar and now was no different. He was just watching me, along with the others that were sat with him. All of their eyes apart from Harley’s were on me. Maybe I had more of an ‘X’ on my back than I had realized?
Did they blame me for what had seemingly happened when I was gone too?
Luke dropped a bottle of beer onto one of the coasters in front of me, not saying a word as he served other customers in the bar. He had shown me more kindness than anyone since I had come back. Maybe even more than Lizzy had back at the house.
Out of nowhere, an uneasy feeling tingled its way up my spine as I held in a breath. He was here. I could feel him.
“What letters?” A hand slammed down on the bar beside me. The usual rowdy bikers silenced immediately when they realized that he was here. If what I had come up with, with the small information Claire and Luke had given me, then they probably hadn’t seen him for a long time either. The entire bar felt as though it had dropped several degrees just from his sheer presence.
He had come back, and apparently, I was now mute because nothing was coming out of my damned mouth.
“We need to talk,” his voice was low. Missing the hatred that had filled it earlier when he had been here. When he had told me to leave again.
Slowly lifting the bottle of beer to my lips that had sat untouched since Luke had placed it there, my hands felt as though they were shaking.
Now he wanted to talk. Now.
Not when he had first seen me yesterday or earlier today when he had barged in and pinned me against the wall.
All I wanted in this moment was to reach out and touch him, but I couldn’t.
“No, I’m good,” finally, words came out of my mouth before finally taking a sip of that ice-cold beer. I couldn’t look at him right now. I was still angry after earlier, and my failed attempt at running, which lasted all of ten minutes, had just frustrated me even more.
“I wasn’t asking, Peaches” as that last word left his lips, my heart skipped a god damned beat.
“No!” Spinning on my stool to face him, I was pissed. “You don’t get to do that” he couldn’t just use that name, the nickname he had given me, and think I would give him what he wanted. That one single word could destroy me. I could feel my heart cracking.
“Everything alright over here, Nala?” Luke came to stand in front of me, us. Eyes trained on the big tattooed man next to me. The one who I now could not take my eyes off of.
Staying silent, my green eyes moved down from Ashby’s face to his hand on the bar top. Everything in me ached to just reach out and touch him.
No.
“Ashby,” a male voice called, causing both of us to turn.
Pinky was his best friend, god, that felt like a million years ago that I had been in their clubhouse with them all. However, it looked like their relationship had the same fate that Claire’s and mine had taken, even if we were semi-friends once again. There was still a wall there, one that I was going to break down until the last brick was nothing but dust.
One last look at me Ashby blew out a breath through his nose and left. Again. Not saying a single word to anyone in the bar.
Where was the man I had been falling in love with, fell in love with, was he gone? It was him that I missed. Not the man who I had seen in the last two days. This was not my Ashby.
Pinky moved quickly, coming to a stand beside me, almost awkwardly.
“He fucked up, huh?” His eyes crinkled at the sides as he half-smiled.
“What happened between all of you?”
“Yeah, babe, not my story to tell, sorry” and with that, he turned and went back to his table along with the rest of his crew, stopping just before he reached his seat. Turing his head slightly back in my direction “What happened to you, where were you Nala?”
Now it was my turn to turn away from him. “I need a shot,” I told Luke, who was standing there with his mouth hanging slightly open.
He didn’t speak. Instead, he just handed me a shot glass and a bottle of tequila. A brand new, unopened bottle of El Destilador Blanco Tequila.
Unwilling to say anything, I just poured myself a shot and downed it.
And another.
And another.
And another.
Realizing that he would not be getting any kind of response, Luke had gone back to serving his paying customers while I had an anger fuelled pity party for one.
How dare he come in here and demand to talk to me, and yet when I needed him, when I had begged for him, I got absolutely nothing.
Not one god damned letter.
‘What letters?’
The way he had said that didn’t sit right with me.
I was hammered.
I had never been this drunk, ever, and knowing that I was, in
fact drunk somehow made my thoughts blur all the more. Usually, you just think you’re fine. I think that’s how it is meant to go. Right? Well, I wasn’t fine. I had a hole in my heart the shape of a fucking jerk who the rest of the world knew as Ashby Bronx.
From the looks of things, he didn’t go by Stag anymore, not now that he didn’t seem to be a part of The Unholy Confessions.
Why the hell did I come back here? Fucking hell.
“Lizzy, you were so god damned wrong” in every way.
Standing up on drunken legs, I walked, no, I stumbled over to the bikers in the corner and the several tables that they had taken over. There was this air of sadness surrounding them all. What was up with that?
Pointing at the small one I met a long time ago, the very same day I had met him, “I need his number Pinky” my words were slurring slightly. Maybe I should just go to bed but damn him, he was under my skin. Everything in me regretted being how I had been when he was here. I should have talked to him. I should not have let him leave, ever.
“You’re wasted,” a small smirk on was his lips as the bigger guy next to him. I couldn’t remember his name, but I know Ashby had introduced us a long time ago. I remembered the big, frizzy hair. Well, he laughed out loud. Rude.
“Now, Pinky!”
“I don’t...” One look from Mr. Bronx, or I guess they called him Harley, he sagged his shoulders “fuck it fine, but he doesn’t answer any of us anymore anyway, and it’s normally turned off, so don’t get your hopes up, Peaches.”
I wanted to tell him off for using that name. The nickname that he had given me, but I was too drunk to even bother.
Grabbing a sharpie from one of the other guys, he scribbled the digits down on a napkin that had a stain on the corner. I didn’t want to imagine what had caused that brown stain.
Pulling it from his tattooed fingers, I stormed outside and dropped down on to the bench. I needed some air, and maybe some water. Screw it; maybe I should just drink some more Tequila and not stop until I pass out.
Luke was unashamedly watching me through the open doorway, uncaring that I saw him. He was as protective of me as he was with Claire. Like the big brother, I never had. Although technically with the way my life was, there was every possibility that I had one out in the world somewhere.
Pulling out the cell phone Luke had given me; I began to sober up. Maybe it was the fresh air, or maybe it was because, after five years, I finally had his number in my possession again. Those digits were mocking me almost as I stared down at the Napkin in my hand. Memorising those digits, as though I was afraid, they would disappear.
Punching the numbers into the digital keypad, anxiety pooled in every fibre of my body.
Should I do this?
Yes.
The question was though, do I call or to text?
Call fuck it.
It just rang and rang and rang, though.
No answer.
No answer and no voicemail.
Pinky was right; there was no hope that he was going to answer my calls. I also knew that he was not about to call me back either, not a hope in hell.
Text it is then, asshole.
My fingers moved across the screen, rewriting the words over and over again. Unable to hit send, I just stared at the words. Those numbers and words were teasing me.
Nala- How many shots of tequila is too much?
He responded almost instantly. Had he watched my call, not knowing that it was me?
Ashby- Are you drunk?
Did he know that it was me?
Who else would it be?
I didn’t want to think about that.
Nala- Yes. Your fault.
Ashby- Are you still at the bar?
Nala- No.
Technically not a lie. I was outside of it. Semantics.
Ashby- Have you changed your mind, about talking?
Had I changed my mind?
Every part of me wanted to be with him, but talking? Telling him about what had happened.
How would I even do that?
Nala- I want pancakes.
Ashby- My pancakes or diner pancakes?
A memory if being in the clubhouse kitchen at two o’clock in the morning caught a breath in the back of my throat.
I replied with shaky fingers as Luke stepped out of the bar, sitting down beside me on the bench.
“Nala?”
Unable to look at him and blowing out a shaky breath, I couldn't handle the judgment in his eyes. “Yeah?”
“Are you okay?”
No.
But I will be.
“Yeah,” answering him, I hit send before I could stop myself.
Nala- Which are quicker?
Ashby- Where are you, Peaches?
Pulling open the Uber app, completely ignoring Luke, I booked a car to pick me up before texting him back. I’d probably had too much alcohol to be doing this but fuck it.
Nala- Meet me.
Ashby- Where?
Nala- Our spot.
Please remember.
Please.
I felt sick on the entire ride, and it had nothing to do with the volume of alcohol swimming in my system.
The car dropped me off around the corner from where I had told him to meet me. Unable to move to that spot, I found myself frozen on the sidewalk.
Come on, Nala, you can do this.
Go to him.
This is what you have been waiting for, for the last five years.
This is what you have been dreaming of.
Blowing out another breath, I did just that. Walking around the corner my breath caught as my eyes fell onto a large body, there he was, waiting for me.
My feet seemed to be frozen on the spot again.
He was just sat there, holding something in his lap. Eyes cast down.
Ashby didn't even know I was there, yet he looked a mixed between angry and sad already. There was so much sadness surrounding his very being.
Taking a deep breath and feeling the tequila haze leaving my body, sobering me up slightly, I took one single step forward.
Sensing me, Ashby looked up suddenly, scanning the park until his eyes landed on me.
Swallowing my pride, I began to walk towards him, not brave enough to look him in the eye as I sat down on the bench next to him.
The very same one where it all began so many years ago. I wonder, what would my life have been like if I hadn't stopped here that night?
If he hadn't come looking for me?
What would have happened if Claire had not taken us to the tattoo parlor in the first place on that fateful day?
So many things wouldn't have happened, but at the same time, even worse things could have happened instead. Not knowing him was something I would one hundred percent class as worse. It was unfathomable.
We sat in complete and utter silence until he dropped what he had been holding onto my lap. A warmth spread over my thighs. He had brought me pancakes, from the diner, in a takeout container. Bacon too. Precisely what I had ordered that first night. How did he remember something like that and yet treat me this way? He hadn't said one word and then the coolness yesterday, the downright hostilness today. My brain and heart felt like they had been put in a blender.
"Pinky gave me your number," I mumbled through a mouthful of food. God, these pancakes were good. No matter what, he said. His were better though, my heart could not take him cooking for me. Not right now.
"Figured, since you didn't bother for the last five years," acid-laced his voice. My eyes watched his fists clench several times on his own lap. The urge to reach out was overwhelming, but I stopped myself each, and every time it felt like that very urge was going to win.
"Ashby," closing the lid on the food, I had suddenly lost any appetite I'd had. "I left my at cell phone in your room," he had to have found after I'd been taken. God, my most prized possession, had been left behind as well. My grandmother's snow globe, "and Dad, well, he didn't give me a chance to do anything. I did
n't want to go!"
"It's been five years."
"I wrote to you for months, years. You're the one who didn't write back or come, so fuck you, Ashby, fuck you!!" My anger was at an all-time high, I needed to reign myself in, before I said something I would regret. "What was I meant to do?"
Peaches: MC Romance (The Unholy Confessions Book 1) Page 16