I watched him walk out, but I didn’t follow him.
I didn’t go screaming and crying and begging him to stay. His mind was clearly made up. He thought he was doing the right thing.
And as much as I wanted to be angry, to be devastated, I respected him for it.
That didn’t mean I was accepting him leaving.
It didn’t mean I was finished with him, in any way. Musically or personally.
And I knew, I knew he wasn’t finished with me, either.
I lay back on my bed as the tears dripped silently down my face. I placed my hands on my stomach and closed my eyes as I heard the front door close downstairs.
My body still hummed from his touch. My heart was beating too fast, and I took a deep, calming breath, to slow it down.
Seth was mine. That was all there was to it.
He was mine now, and I was never letting him go.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Elle
The next day, Flynn pulled up to the church and let me out. He didn’t come inside with me; I’d already told him I wanted him to wait outside.
I’d asked the band to come together for an emergency meeting. No film crew. I’d told Dylan, expressly, Just Dirty. And he knew exactly what that meant.
If you care about me, please do this for me, I’d cried to him over the phone, late last night, after Seth left. Because there was a part of me that was afraid they wouldn’t do this for me. Get them to come, I’d pretty much begged him. I need you all to be there.
And Dylan told me, They’ll be there, Elle.
I could tell, by the vehicles in the lot, that they were. When I walked into the church, they were all waiting for me: the innermost inner circle.
Jesse, Dylan and Zane, along with Brody, Maggie and Jude.
Jessa wasn’t here yet, but she’d texted to let me know she was on her way.
Seth wasn’t here yet, either. I’d asked him to come a little later than the others. I’d begged him to come, and after some initial refusal, he’d agreed. But I needed to talk to Dirty first. I needed to get a sense of how they were all going to handle this, without him here to catch the brunt of it if this went very badly.
Maggie herded everyone together into the various old pews and chairs we had strewn around. She passed out coffee. She gave me a hug. Even though she couldn’t know what I was about to say, it felt good.
They all sat, dead quiet, looking at me. I took a deep breath, stuffing down the nausea that kept trying to creep up, then told them what I’d come here to say.
“Seth is in my life—to stay.”
Silence.
Everyone just sat there, looking at me.
Maggie glanced at Brody. No one else moved, let alone spoke.
Finally, Jesse crossed his arms over his chest. “What does that mean?”
“It means she wants him in the band,” Zane translated. And he wasn’t wrong about that.
“I’m more than willing to work with him on the side if that can’t happen,” I told them. “That’s not a threat. I’m not leaving Dirty. I just want you all to know how serious I am about this. About him.” I met Jesse’s eyes, briefly. He looked back at me, his expression dark, unreadable. “I don’t know everything that happened between Seth and Jessa…” I glanced at Brody. “But I know it’s not what you all seem to think. I know that much. And I know him.”
Silence again.
At least everyone seemed to be digesting what I’d said.
I wasn’t sure if any of them, other than Dylan and Jude, had figured out that my feelings for Seth went beyond professionalism and friendship. But I wasn’t exactly ready to say, I’ve fallen in love with him, and he’s knocked me up, so deal with it.
“Well, I do know what happened,” Brody said, finally breaking the silence. “And maybe you don’t know Seth as well as you think you do, Elle.”
I opened my mouth to respond to that, not even sure what I was going to say, when Jude cut in. “You don’t know everything.” He was speaking to Brody, not me, and everyone turned to look at him.
Jude sighed.
Then he took a long look up at the ceiling, like he really didn’t want to say what he was going to say next. Like he couldn’t quite believe he was going to say it.
“Seth owed a lot of money to the MC,” he growled out. “And you do not owe money to the MC.” He looked at each one of us in turn, as he let his words sink in. “In the end, I needed him out of the band because of the heat coming down on him.”
Jesus. Not what I wanted to hear.
“Drug money?” Dylan asked, and he didn’t sound surprised. None of us could be, exactly.
Really, it made sense.
“We’re talking about the Kings,” Zane said. “What other kind is there?”
Jude shot Zane a look. “We are not talking about the Kings. At least, not just the Kings. Seth owed some other guys, some seriously bad guys, some serious money. I don’t have to explain to you all what that means. It’s common fucking knowledge you don’t ever wanna owe shit to men like that. And you all know that’s all I’m gonna say about that.”
“How much money?” Zane pressed.
Jude sighed again. “He was snorting it faster than he could make it. I covered his debts for a while, and he looked out for Jessa for me in return. Because I asked him to. Told him to, actually.”
“You did what?” Clearly, that did surprise Jesse. Actually, he looked totally fucking pissed.
It surprised me, too.
“I warned him,” Jude said. “Threatened to cut him off, did cut him off, and he turned elsewhere for his drugs. Then I found out how much he owed around, and I knew he wouldn’t be paying me back anytime soon. So I went to my brother. Piper took care of it. That’s all you’ve gotta know.” He shook his head, like he was kinda wishing he hadn’t even said that much. “Fucking meanwhile, Seth told me what he saw—Jessa and her girlfriends at parties, with some of these piece-of-shit guys.”
“Sinners,” Brody said, putting two-and-two together, just as I did.
The Sinners were a rival club of the Kings, notoriously dangerous, and if Seth was getting drugs from bikers in Vancouver who weren’t Kings… Jude wouldn’t say so, but that had to be it. Anyone who read the news knew the Sinners were deeply involved in the drug trade on the west coast.
“Fucking Roni,” Brody growled under his breath.
“It’s got nothing to do with Roni,” Jude snapped right back.
Well, shit… Even Jesse appeared taken aback by Jude’s tone.
I had no idea what Roni, a girlfriend of Jessa’s, had to do with any of this, other than the fact that we all knew she had a thing for bikers and had dated Jude’s brother, Piper, a long time ago? But why Jude would bite Brody’s head off for mentioning her, I couldn’t say.
Unless Jude was sweet on her or something?
God, how deep did this rabbit hole go…?
I didn’t even want to know.
“Please just tell me there are no bikers after Seth now,” I said.
“No,” Jude said. “Lucky for him, he’s in Piper’s good books these days.”
Well thank fuck.
“I can’t believe you didn’t fucking tell me about this,” Jesse said. He was shaking his head at Jude, and clearly, he was not happy.
“Jessa was starting to come to our parties,” Jude replied, “and we couldn’t stop her. But she knew when she did, she’d get kicked out. She wasn’t welcome. That meant she was gonna find somewhere else to go, to get what she wanted. And she did. She started going with her friends to other parties, hanging with a different crowd, ones I couldn’t be at to keep an eye on her. I couldn’t babysit your little sister. And where were you?” He looked around at each of us.
No one spoke.
“We all had other shit to do,” Jude said. “But Seth was there. He was there for Jessa in a way none of us could be. So I told him to keep an eye on her. I’m not saying it ended well. I’m not saying it was the best thing.
But at the time it was the best I could do. She was going to those parties and getting high whether you or I liked it or not. While she was there with Seth, I knew she was at least safe. I kept him supplied, and she was getting her shit from him, from the Kings, so I knew it was clean. She was safer than any other girl at any of those parties.”
“Yeah,” Brody growled. “Safe from everyone but Seth.”
Brody and Jude looked at each other across the room, and I could feel the tension smashing between them.
“Who the fuck do you think Seth Brothers is?” Jude demanded. “You’ve totally demonized the guy because Jessa came crying to you with some sob story that has less to do with him than it does with her, and you were so blinded by your infatuation with her, you couldn’t even see it.”
Brody rose to his feet. At first, he looked stricken… But then he got pissed, quick. “Is that how you fucking see it?”
Jude took a breath and seemed to bite his tongue. Maybe he knew he’d crossed a line there.
Maybe infatuation was a fair word to describe Brody’s attachment to Jessa back then. But now she was carrying his child. Their relationship went far deeper than infatuation. Jude was taking a real risk challenging Brody on that topic.
And maybe Brody knew that.
Maybe he was putting it together; that if Jude was sticking his neck out for Seth, there was a damn good reason.
“Look,” Jude said, relenting a bit and looking weary of it all, “I knew along the way Seth was crushing on Jessa, and the fact that I didn’t do shit about it was my biggest mistake. I get that. But you need to get over it. She’s over it. She’s got your kid in her belly. It’s time to move on, brother.”
We were all silent. The tension in the room was fucking stifling.
My eyes met Dylan’s, then Zane’s. They said nothing, but I could see what they were thinking. It was right there, on their faces.
They were thinking that Jude was right.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Seth
I pulled into the church parking lot right on the tail of a black Escalade that I knew was Brody’s. I scanned the lot; two Harleys. That would be Brody and Jude. Which meant…
I pulled in next to the Escalade and when the driver’s door opened, some security guy got out. As I got out of my rental car, he opened the back door of the SUV, and Jessa Mayes stepped out. Or rather, flopped out.
Her pregnant belly had her wobbling on her feet, a little top-heavy. I lunged to catch her, but her driver stopped me, catching her by the arm himself.
“Thank you,” she said, her eyes widening when she saw me.
“Ma’am?” the guy asked, sizing me up. His hand was pressed flat to my chest, and I decided it was a good idea to take a step back.
“I’m fine,” Jessa said, and the driver backed off, letting her arm go. “Can you give us a minute?”
The guy looked me over again. I tried to look as harmless as I felt, and shoved my hands in the pockets of my jeans for good measure, so he’d know I wasn’t planning to feel her up. Finally, he nodded and faded away.
Jessa looked at me; our eyes met.
She looked beautiful.
She’d put on weight, obviously, and somehow it made her even sexier. She was curvier and her cheeks were round and rosy, like apples. She had that pregnant woman glow about her; pregnancy suited her.
I was speechless.
She smiled, tentatively, and smoothed a hand over her belly. “Brody,” she said, though it was unnecessary. There was no question in my mind whose baby she was carrying.
“Jessa…” I said softly. “I’m… I’m so happy for you.”
I was.
She nodded. “Me too.” Then her smile faltered. “I didn’t know you’d be here. But… I’m really glad you are.” She glanced over at the closed door to the church, at the three security guys hanging out front, smoking and occasionally glancing our way. Then she looked at me and whispered, “Do you… Do you think… you can ever forgive me?” Her big brown eyes blinked up at me with hope and a tenderness that had to be due to her pregnancy, because it was far more than I deserved.
“Forgive you… for what?”
Her cheeks flushed even rosier. She was blushing? “Well… you were pretty mad at me the last time we spoke. You know, at that cafe? Back in February? I said some things that were… out of line.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly, “I was a little mad. But you weren’t out of line. I was mad at myself. The way I remember it, you were mad at me, too.”
“I was,” she admitted, but she didn’t look proud of it, or happy about it.
And now she wanted me to forgive her?
“I don’t blame you, Jessa,” I said, carefully. “For anything. I guess you could say… my perception has changed, over time.” I shrugged. “A broken nose, and getting fired from the band you love, for the second time, can do that.”
“I’m… so sorry about that,” she said, and I believed her. “I didn’t know Brody hit you. But… you didn’t fight back.” She gazed up at me searchingly, gently shaking her head. “I kind of wished you had. I mean, not fought Brody, just… fought to stay with the band. Just a little.” She bit her lip and shrugged a little. “Maybe that would’ve helped me to accept, sooner, that you belong here as much as I do.”
I rocked back on my heels, stunned. I stared at her, but I couldn’t seem to formulate a response.
You belong here as much as I do…
“I hear… you’ve been playing with Elle?” she asked me.
“Yeah.”
“And… you’re seeing her? Maggie kind of mentioned…”
“I love her,” I said. It just came out.
It was the truth.
Tears gleamed suddenly in Jessa’s eyes. They looked like happy tears. “I’m happy for you too, Seth.” Then she hugged me, so suddenly it surprised me.
I put my arms around her, gently, as her belly pressed into me, surprisingly solid.
When we drew apart, she laughed a little, sniffling. “Sorry. I don’t mean to cry. I was already a crier, and now the pregnancy…”
“It’s okay, Jessa.” I was hardly gonna judge. She was pregnant; hormones were abound.
“I think I know what you mean about a perception change…” She laid her hands on her belly. “This baby has given me a lot of clarity.” She took a breath, then went on. “The thing was… facing you meant facing myself. My regrets. All the things I’d fucked up. I was afraid… Afraid that Brody would reject me, and I couldn’t handle that. I wanted to blame you for that, but it wasn’t you.” She bit her lip, considering. “I know I told you that it wasn’t my fault; your drug addiction, and how you got kicked out of the band… But I always felt partly to blame.”
“You’re not to blame, Jessa. You were never to blame.”
She blinked back the tears and her face lit up a little. “Then you have forgiven me.”
“Yeah,” I said, realizing it was true. “I guess I have.”
Maybe I’d told myself, over the years, that there was nothing to forgive her for. Maybe I’d wanted to believe that was true. But the truth was, I’d been angry with her, whether that was fair or not. And I didn’t want to be angry anymore.
She nodded, absorbing that. Then she said, “Care to escort a giant pregnant lady into church? I really need to sit down. My feet feel like they’re twice the size of my shoes.”
“I’d be honored.”
I gave her my elbow and she took hold, gently. I guided her up the steps to the church, past her driver, who watched us in silence.
When we walked into the church, Brody shot immediately to his feet.
Jessa’s hand dropped from my elbow, but everyone had already seen it. I looked straight up the aisle at Elle, sitting there in the center of the group.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Brody strode over to steer Jessa away from me. To my surprise, he was talking to Jessa, not me.
“Like hell I shouldn’t,” Jessa said. “Elle invited me.
”
“Brody,” Maggie said, “she needs to hear this.” Maggie took Jessa by the hand and drew her into a chair, fussing with her dress, helping her get comfortable.
“Thank you. I’m fine,” Jessa said, as Brody joined in the fussing. He pulled a chair up right next to hers to sit. “Hear what?” she asked Maggie.
“I was just telling everyone,” Jude said, looking directly at me, “about how you hung out with Jessa back when she was sixteen, looked out for her, because I told you to.”
Jessa turned to look at me. Clearly, she had no idea about this. Maybe no one else knew either, until moments ago.
“That wasn’t why,” I said, as they all stared at me. My voice sounded small in the cavernous church. I was still standing near the entrance. But Elle was watching me, and I forced myself to walk up the aisle toward where they all sat, gathered loosely in front of the stage. The stage where I’d last played with Dirty. Where Brody broke my nose and called me a rapist.
He was watching me, too. And maybe he wasn’t gonna break my nose again; not in front of Jessa. But I was pretty sure I could guess what he thought I was gonna say next.
“You think I’m gonna say it’s because I was in love with her,” I said. “I wasn’t.” I stood there in front of them all and told the truth. I could only hope they believed it. “Some biker had taken a liking to her. One of the Sinners. Really rough dude. And I was scared for her.” I sighed and decided to say it, as gently as I could. “I knew she was sniffing around for drugs. She’d been asking me for pot. And I knew this guy would’ve given it to her in a heartbeat.” Not only that, but who the fuck knew what else that guy would’ve given to her, done to her. “So I went to Jude, let him think it was his idea.”
Jude crossed his tree-trunk arms over his chest. He didn’t like that; that I’d played him.
“Jude supplied me with pot,” I said. “With whatever I asked for. And I knew I could trust that. I stuck close to Jessa from then on. I gave her shit I knew was clean, and kept an eye on her.”
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