He flinches, almost like I’ve slapped him. I hate that my words have hurt him, but I’m hurting too.
“I don’t think you’re damaged, Angel. But you went through some awful shit. What those men did to you…” He pauses, his eyes pinched shut and his fists clenching around my stomach. Finally, opening his eyes, I see tears in them, which causes my own to eyes to fill. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me. To think of them and what they did to you when I’m with you. It would kill me to see fear in your eyes directed at me.”
Wiggling in his arms until he releases me, I turn in his lap, straddling him so we are facing each other better. Grabbing his face in my hands, I tell him, “I could never look at you in fear. You’re the hero in my story. You always have been. But when I close my eyes, all I see are their evil ones. All I feel are their hands. I need you to replace that. I need your loving hands, your caring eyes. I’ve only felt pleasure one night in my life, and I need to know that I can feel that way again. And I need you to give that to me.”
He stares into my eyes for what feels like forever, but I let him. He needs this just as much as I do. He needs to see that what I’m saying is the truth, and I need to see that he cares enough to look.
Finally, he says, “I’m so sorry, baby. I didn’t even think about how things looked to you. And I can’t promise we’ll get there right away, but I promise we’ll try. Just be patient with me, okay? This will be hard on you, which means it will be hard on me, because I can’t stand to see you hurt in any way. I love you too fucking much.”
His words stun me for a moment. I’ve known he’s loved me for a while now, but I think this is the first time I’ve heard him say the words out loud. It’s the best thing I’ve heard for a long time.
“I love you too,” I say back, pulling his face down to kiss his lips, but before I can deepen the kiss, his phone rings.
Looking down, he sees who’s calling and tenses. “Shit,” he swears, lifting me off his lap before setting me back down on the chair.
“Who is it?” I ask.
Torq looks at me, seeming to debate if he should tell me. “It’s Ice Man,” he says, but instead of answering, he just stares at me.
Crossing my arms, I ask, “Well, aren’t you going to answer it?” This is stupid. Everyone is walking on eggshells when it comes to him and it’s bullshit.
Looking back down at the phone, it stops ringing, but he still stares. “You guys can’t keep this from him forever. He deserves to know what happened,” I say.
His eyes jump up and I swear I see a little bit of anger in them. “He doesn’t deserve to know shit. From what I hear, he fucked up with her. She left in a hurry to get away from him. He did something to make her leave, which means he doesn’t deserve to know what happened. Not like he’d care anyway.”
Standing, I throw fire back at him, not backing down. “I know they had a falling out, but I also know that Ice Man would never hurt her intentionally. He cares about her. And if I tell him what happened, I know he’ll rush up here to be with her.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but we both hold our breath and whip our heads around when we hear Amy’s heart monitor start to beep faster for a minute, and then go back to normal. I just stare at her, praying in my head that this is the moment she opens her eyes, but nothing happens.
And after ten minutes pass, we both slump a little, defeated. Torq grabs my hand, but I don’t look away from Amy when he speaks. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. But we can’t tell Ice Man anything. It’s not our place and you know it,” he says, but I can’t really pay attention to the words because I’m too busy watching my friend. And her hand. Because it just moved again.
“Did you see that?” I whisper.
“See what?” he asks.
“Her hand. It moved,” I say, urging him to look. “Her finger moved. When we were talking about Ice Man.”
Again, this time with both of us watching, she does it again.
“Holy shit,” Torq breathes out, finally seeing what I’ve been telling him.
And suddenly, it all makes sense to me.
“Yesterday when I saw her hand move, we were talking about him. And today, both times, the same thing. It’s like she can hear us, or at least his name, and then something inside of her moves. She’s trying to come back to us and he’s the key,” I say, turning toward him, excitement shining in my eyes.
He looks between me and Amy, disbelief heavy in his eyes. “That’s impossible. I saw her hand move, but that could mean anything.”
Moving closer to her, I ask in a clear voice. “Amy, do you miss Ice Man?”
Her finger moves.
“Are you hearing me, Amy?” I ask, but nothing happens. Not like I thought it would, but I’m trying to prove a point.
Then, I ask, “Do you want me to keep talking about Ice Man?”
This time, her whole hand moves.
“Torq doesn’t believe me, Amy. So I need you to help me prove to him I’m right, because I know deep down somewhere inside of you, you can hear me.”
Nothing happens again. Not a twitch or a spike in her heart rate. But when I say my next words, I hear her heart pick up speed, her whole hand jumps a little, and her eyes start to move behind her eyelids. “I’m going to tell him, Amy. Ice Man is coming.”
Five minutes later, Torq and I are in the private waiting room, my phone in my hand. “I think you’re making a mistake. She doesn’t want him here, otherwise she wouldn’t have left the way she did.” Holding my hand, the one with the phone, he asks, “I’m not saying that you aren’t right, because I think you might be. At least, in her moving whenever you say his name. But think about this, Angel. What if she does wake up when he gets here, and she’s pissed? Will you be able to handle that? Especially if some of that anger is directed toward you?”
He’s just thinking about what’s best for both of us, but he’ll see. I know this is the right thing to do. I just know it.
“Yes. I can live with it. She might hate me, but at least she’ll be awake and alive, instead of in a coma. And right now, that’s all the matters to me.”
Then pulling my hand free, I pull up the number I need before hitting the call button. I should have called him right away, but it’s not too late.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Ice Man
Sitting at the bar, I stare at my phone, debating if I should call her again. But every time I’ve tried calling her since she left, there has been no answer. I want to apologize for what I said and explain to her why we can’t be together, why it would never work. If she would only fucking answer her phone. I’ve left message after message, and even a few text messages. Still, I get nothing. I have no idea what the fuck is going on, but it’s starting to really piss me the fuck off.
Torq has been ignoring me most of the time when I call him too. Like he just did a few minutes ago. But if he would have answered, I’m sure he would have been short with me, or rushed like he is when he does answer. Or he’d talk in a quiet voice like he’s afraid someone will catch him talking to me.
Come to think of it, Bear has even been different as well, but at least he answers his fucking phone every time I call. But there’s something going on with him. He seems tired, and a few times I think he’s been crying or close to it.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Rack asks as he sits down next to me at the bar. Reaching behind it, he pulls out two beers for us.
Taking a long pull from my bottle, I shake my head. “Shit’s fucked up,” I say, leaving it at that.
“Yeah. I agree. What went down was hard to swallow. All that loss, it’s left our club feeling like we aren’t much of anything except a handful of men riding bikes,” he comments, and he’s right. We aren’t much of club right now with our numbers. “That why you’ve been quiet lately?”
I whip my head around toward him, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I’m instantly on the offensive, though I don’t know why. It was a simple question
, but the answer isn’t that simple. Sure, I’m upset about what happened and the brothers we lost. But it’s more about Amy than it is about the club. And that’s fucked in its own right because the club should come before anything, and right now, I feel like I’m caught in the middle of something and I can’t decide which way to go.
“Come on, Prez. It’s no secret you’ve been hard to be around. Everyone walks on eggshells around you because they’re afraid you’ll snap. Either that, or they’re concerned about where your head is at. So what’s goin’ on?”
I open my mouth to tell him he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but I stop myself. He’s right. I’ve been a shitty president lately, not talking to anyone, and when I do, it’s not respectfully. It shouldn’t surprise me that my brothers are questioning if I’m in the right state of mind to lead them. Because I’m not. And I don’t know if I ever will be again.
All the fight leaving me, I turn back toward my bottle on the bar. Peeling the sticker off, I figure I might as well tell him what’s going on with me. He is my VP, and who knows, maybe he can help.
“After Kane died, I was lost. I didn’t know if being in the club was the right thing to do anymore. Or maybe I just wasn’t fit to be president, I don’t know. But that’s the main reason I left for a little while. I needed to get my head on straight; for myself and for my club. Plus, I wanted to help Torq find his woman. It was killing two birds with one stone,” I tell him, afraid to look at him for fear of seeing disappointment in his eyes for the reasons I left.
“I figured that’s what was going on. Losing someone, no matter what position you hold, is hard. It hit me hard too, Prez. But I know you were closer to him than any of us, so I understand why you needed to get away. No one here blames you for what happened to him or for stepping away,” Rack says, but I’m having a hard time believing what he says is true. Now isn’t the time to think about that though, because there’s more.
“When I got to Reno, I met Amy. She was a mess, rightfully so, because of what happened to her friend. Torq was a mess too. They both needed me, and helping them helped me forget what I was trying to run away from. I got closer to them both, thinking of Torq more as a brother than an ally. And Amy became my best friend. Even with all the shit going down with Angel and what I was trying to deal with, she could make me laugh. But there was also an attraction between us that was getting harder and harder to resist. And that’s where the problem is. I don’t want a woman. I’ve been there before and it didn’t turn out pretty. I’m not going to put myself in a position to be fucked over again. I was miserable and angry after it happened the first time, I’m not going to do that a second time. And Amy wasn’t okay with that, so she left. Now she won’t answer my calls and it’s killing me that I hurt her. But this is the way it needs to be. It’s better, for both of us.”
There. Now it’s all out there. No going back now, but it does feel good to finally tell someone what’s been going on inside of my head. I wonder if it will make me less irritable and easier to be around.
Rack is quiet for a minute, probably trying to digest what I’ve told him. But finally, he speaks. “All right, let me get a few things straight. You like Amy. Enjoy hanging out with her. And are attracted to her. Have you fucked her yet?”
My anger jumps, but I try my best to tamp it down. He’s only asking a question, I just don’t like the way he’s talking about this like she’s some club whore. But deep down, I know that’s not how he means it, so I’m going to let it slide. For now. “When we stayed in the hotel after the wedding shit.”
“And it was good?”
My answer is my look as I stare at him like he’s a dumbass, and getting on my nerves with his line of questioning.
“Right. So you’re friends. You like hanging out with her. She’s funny and all around great to be around. And from what I saw, she seems cool with the club shit. And going off of your look, the sex is good too. But you don’t want a relationship with her because you don’t want to risk you guys splitting up and you being miserable. Am I getting it right?”
I stare at him, blanking, but then nod. Where is he going with this? “So you ended your physical relationship, which fucked shit up with your friendship. And now you’re miserable anyway.”
“Get to the point,” I growl, him spelling it out for me is not helping. I already knew all of this and it just pisses me off more hearing it out loud, especially from someone else.
“My point is, you care for her. More than you’re even admitting to yourself. And risking my life by saying this out loud, but I’ll say it anyway; you’re a dumbass. You’re afraid to be with her because if she leaves it’ll hurt. But she left because you told her you didn’t want more when she did, I assume, and now what you feared would happen if you got together happened anyway.”
I don’t even care that he called me a dumbass, because I’m starting to see that I am, thanks to him. Fuck, he’s right.
“What the hell am I gonna do?” I ask, more to myself, but if he wants to answer, I’m all ears.
“You need to fix it. Apologize, grovel, beg for mercy. Anything would be better than doing nothing,” he says, making it sound so fucking simple.
“How am I supposed to do that when she won’t answer my calls?”
“If she don’t answer then maybe you need to tell her in person.”
Standing, I pull him into a hug. “Thanks, brother.” Then running out of the clubhouse, I head toward the truck, calling the airport to book myself the next flight out. I can’t wait the day it would take to drive there. I need to fix this shit now. I’m done feeling like shit without her. The fear of losing her won’t stop me another minute longer. Because let’s be honest; I’d rather have even a day being her man and calling her mine, then none at all. Broken heart be damned.
***
Four hours later, I touch down in Reno. The only flight that I could get had a connecting flight, but the layover wasn’t too long.
Checking my phone, I see a few more missed calls from Angel, one from Torq, and two from Bear. I didn’t answer any of the times they called because for one, they weren’t who I really wanted to talk to. And secondly, I didn’t want them to know that I was on my way in fear that they would let Amy know I was coming and she would find a way not to see me. Heck, maybe she’d fly out somewhere just to avoid me. I have no idea, but I sure as shit wasn’t going to take the chance on it happening.
I also have a few text messages from Bear, so I check those quick.
2:05 p.m.
Bear: You need to call me. We have club business to discuss. And a few other things as well.
I don’t reply because I’ll be seeing him soon, I’m sure. But I’m also a little confused on what it is that he’d want to talk to me about. He said club business. I work with him and his club, but we aren’t in the same. Usually when we talk, it’s just about a job or business. Not club business, because I’m not supposed to be privy to what they have going on, even though I did help a little when I was here before. Who knows, maybe they want some help with something else, I don’t know. I’ll talk to him about it later. After I talk to Amy.
Renting a car at the airport, I begin my drive to her apartment. It’s only about a twenty minute drive, but I make it in about thirteen. Thankfully I saw no cops. Not like I’d stop, not until I got to where I was going.
Parking in front of her building, I take a look around. I don’t see her car anywhere, but that doesn’t mean anything. She could have parked it down the street, or someone is borrowing it, or heck, maybe it’s in the shop getting an oil change.
I take the stairs two at a time, and when I’m standing in front of her door, I take a minute to slow down my racing heart. And to listen to see if I can hear if anyone else is in there with her. Not gonna lie, if there’s a man here with her, I’m going to go insane. Might even kill the fucker.
Not hearing anything, not even the TV, I knock lightly on the door. A minute passes and I knock again, but still, n
o answer. Reaching up, I feel the top of the door frame for the spare key, but it’s not there. Fuck, she must have moved it. Or given it to someone. Dammit, what am I going to do now?
Turning, I see Angel’s door. I know she hasn’t been staying here, but it’s still her place. Something catches my eye on top of her door, so I reach up and grab it. It’s a key. Why would Angel leave a spare key up here, in the same place Amy used to leave hers? Everyone who needs to get inside already has a key to her apartment, so it doesn’t make sense. Unless…
Turning back to Amy’s apartment, I slide the key inside, and turn. I hear the lock disengage and I’m able to turn the knob and open the door. I’m going to have to talk to her about her hiding spots. I didn’t like it when she hid hers above her own door and I especially don’t like it above her friend’s. It’s easier to see there, and anyone who is above six feet can see it.
Stepping inside her apartment, I close the door softly behind me. I don’t want to freak her out if she’s taking a nap or something. I know she gets jumpy when she’s not expecting anyone.
No one is in the living room or the kitchen, that I can tell because it’s all visible from where I’m standing at the front door. Making my way down the hall, I see the bathroom is open and the light is off. And her bedroom door is open, but again, the light is off.
Guess she’s not home. But if she’s not here, where would she be? It’s too early for her to be working. And I don’t think she’d be at the clubhouse, but I won’t completely rule that option out. But if I had to guess, I’d say she’s somewhere with Angel. I just don’t know if they’re at Torq’s house, or elsewhere. Maybe I should call her back. She did try to call me earlier. Perhaps she would be more willing to help me out than I thought.
The Biker's Religion (Rough Riders MC Book 2) Page 19