In the days that followed, I spent a lot of time weighing what Andi said in my mind. Damn her, she was always so smart and reasonable, I couldn’t help but consider things from a different point of view, even though my gut wanted to continue to hate Grey for deceiving me. The more I thought about it, the easier it was to imagine things from his perspective. Instead of hating the little boy of the past for not losing his father that day, I began to feel compassion for him for seeing a man killed in front of him and knowing his uncle had done it. The memory I had of the expression on young Grey’s face, which I remembered so well despite it being so many years ago, looked less curious and detached, and more shocked and afraid. I recognized the wide, wild-eyed stare that locked on mine as one of fear and dread. And now, fifteen years later, two children that had been caught up in a world of violence finally found connection and solace in each other’s eyes.
Grey, I had finally come to realize, was not what I had assumed him to be. As a child, I believed him to be just a curious witness to my family tragedy. As an adult, I had taken for granted that a man who was a member of a motorcycle club would be just another unreliable man who would use me and let me down. Yet this man, whose hard, rough exterior would lead most people to believe he could not be trusted, was in truth the kindest, most responsible man I had ever met.
I thought back to what Andi had said that day at the restaurant. If I wanted him back, I needed to go to him.
Which, I decided, was exactly what I was going to do.
20
Grey
It had been over two weeks since Seton had ordered me out of her life, and I was doing a piss-poor job of getting over it. I had tried to drown my sorrows in booze, then in pussy, but nothing worked. I was in such an angry mood that I noticed people starting to shy away from me. Club whores who used to come and flirt with me now eyed me silently and moved away when I walked by.
It was for the best, I knew. Hell, it was what I wanted. I was no good for Seton. This life was no good for her, either. Club life was dangerous, and she deserved better. I knew deep down that the reason I’d had such a hard time telling her about my uncle and her father was because she would be right to be pissed off that a Stone King was responsible for Clayton Greenlee’s death. Her anger at that, and her fury that I had kept it from her, were blessings in disguise. The look of hatred in her eyes, the memory of the pain I had caused her, were what I had needed to make good on my vow to stay the fuck away from her forever.
But goddamn if it didn’t hurt like hell.
I tried to focus on club business to keep Seton out of my mind, since whiskey and women weren’t holding my interest. I had decided to send word to the new president of the Cannibals, Skull, requesting a meet-up at a secure location. The time had come to meet him face to face, to try to read what was in his mind.
I planned to take five men in with me, plus a handful of others, including the prospects, to mount a guard outside the warehouse where the meet was. Both Cal and Frankenstein were getting handier with their guns, and the possibility of an upcoming war made it more of a priority to test them and make sure they had the balls and the guts for the kinds of work they’d be facing as Stone Kings. I was in the chapel making arrangements with Trig, who would be on crutches for another week or so, when Levi knocked at the door and stuck his head in.
“Boss, there’s someone here to see you,” he grunted.
“Who is it?” I tossed back, irritated at being distracted from our work.
“The woman you…” He stopped, then tried again. “That woman.”
No other words were necessary. I knew who he was talking about, of course.
There was no other woman.
“Fuck,” I bit out. “Goddamn it, son of a bitch.” I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, trying to ignore the fact that my heartbeat had just doubled.
“You want me to leave you two alone?” Trig asked, cocking a brow.
“No,” I retorted. “I don’t want to meet her in here. I’ll go out to the bar. You keep working on the plans.”
I strode outside, determined to keep this as short as possible. Out in the bar, Seton was waiting for me, and when she saw me her face broke into a smile that almost shattered my heart. She looked fucking beautiful. She had on a light pink sundress. I had never seen her in a dress before, and the combination of sexy innocence felt like it was going to end me. Her chestnut hair hung down to her shoulders in soft waves. Her hands were clasped in front of her nervously.
“Hi,” she said softly as I walked up.
“Hi,” I said back, as coldly as I could muster. Her face fell a bit, but she drew herself up a little taller and tried again.
“Could we talk for a few minute?” she asked.
“So talk,” I retorted, shrugging my shoulders. I crossed my arms in a show of impatience.
Seton’s brow furrowed in confusion and I could see her falter. My heart literally ached as I watched her. It was all I could do not to take her in my arms and whisper that I was sorry, that I loved her, that I wanted nothing more than to be with her. But I couldn’t do it. If I really loved Seton, there was only once choice. And I was making it.
She looked around the bar nervously and said in an almost-whisper: “Could we talk somewhere more private?”
“Fine.” I turned on my heel, not waiting for her to follow, and stomped back to one of the apartments we keep available for unexpected late nights and the occasional visitor. I walked through the door and threw myself on the couch by the window, not waiting for her to sit. “What?” I demanded.
“Grey…” she pleaded. “Why are you being so mean?”
“We’re done, Seton,” I barked at her. “You know it, and I know it. Your kicking me out was just the final straw. You shouldn’t have come here.”
“But Grey.” Her eyes began to fill with tears, and I could see her trying not to let them spill over. “I… I came to tell you I’m sorry for that night.” She sat down on the edge a chair adjacent to me. “I was just so shocked at what you’d told me. I was upset, and didn’t know what I was saying.” She leaned forward, her eyes imploring me. “I know it’s not your fault, what happened to my father. And I know it isn’t the club’s fault, either.” She shook her head. “It was just one man, who had an affair with one woman, and my father got caught in the middle.” She looked at me now, her eyes shining. “I remember you, you know. I remember your eyes from that day, looking into mine. Yours was the one face in the crowd I saw. That I still see, all these years later. At the time I hated you for being a witness to it. But now… now I think it makes me feel better that you were there. Greyson,” she whispered. “I love you.”
It was as though someone had taken hold of my insides and was ripping them out of my body. I had never said I love you to anybody in my life except my mother, and I ached in a way I could never have imagined with the need to say it to her now. Seton was everything I had ever wanted in a woman, and I hadn’t even known it until now, when it was too late.
But then again, it had always been too late.
“No,” I snarled. I stood up and began to pace. “No. Get out, Seton.”
“But Greyson,” she cried, her voice determined. “I know you feel something for me. I know it! You can’t just deny everything that’s happened between us.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I yelled before I could stop myself. “It’s not safe for you here! This life, it’s not for you, Seton. You’re not cut out for it.”
Seton blinked, and her eyes went wide for a moment. Slowly, she stood, and in a voice that was almost impossibly calm, she said: “Don’t you think I should be the one to decide that?”
“No! I shouted. “Fuck, Seton. You have no idea what you’re even saying! You’ve been to college! You should be, I don’t know — working in an important office somewhere, married to a guy who wears a suit to work! You’re not some club member’s old lady!”
“I wouldn’t be ‘some club member’s old lady’,” she remark
ed, daring a tiny, hopeful smile. “I’d be the president’s old lady.”
“Goddamnit, no!” I thundered. Her face fell. “No, Seton.” I motioned at the door. “Get out. Now.”
Her eyes filled again, this time with angry tears. Furiously, she brushed them away with the back of her hand. “You hypocrite!” she cried. “How dare you!” I blinked at her in surprise, and she nodded. “That’s right! You’re a fucking hypocrite! When I came to you and asked you to kick Cal out of the club, you told me I needed to let him make his own decisions. That he was an adult. And yet you! First you lie to me about your uncle and don’t give me the chance to decide for myself whether it mattered, and now you tell me the truth, but you don’t give me the chance to decide for myself whether I want to be with you. Why the fuck is that your decision and not mine?”
Seton strode forward towards me, fury in her eyes. She stopped not a foot from me, locking her gaze onto mine. “Tell me you don’t love me!” she challenged. “Say it, if it’s true! But don’t fucking lie to me! I deserve better than that!”
I couldn’t meet her gaze. I wanted to say it, but I just couldn’t.
I looked away. “Just go, Seton,” I said quietly.
“You fucking coward,” she whispered. A single sob escaped her. Anger welled up inside me, but I pushed it down, knowing that she was trying to provoke me into doing something, anything. I stood there, rigid and silent, as she turned and fled, sobbing, from the room.
It was done. All over. The hardest fucking thing I had ever done in my life. I sank back down on the couch and reached into my pocket for a cigarette. I noticed my hands were shaking.
I knew that from now on, the eyes that would haunt me wouldn’t be those of the little girl who had just lost her father. They would be those of the woman whose heart I had just shattered.
21
Seton
If it had hurt badly to push Grey away, it hurt a million times worse to be pushed away by him.
After I left the clubhouse, I drove aimlessly and recklessly for what seemed like hours, crying and screaming and pounding my fists on the steering wheel. When I ran a stop sign and almost hit an old lady trying to cross the street, I pulled over in a strange neighborhood and cried some more. I cried until my throat was parched and my voice was reduced to a raspy, laryngitic scrape.
It was dark by the time I got home. Carly came in sometime later and found me on the couch, staring into space with the lights off. She was so alarmed by how I looked that she threatened to call Cal, but I made her promise not to. The thought of him potentially mentioning this to Grey was more than I could bear.
In the days and weeks that followed, Carly played nursemaid. She made sure I ate, forced me to bathe once in a while, and called Andi in for backup. They would prop me up in front of the TV and I’d pretend to watch movies with them as they passed containers of ice cream or popcorn back and forth.
I noticed they studiously avoided romantic comedies.
In the end, though, life has a way of forcing you back into it. I don’t know if it’s true what they say, that time heals all wounds, but at least time creates scabs over the wounds. Otherwise we’d bleed to death. So, one day, about six weeks after Grey had pushed me out of his life, I got up, brushed my teeth, put on clothes, and sat down at the computer to look at employment openings.
Like I had told Grey during better times, I knew I needed to move on from bartending and start thinking about the future. I had been throwing around the possibility of cooking for a living. Enough people had told me that I was a good cook that it had planted a seed in my mind. And cooking was something I had always truly enjoyed. I contemplated going to cooking school, but I wasn’t sure that being in a classroom was what I wanted right now. In the end, I found a listing for a place in town that was advertising for a culinary apprentice. I jumped at the chance to apply, and when I actually got called for an interview I could hardly believe my luck.
I showed up at The Mockingbird nervous as hell and expecting to be shot down and possibly even laughed out of the restaurant. I told myself that this was just a practice interview and that I needed to have low expectations, but as soon as I stepped through the doorway, I was struck by an almost desperate desire to work there. It was an elegant yet simple place, with a polished zinc bar reminiscent of pictures I had seen of Parisian restaurants. There were two separate areas, a dining room that looked to be where they served the more elegant fare, and the bar area, which I could tell from taking a peek at the menu served a scaled down, simpler selection of the food in the restaurant. It was beautiful without being overstated, and somehow, I could feel myself being comfortable and at home here.
The restaurant wasn’t open for business for the day yet, so it was fairly deserted up front except for a woman rolling silverware into cloth napkins. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down and walked through.
“Hi, I’m here to see Jillian Kramer?” I said. “I have an interview.”
“Oh, sure!” the woman said, standing up from her work. “Hold on a sec, and I’ll get her for you.” She motioned toward some tables by the front windows. “You can go have a seat over there. That’s where she usually does interviews.”
A few minutes later, a woman wearing a crisp white T-shirt and dark pants came out. She was tall, with short, salt and pepper hair that looked prematurely gray. She wore no makeup, and no jewelry except for a single gold band on her ring finger.
“Hi, I’m Jillian,” she said with a wide smile, extending her hand. I took it, and her shake was firm and no-nonsense.
“Hi, I’m Seton,” I smiled back. I was grateful that she at least seemed approachable. Maybe I’d manage not to be so nervous that I made a fool of myself.
She explained the concept of the restaurant, which was primarily about the best locally-sourced food available, great service, and modest pricing without affecting quality. It was modeled on the French brasserie concept, to serve simple but well-prepared food. I nodded as she explained aspects of the menu, and asked a few questions about preparations of some of the dishes so she would see that I wasn’t a total idiot. She took me on a tour of the restaurant and the kitchen, and introduced me to a few of the people busily chopping, mixing and prepping. As we went around, she asked me questions about my preferred ways of preparing certain cuts of meat and fish, and meals I’d found memorable and why.
When we came back to the table by the window, she motioned for me to sit down again. She leaned forward, her chin resting on her fist, elbows on the table. “So, Seton. I see you’ve waited tables, and that you’ve been a bartender, but you’ve never worked in a kitchen. What led you to apply to this job?”
“That’s true,” I admitted. “I’ve been cooking practically my whole life, though.” I took a deep breath and decided to tell the truth. “My mom wasn’t around much, so I ended up cooking for my little brother a lot. I’m entirely self-taught, but I guess it’s always been an obsession of mine. Cooking is what I do to relax. To meditate, in a way. I love when everything falls away and it’s just about the food, and the preparing of it.” I thought for a moment, then continued. “I’m at a turning point in my life right now. I went to college for a while a few years ago, but I couldn’t figure out what it was I wanted to do. A few months ago, my brother said something to me that made a light bulb go off in my head, and since then, I slowly began to realize that the reason I hadn’t gone back to college was because what I wanted to do for a living was cook. I considered going to cooking school, but honestly, I’m more interested in learning on the job. This apprenticeship position is the first one I’ve applied for, and it’s my first choice. If you don’t hire me, of course, I’ll apply other places, but I love what I’ve seen here, and I really hope you will.”
Jillian leaned back and grinned at me. “I like that answer. Frankly, Seton, your lack of experience put me off quite a bit at first, but I thought I’d take a chance and interview you anyway. I figured either it would be a total waste of my time
, or you’d be something special. I think it’s the latter. You have the job. When can you start?”
I resisted the urge to jump up and do a happy dance, but just barely. “Any time,” I said with a grin that almost split my face open. “Absolutely any time.”
I walked out of that restaurant feeling happy for the first time in what seemed like forever. It was almost eery how foreign of an emotion it seemed, like walking off of a plane into a completely different climate from the one you had left behind. The ache of losing Grey was still there, and I knew it would come rushing back, just like it always did. But, for just a moment, it was amazing to feel almost normal again.
On the way home, I stopped by the side of the road and texted Andi and Cal my good news. Andi’s response was almost immediate, and she sent me a congratulations text filled with all sorts of party emojis. Cal texted back a few minutes later with a simple, “Congrats sis!!” He stopped over unexpectedly later that night, while Carly and I were celebrating with a bottle of wine, and told me that the vote on him getting patched into the club would be soon, and that he thought he would get in. I told him I was happy for him, and changed the subject before he could see my mood change. Cal had been worried about me lately, but unlike Andi and Carly, I hadn’t told him what was wrong. I didn’t want for him to know that Grey and I had been together. I knew it would just make it worse to watch Cal awkwardly try not to talk about him or the club for fear it would upset me.
But that night, after Carly had been picked up by the guy she was seeing to go out clubbing, Cal stuck around. We sat on the couch and chatted about my new job, avoiding discussing the MC as much as possible. As we talked he grew increasingly quiet, and I finally got frustrated enough to ask him what was up.
STONE KINGS MOTORCYCLE CLUB: The Complete Collection Page 15