A Love So Hard (Aces High MC - Charleston Book 2)

by Christine Michelle

  “What if she didn’t though?” Toby still seemed a bit skeptical.

  “Come on, Toby. Be smarter than that. You see how she looks at him, how she’s always followed him around. Are you telling me she has no hopes that they’ll be together in the future?” Toby shook his head. He couldn’t deny what we were all perfectly capable of seeing with our own two eyes. “Some women will do just about anything to make sure their dream – even if its delusional – will come true.”

  “I guess. I see your point.”

  “Come on, let’s go deal with this shit so I can have a beer. I thought this was going to be a good day.”

  “Me too,” Toby muttered as he stood to head to his bike.

  “It’ll all work out, T.”

  “I don’t know how,” he lamented. “My two best friends are fighting now and everyone’s mad at my sister.” He shook his head then put on his helmet. “Let’s get this over with. I’m not looking forward to it.”

  It didn’t take long to ride to the house from the clubhouse, and the moment we walked in the door Ever was there spilling her tears for Lucy’s benefit. Anyone watching would know it was typical girl bullshit. It just fired up my anger all over again to think she was trying to manipulate my wife. “You know better than to mess with a man’s…” My words were abruptly cut off when Lucy stood and smacked me across the face. She had never once, in all our years together, laid her hands on me in anger. The fact that she was an abuse victim before made certain we almost never even raised our voices to one another over the years, and now this?

  “Don’t you fuckin’ dare come in here screaming your shit in my daughter’s face when you know fuck all about what just happened to her today.” Again, I was taken aback by my wife’s reaction, because she wasn’t one to cuss, and she’d just dropped the f-word like it was she was saying it was time for sweet tea. Granted, she’d added a filthy word or two to her vocabulary over the years of hanging out at the club and with bikers, but she was usually drunk or in bed and naked with me if she ever used them.

  “Oh I know what…” I started to say as the shock of her slap and her words began to wear back down to anger. I’d been waiting all this time for Ever to cause a rift between Lucy and me, and it seemed she’d finally won out on that front too. I was cut off by Lucy’s hand rising again. This time it wasn’t to hit me; it was to shut me up.

  “We aren’t at the clubhouse. We are at home. You will listen before you pretend to know something simply because a brother – a prospect actually – told you so.” Lucy turned her angry eyes on my son then. “Where in the hell were you today? Why weren’t you there to stop this from happening?”

  “I sure as fuck couldn’t be in the girl’s bathroom where she was running her mouth. What do you want?”

  “You stupid little shit! I raised you better than this. I know I did. That girl has had your protection and love since before I was too messed up to give it to her, and you think this is something she would do? You think she has a conniving bone in her damn body? Dig deep, son of mine, and tell me you believe that she has personally set out to destroy every bullshit relationship your friend has attempted to start with a girl. Jay runs through girls like water runs through the creek out back, and that’s no fault of your sister’s. It has more to do with the fact that he can’t keep his dick in his pants for every new shiny thing that pops up to catch his attention. He gets that from his father,” she spat out knowing exactly where I would end up going with my argument about Ever and her mother. She knew I couldn’t contradict her train of thought if I wanted to use that. Fuck. She was too damn smart, and also pissing me right the hell off.

  “Do you have any idea what your best friend…”? She moved her eyes from Toby to me then. “What your future club brother, said to her today in front of everyone?”

  “Yeah, he chewed her out for running her mouth to his girlfriend,” Toby informed her.

  “Were you there?”

  He shook his head just enough to indicate no as he answered sheepishly. “I was in the locker room.”

  “I don’t even want to know why,” Lucy scoffed forcing another quick laugh from me, because I’d heard exactly why earlier at the clubhouse. “Well, let me set the two of you straight, because what he said had that girl so upset she ran all the way home from school.” That made me hesitate and my hackles rise.

  “Joker’s territory is between here and there.” The Jokers were a new MC trying to move in on territory in the Charleston area. As a club, we were still working out how to deal with them. So far, they hadn’t been much of a problem for us, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t the typical animosity between two MCs sharing the same general area. There had been threats, and the kids were aware of how dangerous they could be. While we had damn near ended all of our illegal business dealings the Jokers were all about running anything that could earn them cash and they didn’t tolerate anyone or anything that got in the way of that. I didn’t get time to process the danger she’d put herself in, because Lucy then went on to tell us exactly what Jay had supposedly said to my daughter in front of the entire school assembly. Suddenly, I didn’t know who to be angrier with. These fuckin’ kids were far more brutal than the shit Lucy and I had to deal with in our day. Lucky for me, I could deal with both of them.

  Ever didn’t want me bringing Jay to the house to hash it all out. That was fine, but I still couldn’t let her slide for what she did, no matter the fact that Jay was an asshole. He’d get his own punishment for the bullshit things he said in public. By the time Ever ran upstairs Toby had slammed the door on his way out. I wasn’t sure if he was going to go lay into Jay for pulling the shit he did, or commiserate with him over his sister’s betrayal. I was confused about how I felt, to be honest.

  I knew she’d have it rough at school after a scene like that, but at the same time, she’d brought it on herself by doing what she did. I turned to see disappointment all over Lucy’s face and it hurt because it had been so long since I’d seen anything like it. “Luce,” her name was a whisper, and when I reached out for her she pulled back.

  “No, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to think you can play the sweet southern gentleman with me again and that all will be forgiven. That is your daughter up there,” she pointed toward the stairs. “When are you going to start acting like it?”

  “I know she’s mine. I went and had the damn DNA test to prove it, remember?”

  She scoffed at me. “Great, you’re her sperm donor. If this had been Anna would you have automatically jumped to conclusions the way you did?”

  A kick to my gut told me she wasn’t wrong. “Anna is different,” I finally commented.

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s yours,” I roared at her.

  “So is Ever,” Lucy stated simply in a quiet voice that was the complete opposite of the bellowing words I’d just launched at her.

  “No, she’s not. Ever is not your blood. She spent the first eight years of her life learning God knows what lessons from her lying whore of a mother. We still don’t know how that will affect her.”

  Lucy laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Really? You’re going with the evil seed theory? You’re a damn fool, CJ, and you’re going to drive your daughter away the same way my family did to me. Are you ready for that? Are you ready for her to have nothing to do with you ever again? I’m not. I don’t want her to leave here and never speak to me again because you couldn’t bring yourself to be a father to her. I love that girl like she came from me too. Why can’t you? She’s yours after all!”

  “What does any of that have to do with her actions?”

  “You really think she’s capable of that?”

  “Lucy, people are capable of a lot of shitty things. Maybe you forgot that I lost out on the first pregnancy you had along with the first three years of my son’s life because of jealous assholes who played games with our lives. Then because the man you loved, adored, and called daddy lied to you and me both. I be
t you didn’t see that coming either, did you?”

  Lucy stopped short and really looked at me then. “I see where you would take a hard stand against someone who would do those things,” she agreed. “That someone isn’t your daughter though.”

  It was my turn to scoff. “There were witnesses to what she said to the girl.” Lucy didn’t believe it. I could see it in her angry demeanor.

  “Your daughter is too smart for there to have been witnesses if she was going to attempt something like that, but my daughter lives too much in her own heart to ever stoop to those levels to begin with.” Lucy turned from me then. “It’s a shame you don’t know your own daughter well enough to have said that from the beginning.” With that she walked away completely disappointed in me for the first time in a whole bunch of years. I swallowed thickly, but I knew I wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t be. Jay swore there were other people who heard this all go down. While I was still going to rip him a new one for how he handled it, I wasn’t about to let Ever’s lies bowl me over the way she managed with Lucy.

  I couldn’t stand to be in the house with Lucy mad at me and Ever sulking upstairs in a mess of her own making. I turned and headed back out the door and back to the clubhouse.

  I was about three shots of Jim Beam Black Label down and a few beers deep by the time I finally tuned back into the conversation going on around. I was sitting with PeeWee, Crow, Sandman, and Phoenix – a nomad just passing through. We had a mean game of poker going, or at least I pretended we did, as I really didn’t find myself giving many fucks about the hand I held. I tossed down another stack of bills and called PeeWee. Even drunk I knew when he was bluffing. His tubby face turned the slightest shade of pink and I knew he had a shitty hand. I didn’t have much better, but fuck it. I didn’t care about much at the moment.

  “Didn’t get a chance to talk about what went down earlier before you took off with Toby,” Crow finally mentioned before he kicked back his beer bottle and took a hard pull from it.

  “Fuck!” I grunted the word out and watched as PeeWee threw his shitty hand down, grumbling about me being a cheating bastard. I tipped my chin up at him before scooping my winnings close and throwing my own shitty hand down. It beat his, but only just.

  “You need to vent?” Crow asked while he picked once more at the festering wound I’d been trying to drink away.

  “Lucy thinks she’s a fuckin’ saint. I know better. I still remember why I lost Luce for so long. Remember why I didn’t have Toby. Remember why Ever was even here to begin with. She shouldn’t be here. Shoulda never fucked her cunt of a mother and definitely shoulda never fucked her raw,” I grunted. Sandman and Phoenix both looked at one another and then stood.

  “We’re heading out,” they both said at once. Phoenix turned to leave, but Sandman stood there for a moment and took a good hard look at me like he wanted to say something, but he just shook his head, nabbed what was left of his beer and took off for the other side of the room and the whores that were congregated there.

  “Always knew she would turn out just like her mother,” PeeWee announced. Fuckin’ no loyalty having cunts!”

  “That’s the damn truth. Hell, I knew it when you first brought the little bitch ‘round. She had that vacant look. Can’t fix that kind of broken in a person. Was only time before she fucked someone over. Just glad Jay’s young enough it won’t really affect him.”

  “Could though,” I mumbled. “Lucy went running that first time just because of some lies Stiff told.”

  “Just like the lies your daughter fuckin’ told,” Crow agreed nodding his head.

  “Or maybe,” a very familiar feminine voice called from just behind me, “just like Jay’s lying, jealous girlfriend told. Never occurred to any of you brainless idiots that maybe she’s the evil twat in this particular story did it?” She glared in my direction and then through looks of complete disgust at my drinking partners. “Are you going to set them straight? Tell them not to speak about your daughter like that? Anything?”

  “We all know she’s just waiting for him to notice her in a different way. What makes you so damn sure she got tired of waiting? What makes you so fucking sure that she isn’t acting like her mother or like the whores who you ran you off all those years ago? Obviously, it’s in her blood.”

  “You’re in her blood too, and I’ve been her mother just as long as that other woman was. I may not have carried that child in my belly like I did our other two, but she’s just as much mine as they are. I know her. I know our daughter, and there is no way she would ever stoop to something like that. She wants people to love her on their own terms. Why do you think she’s been so patiently waiting on you all these years?”

  My head snapped back as if she’d landed a physical blow. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you still don’t treat her like one of the other kids. When was the last time you told her you loved her?” I couldn’t answer that because if I really thought about it, and I didn’t want to do that right now, I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever said those words to Ever. “When was the last time you told Anna?”

  “About twenty minutes ago when she called to see if she could stay the night with her friend,” he admitted.

  “Funny how you can answer one of those question so quickly, but the other one not at all, and you’re surprised by what I said? You need to apologize to her and make things right. Time is running out. She’s almost an adult, and you’re going to lose the chance to have any kind of relationship with that girl.” Lucy turned as if to leave the room. “She’s the one suffering for it now, but one day you’re going to look back, the view will be clear, and you’re going to see that it didn’t have to be like this. When you’re looking back though, it’ll be too late.”

  “Go home, Luce.” I told her, unable to think on it any longer. I didn’t want to hear about how I’d failed as a father. It was the one thing I’d always looked forward to being and to doing right. My parents had both screwed up in so many ways that I just knew, once I was with Lucy, nothing could keep us from being the best damn parents to our children. The problem was that Ever wasn’t ours. She was just mine, and I couldn’t get past the fact that I had a kid that didn’t belong to my wife. I had been stuck in that mindset so damn long that I missed the fact that Ever was actually more Lucy’s than she’d ever been mine, and that was all my fault. I couldn’t think about that though, because it would mean I’d failed miserably. “And make sure Ever ain’t brought around here any time soon either,” I tacked on in the end because my drunken pride was speaking for me then. Yet another regret I’d have to add to the list long enough I could have built a house with it by now.

  “Yeah, she ain’t welcome,” PeeWee added beside me, then cackled with glee with before tipping out of his chair.

  That’s when something hit me. “I’m leaving,” she called out, “but hear me now. You are staying, because you aren’t welcome to come home until you change your goddamn attitude!” Lucy screamed the words at me and then stomped out of the clubhouse. I had a few too many drinks in me to think clear enough to know I should probably go after her. Hell, it took me until she was already out the door to realize what had hit me. A bag. There was a bag of my shit spilling out onto the dirty clubroom floor. Every bit of liquor I’d just guzzled down suddenly wasn’t sitting right in my stomach any longer. I moved to get up and barely made it to the nearest trash can where I puked up my liquid rage-party for one and then I turned and grabbed the bag Crow was handing me.

  He’d taken care to stuff all my belongings back inside before clapping a hand down hard on my shoulder. “She’ll figure it out, man. Women are always the last to pick up on that shit. Easily manipulated.”

  Chapter 22

  (Lucy – age 39, Double-D – age 42)

  I spent the next few months in a constant flux of emotions. I was angry with my husband, my son, and the entire brotherhood they both represented. My heart was breaking for Ever as she attempted to trud
ge through each day only to have more hatefulness and hurt piled on top of what was already there. Aside from her one girlfriend, the only person she had to turn to was me. Toby had attempted to mend fences with her, but since he hadn’t spoken up for her in the beginning it wasn’t really happening. I couldn’t blame her for it either even when I wanted my children to be best friends again like they had been for the previous eight years.

  CJ apologized for his misstep at the clubhouse, for the drunken scene that I’d been loathe to have considering how many club whores had been there to see me basically throwing him out. I hadn’t slept for the three nights it took him to finally make it home. If he was to be believed, Merc insisted that Double-D was holed up in his room alone since the moment I left. His only companion was a bottle of Jim Beam he ordered up every now and again. Merc had assured me he had gone in there himself and made certain that D was eating too, but he was just barely doing that.

  “He brought this on himself,” I’d informed the man.

  “I know he did, darlin’. Lily wants you to bring Ever over so she can have a talk with her. She’s missing her girl already. For the record, she doesn’t believe a word that girl said. Hell, she came to the clubhouse and announced that the skanky bitch Jay was seeing was no better than a club whore and hopped jock cock so much she had to finally swap brands to baby bikers.”

  Jay had apparently been thoroughly embarrassed as that was done in front of his club brothers, but Lily had simply smiled at him and asked how he thought Ever felt about what he’d had to say about her in front their entire high school. Merc explained that Lily wasn’t really talking to her own son at the moment, and it was putting a strain on their family too.