by Penny Dee
I held her close and got lost in the warmth of her sweet body covering mine. It had taken a while, but we were finally where we belonged.
Together.
HONEY
“So what was it like this morning when you woke up in his arms?” Autumn asked.
We were climbing the stairs to my apartment. I was carrying two bags of groceries while Autumn was breaking into the box of pepperoni pizza she was holding.
“I didn’t hang around long enough to find out,” I said, ashamed.
“You mean you didn’t stay?”
“I had an appointment. I had to leave early.”
She stopped on the step in front of me, the slice of pizza in her hand paused halfway to her mouth. “What are you talking about? We’ve been at the mall all day.”
“It felt weird, okay. I had to get out of there.”
“Weird?” Her eyes searched my face and I could see the moment she realized the truth. “Are you in love with him?”
I swallowed thickly. Yes, I was in love with him.
I sighed and walked past her, ignoring her look of disbelief as I made my way to the front door. I shoved the key in, hating the hot prickle of shame creeping up my spine and flushing across the nape of my neck, as I pushed the door open.
“So you told him you had an appointment and bailed on him?” she said, following me inside.
I dumped the groceries on the counter. “Please don’t, Autumn, I already feel bad enough.”
And I did. It felt like I had abandoned him.
She sighed. “So, you’re not together. But do you want to be?”
She put the open box of pizza on the table and moved to the kitchen to get some plates.
“No.” I glanced away, afraid she would see the uncertainty on my face, as I put the cold groceries in the refrigerator.
Autumn sounded surprise. “No?”
“Caleb is amazing.” Amazing? Hell, my heart craved him. “But we’re complete opposites. I don’t fit into his world.”
I thought about my first night at the clubhouse and the girl passed out at the base of the stripper pole, and the larger lady bent over the pool table as an older biker slapped into her from behind. I thought about Caleb’s father and how his fourteen-year old son had watched his murder unfold before him. I thought of going to the bathroom at the clubhouse and walking in on a yellow-haired girl giving a biker a blowjob. I thought about Tiffani and the string of other scantily dressed women who were eager to warm the bed of a King.
And then I thought of Caleb and my chest squeezed with longing because I wished our worlds were somehow compatible.
“His world?” Autumn raised her eyebrow.
I shook my head and grabbed two plates, taking them to the dining table and sitting down. “The club life. The parties. The women.”
“But from what you’ve told me, he hasn’t been with any women since . . . well, you know . . . since you guys made a baby.”
“Yeah, but what about afterwards? When our baby is here and life settles into boring, domesticated routines of baby naps, feeding times, and diapers. What happens when my boobs spring a leak and I’m exhausted from sleep and I don’t feel like making love? Have you seen those girls who hang around the clubhouse? They’re eager. They’re willing. They’re a temptation. And after Charlie . . . ” I shook my head. “I don’t want it, Autumn. I don’t want that life for me or the baby.”
I put a piece of pizza on my plate but left it there. Autumn was making me feel even more guilty about the night before in the cabin and my appetite was gone.
Since leaving the cabin I’d been consumed with guilt. I’d broken my own rule. The sex had been great. I mean, the sex had been really great. And after I’d fallen asleep in his arms, he’d woken me up with the most tender of caresses in the middle of the night. Moonlight had streamed into the room, casting an ethereal light into the room where we made love without words, our bodies speaking the only language we needed. He had taken everything from me, and I had given it to him willingly, lost in the sensation of his body and what it did to me. But the spell had been broken with the harsh morning light. Already feeling the onset of guilt and regret, I’d fled the cabin, lying about an appointment.
Like a coward.
Why? Because we’d crossed the line.
One I’d been too terrified to cross by myself.
And I needed to process what I’d done and what it meant.
Oh, I knew I was in love with him. That was probably the only thing I did know.
But what I was going to do about it was a complete fucking mystery.
“What’s the point in starting something with someone I don’t see a future with?” I said sadly.
“The way I see it, you’ve already started something. You just can’t see it.”
“I can’t be with him, Autumn.”
“Then why did you make love to him last night?”
“I shouldn’t have done it,” I said quietly. “It was a selfish, stupid mistake.”
The creak of the floorboard turned both our heads, and to my horror I saw Caleb standing in the doorway to his bedroom.
Oh, Jesus. I didn’t know he was home. I thought he was still out at the cabin.
Heat rushed up my spine and spread across my face and neck.
He looked at me. He was still. His face as dark as thunder.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were back,” I said, alarmed, wondering how much he’d heard. I stood up with a rush. Guilt rolled through me as I watched him shove his arms into his cut and grab his keys off the kitchen counter. “We got pizza, are you hungry?”
Caleb’s face was set. His eyes were hard and his jaw tight. He smashed on his aviators and brushed past us to the front door. “I’m done.”
Without another word, he ripped open the door and slammed it behind him.
Autumn and I both jumped.
“How much do you think he heard?” I asked Autumn.
“Based on that exit . . . pretty much everything about how unsuitable he is and nothing about you being in love with him. ”
I grimaced and slowly sat back down again. “He’s going to completely misunderstand.”
My best friend gave me a sympathetic look. “Then tell him, Honey. Let him know how you feel.”
She was right, I needed to tell him, but when I rang him it went to voicemail. So I texted him, asking him to please call me. I wasn’t going to tell him I was in love with him over a text message. He needed to hear me tell him face to face. And then we could talk. But he never replied.
Autumn did her best to try and comfort me, but it was a losing battle, because no matter how you looked at it, I’d just pushed Caleb away.
After she left, I rang him again, but like the first call, it went to voicemail. He was ignoring me and I couldn’t blame him. I could only imagine how hurt he felt.
It got late and I tried to sleep, but the minutes ticked over with excruciating slowness, and lying in the dark, I couldn’t help but listen for Caleb’s bike. But it never came. Sometime after 3 AM I fell into a restless sleep only to wake up with the sun breaking through the dawn. I pulled back the covers and tiptoed to the living room, hoping he’d snuck in after I’d fallen asleep. But his blankets were still folded up on an empty couch.
Unease began to tingle at base of my spine.
Where was he? Was he okay?
I checked my phone, but there were no messages.
Before going to bed I had sent him a second message.
Me: I’m sorry. Please call me.
But he hadn’t replied.
Feeling drained, I showered and forced down some breakfast. Now that I was in my second trimester, the nausea was only minor and I was able to keep food down. So I brewed some tea and fixed some toast, and tried to ignore the growing anxiety in my chest. I told myself I had nothing to worry about. We had Bump’s sonogram at nine, and there was no way he would miss it.
But by eight o’clock, my worry replaced reasoning.
<
br /> Had he been in an accident?
Was he lying hurt somewhere?
Was he with another woman?
No. Caleb wouldn’t do that.
He told me he wouldn’t. Gave his word.
I rang him again. And again there was no answer.
So I sent him another text message, even though by then I didn’t expect an answer because I was convinced something was terribly wrong.
I could feel it.
I went to my sonogram appointment, saw our baby, and was relieved when the doctor confirmed everything was progressing nicely.
“Do you want to know the sex?” he asked.
I thought about it.
Did I?
Did Caleb?
No, he didn’t want to know. Because if he did he would have been there.
When I left the doctor’s office, I stopped by the Kings of Mayhem clubhouse to see if anyone had heard from him.
By then, worry had morphed into anger.
My guilt into hurt.
And when I pulled up beside to a familiar Harley sitting next to a pink Mercedes in the clubhouse parking lot, a prickly anxiety began to tingle at the base of my spine again.
Crossing the compound, my knees went weak. And when Tiffani walked out of the clubhouse, barely dressed in her almost non-existent Daisy Dukes and looking like the cat that ate the cream, I began to feel like I might throw up my breakfast right there on the pavement. Her heavily made-up eyes swept up and down me, and she smirked.
“Sorry, Honey, but you can’t keep a good man down,” she said as she walked past me, swaying her hips.
Before I could reply, Caleb appeared at the door and my skin went cold. I glanced at Tiffani and back to him. For a moment my heart stopped beating and my lungs emptied of air as I realized what had happened. Last night, while I was lying awake, unable to sleep because I was consumed with guilt and worry, Caleb had been here, balls deep in a blonde girl with double Ds and a smug smile. One look at him and I knew it was true.
Seeing the look on my face, Tiffani laughed and slunk away. I turned back to Caleb. Tears stabbed at my eyes and heat flared in my cheeks. I wanted to do so many things in that moment. Cry. Yell. Throw something. Cry. Ask him why he picked her over us. Cry.
Instead, I pulled the sonogram out of my handbag and smashed it to his chest.
“You missed it,” I said. Then turning away, stormed off.
Realizing what I had given him and what he had missed, he growled and chased after me.
“Honey, wait!”
But I wasn’t about to listen to anything he had to say. If he wanted to fuck her, then she could have him. I was right to think we were worlds apart. I was right to think things could never work between us. I ran to my car and climbed in, fumbling with the keys in the ignition. I tried to close the door, but Caleb’s big hand clamped down on it and wrenched it wider.
“Will you stop!” he begged.
“Leave me alone! I’ve got nothing to say to you.” I looked away from him because tears stabbed at my eyes and it would be a cold day in hell before I let him see them. “You clearly have more important things to do.”
“I’m sorry I missed the appointment.”
“Don’t bother.” I grabbed the door and tried to close it, but again Caleb stopped it.
“Please just tell me, is everything okay with the baby?”
I narrowed my eyes and snatched the sonogram out of his hands. “What baby?”
Then, yanking the door closed, I gunned the engine and sped out of the compound.
CALEB
“You’re a fucking idiot,” came the voice behind me. I swung around. Cade was walking toward me.
“Don’t start,” I warned, turning away because my head was pounding like a motherfucker and I didn’t want a verbal beat down from my older brother.
But Cade wasn’t about to let it go.
“What the fuck are you up to?”
“I fucked up. I get it.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, I get it. I fucked up.”
“Then where are you going?” he asked as I headed toward the clubhouse.
“I’m hungover. I’m tired. I’m going back to bed.”
He swung me around. “That woman you just reduced to tears is carrying your baby. You go after her, brother, and you make it right.”
I shrugged him off. “She hates me.”
“So?”
“So . . . she doesn’t want anything to do with me right now.” I ran a frustrated hand through my hair. “Don’t you think I would go after her if I thought she wanted me to? Believe me when I say, she doesn’t.”
Cade nodded toward Tiffani who was leaning up against her car smoking a cigarette. “Tell me she’s not involved.”
I turned away, ashamed, and headed toward the clubhouse.
“You fucking douche,” Cade muttered.
“It’s not what you think.”
“No?”
I swung back to face him. “No!”
“So you didn’t fuck that little skank while your pregnant girlfriend was at home wondering where the fuck you were.”
He looked at me like I was scum. And even though it wasn’t what he thought, he was right. I was a fucking douche. I had let Honey down.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I yelled. “And if you want to know why, go and fucking ask her. She has a whole list of reasons why I’m so fucking unsuitable. Yeah, she’s carrying my baby, but it turns out she doesn’t think that much of me after all. Apparently, I’m biker scum. Our worlds don’t gel. I’m a nice guy, but fucking hell, I’m not good enough to be with her.”
But Cade wasn’t buying any of it. He shook his head and gave me a dark look. “Stop being such a fucking pussy and go make it right.”
Turning, he walked away, leaving me in early morning sunlight feeling like the biggest piece of shit in the world.
A simple apology wasn’t going to do it.
So I rode into town for flowers. I knew she liked sunflowers, so I headed into the little village near her home on Chamomile Street, where she said a flower shop carried them all year round.
As I was leaving, I saw Indy walking across the road toward me. Heavily pregnant, she was carrying a paper bag of baguettes and groceries from the bakery behind her.
“Hey!” she called out.
I pulled down my aviators and inwardly groaned. This was going to hurt. Indy didn’t tolerate bad manners.
“Hey,” I mumbled.
Just as I predicted, she let me have it.
“You asshole! What the hell is wrong with you? I just got off the phone with Cade and he told me what you did.” She hit me with one of the baguettes. “What’s gotten into you? Have you lost your fucking mind?”
I squinted in the bright sunlight. “You’re assaulting me with bread, and I’m the crazy one?”
She paused mid-hit. “Yes, you are! Because to do what you did you must be fucking crazy.”
She hit me again.
“I get it. I’m scum.”
“You’re not scum, Caleb. What you did was scummy.”
“It’s not what you think.”
Again, she whacked me with her bread bat.
“It’s always what we think. You guys think you can just say that and we’ll believe you—”
“I didn’t fuck her,” I interrupted her.
She stopped the bread assault and looked mildly surprised. “You didn’t?”
“No. For fuck’s sake, I might be an asshole but I’m not that much of one.”
“Then, what?”
“I missed the sonogram. I promised her I would be there every step of the way but I missed the sonogram because I was so fucking pissed at her for what I overheard. I let her down, okay, but I didn’t let her down by fucking someone else.”
“So you didn’t get balls deep in some club skank?”
“No.” I frowned. Why did everyone think I was such a douche? “Tiffani tried. She will always try. When she didn�
�t get any interest out of me, she spent the night with Grunt. He’s still passed out at the clubhouse. Ask him yourself.”
“Then why did you let Honey think you did?”
“Because if she thinks I am capable of doing that, then what’s the point in trying to convince her otherwise? She’s already made her mind up about me. I told her I wasn’t going to be with anyone. Yet she thinks the first chance I get, I go running in the direction of another woman. If that’s what she thinks of me—”
“Jesus Christ, Caleb, stop being such a fucking pussy,” she snapped, echoing her husband’s words of less than an hour ago. “You go and see your girl, and you let her know that you didn’t do anything with Tiffani.”
“She doesn’t want to hear it, Indy. She doesn’t see me as anything more than the sperm donor of her baby.”
Indy rolled her eyes. “When did you become such a fucking princess?”
“Harsh,” I replied.
My hangover was really ramping up in the heat of the day. My head pounded and I had to squint because everything was fuzzy.
“Oh, fuck . . .” Indy’s eyes suddenly went round. She paused and then grabbed the front of my t-shirt. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no…”
“What?” I asked, a little confused.
She looked at me and then to the ground. My eyes followed and saw the puddle of water on the pavement.
“My water just broke!”
It took a moment for her words to register.
Then they hit me like a punch to the face.
“Fuck!” I had no idea what to do. “I’ll call an ambulance.”
But Indy didn’t hear me. She was bent over with pain and let out an almighty cry.
I dropped the sunflowers and searched for my phone, patting my cut and hoping like hell I hadn’t left it in the clubhouse.
Indy bent over in pain again. “Oh God!”
My phone was in the back pocket of my jeans and I quickly dialed 911.
“There’s no time . . . this baby . . . it’s coming . . .”
“Don’t say that!” I looked at her, alarmed. “I’m calling an ambulance.”