Without Forever: Babylon MC Book 5

by James, Victoria L.

  Closing my eyes for a second, I blew all the breath from my lungs out before opening them again and locking my gaze with his.

  “I promise.” Even this, I would give him.

  His shoulders relaxed, his body somehow moving closer as he scanned mine one more time and nodded softly. His thoughts had drifted, as though he was agreeing with something inside his own mind that only he could hear.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. “And I’ll do my best to make sure I stick around.”

  “You better.” I touched his bottom lip with my thumb and stroked gently. “I don’t want to do this without you.”

  I didn’t mean just the baby or the pregnancy. I meant everything. Living. Breathing. Hurting. My life had really only started the day I met him.

  A soft smile graced his lips. “You know what’s funny? I always thought I’d be okay with dying young. I expected it most of the time. In prison, I longed for it. I had nothing to keep me from sacrificing my life for the sake of the club… not until you. And now I have these crazy visions of us sitting out there on the porch, watching the world go by, our hair gray, our children old, all our mistakes behind us and our good times and memories outweighing the bad. I’ve never wanted to grow old like I do now,” he whispered, leaning closer until his lips were only an inch away from mine. “So, don’t you worry, darlin’. I’ll cling onto life with dirty, oil-filled fingers for you—you and all the lives we can create together.”

  I closed the distance between us, my lips attacking his like the kiss was the only thing that would keep me alive. It didn’t escape me that I was the only person who would ever hear anything close to words like this coming from this formidable man’s mouth, and I cherished every last syllable. If I weren’t pregnant, if for some reason my intuition was wrong and I’d lost my mind, I knew that it was what I wanted. I could see this future between us now, and I was craving that. Suddenly, Drew as a father was a huge turn on.

  “I wanna grow old and gray with you, too.”

  “Let’s make it happen. You and me.”

  Chapter Five

  DREW

  Harry laughed from his rocking chair on the porch. The sun highlighted every weather-worn crease on his skin, and his eyes twinkled with mischief as he let his cigarette dangle from his thin lips.

  Pete was sitting on the top step, throwing a ball to some kid I could only hear, not see, and Pete’s head came back whenever his laughter shook his entire body.

  Deeks, Jedd, Slater, Kenny, and Tate were there, each of them lingering and passing by with mutterings, quips, and sarcastic comments being thrown around in the air like an endless game of word ping pong. The yard smelled of warmth—a ridiculous thing to register, but it did. Whoever had been cooking on the barbeque behind me had created a feast that tinged the oxygen around us, making it feel like we were wrapped in an invisible security blanket.

  We were home.

  All of us.

  “You’ve not said a word,” Harry croaked, coughing lightly on that damn smoke in his mouth. His eyes found mine, and I noticed they were a different color to how I’d remembered them. They were silver now, his skin pinker, too, his smile a lot brighter than ever before.

  “Drew doesn’t speak much anymore, Harry, remember? He’s working on being the brooding silent type,” Pete called out over his shoulder.

  I looked at him, too, and huffed out a barely-there laugh. He was throwing this ball back and forth, pointing directions at someone I couldn’t see… they were too far out of my peripheral vision, and I was trapped, focusing on the two main guys in front of me.

  “You gotta work on your catch, kiddo!” Pete called. I wanted to turn to see who the kid was, but I couldn’t. I was caught in some kind of tunnel vision that would only let me see so much around me.

  Then Ayda stepped out from the front door of The Hut, wearing her tight jeans, a thin white tank, and a sexy little apron around her waist. I looked up to take her in, noticing the way her hair had tinged gray at the roots, and her eyes were cradled by more lines than I remembered her having.

  My whole face lit up at the sight of her.

  Age had made her even more beautiful.

  How was that possible?

  “Baby, don’t do that!” she called out to the kid Pete was playing with. “You can’t give your Uncle Pete the middle finger. What’s Mama told you? Have some manners.”

  “It is kinda funny, though.” Pete chuckled, and the sight of him laughing made my chest tighten. The smile on my lips was making my cheeks ache, but I was also filled to the brim with emotion that wanted to pour free.

  Almost thirty years of emotion.

  My face fell at once, the need to cry like a fucking child threatening to ruin it all.

  As if they could sense it, Harry, Pete, and Ayda all turned their attention my way. I looked from one to the other in a panic, my heart beating faster and the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention. I wanted to move, to get out of the chair and fucking do something. Shout, scream, release all of this energy, or maybe throw a punch at a swinging bag, but I was trapped, pinned in place by something I couldn’t fight.

  “Here he goes,” Harry muttered under his breath.

  “Baby...” Ayda whispered, taking a step closer and bending down to me.

  I ran my hands over my thighs to get rid of the sweat collecting there, and I rocked back and forth in my own seat, not knowing where to go or what to do.

  Pete rose, the click of his knees making him groan and stumble to the side before he released a laugh and rolled his eyes.

  “Don’t say it, Pete,” Harry warned.

  “He needs to hear it,” Pete answered, keeping his eyes trained down on me.

  I glanced up at him through unshed tears, feeling like a pussy and hating the way it felt impossible to fucking breathe.

  I just needed to breathe.

  “Oh, boy.” Harry sighed, pushing himself to pick up the momentum in his chair. He drew in a long inhale of his smoke, releasing it out into a cloud around him, but I was focused on Pete. My brother who wasn’t my brother. The only brother I’d ever needed.

  His hand landed on my shoulder, and he leaned down closer.

  “Drew…” he said quietly.

  “Yeah,” I croaked, relieved that I could say anything at all.

  A slow smile crept onto his face, his eyes shining with a knowledge I’d never imagine possessing in my lifetime. His fingers squeezed my shoulder tightly, and I only wished he would wrap his fucking arms around me and give me one of those hugs I’d missed for so many damn years.

  “Don’t worry, kid. It isn’t time yet.”

  “It isn’t?” I asked breathlessly.

  Pete shook his head. “You’re too soon. Get out of here. We’ll see you when you’re ready.”

  “When will that be?”

  Pete smirked, his mouth parted as his answer began to fall free...

  And just like that, my eyes flew open, and I gasped for air.

  I was sprawled close to the edge of the bed, my face squished on one side, and one eye closed while the other looked up to see a fucking angel standing above me.

  Ayda.

  She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth as she watched me. Both hands were behind her back, and her cheeks were flushed under the swelling and darkening bruises. She seemed frozen for a moment before her bright blue eyes sparkled and she sank to her knees beside the bed so our faces were level.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “Erm…” My voice wasn’t working—my mind yet to wake up. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly, blinking and squinting the one eye that was open as I looked at her. “What time is it?”

  Ayda glanced at the clock at the side of the bed and grinned. “Almost one in the afternoon. You looked peaceful when I got up, so I left you where you were and ran some errands with Kenny.”

  “Fuck, what? Fuck, fuck. I need to… Jedd… I need to find…”

  “Nothing’s changed. Still slow
moving. Howard sent Sloane over to let us know Jedd is fine. Spent the night in a cell, and he’s been fed, but that’s all he knows.” Ayda shuffled on her knees. “Before we take care of that business, I thought we may want some answers, so I had Kenny tail me to town, and I got…” She placed a box between us on the mattress and tapped the top nervously before removing her trembling hand.

  I pushed myself up, leaning on one arm as I spun the box around with my other hand.

  A pregnancy test.

  I looked up at her quickly, my eyes holding hers, seeing the hope shining back at me.

  She wanted this.

  Ayda had already decided it was real in her mind—now she needed confirmation from her body.

  I wasn’t sure I could console her if it had all been nothing more than a wild thought, a dream she’d wished to be true. That was a different kind of grief.

  “Now?” I asked her quietly.

  She looked down at her hands before fidgeting again “It doesn’t have to be. I just thought—”

  “Do you want it to be now?”

  Ayda shuffled closer and folded her arms on the edge of the mattress, resting her chin on the back of her hands as she met my eyes.

  “I need to know for sure.”

  I glanced down at the test sitting between us. It held all the answers we needed to carry on as we were or build new foundations around us to prepare for a life I could never have imagined.

  The nerves fluttering away in my stomach were a feeling I’d never experienced before. This was real fear. I’d faced death, murder, prison, grief… everything the world could ever throw at me, and I’d never felt the weight of it like this before.

  Pushing the test closer to her, I caught her eye. “What do you need me to do? Where do you need me to be?”

  “I have to pee on the stick. But you can do the waiting patiently thing with me. I’m nervous.”

  I swung my legs from the bed, and shuffled to the edge of the mattress, pulling her to me carefully. I held her face in between my hands and dropped my forehead against hers.

  “I’ve never been so scared in all my fucking life.”

  “Did you mean what you said last night? Old and gray?”

  “You’ve got me until I’m a wrinkled silver fox, darlin’.”

  “Then I’ll be right back.” Tipping her head, she pressed her lips against mine and reached for the box, pulling it against her chest as she slipped from my grip and rose to her feet. She took a moment to run her hands through my hair before padding to the bathroom, doing her best not to rush.

  I didn’t release a breath until I watched her disappear inside the bathroom, but once she was out of sight, I planted my elbows on my knees and dropped my face into the palms of my hand.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  Was I about to be a father?

  Was this it?

  Could I be what any child of Ayda’s would deserve?

  Goosebumps trailed up my body from my toes to the back of my neck until they invaded my head and made me feel cold. Yet my heart beat harder and harder, a flood of warmth preparing to flow out to contradict it. There were so many emotions floating around, and I was worried about Ayda feeling disappointed if it turned out to be negative after all. But among the chaos of my thoughts and the mixed reactions of my body, one thing above all else stood out.

  And I dragged my hands down my face, resting my fingertips on the edge of my open mouth as I realized what that one thing was.

  I wanted this, too.

  I wanted this to be real.

  I wanted a son or daughter. I wanted a chance to prove I could do it. I wanted something to love from the very beginning, something that was mine, something that was both of us.

  I wanted this so badly that I was scared I was about to be crushed with a negative.

  I wanted a forever.

  For her…

  And for me.

  Chapter Six

  AYDA

  Sitting on the closed toilet, I stared at the box resting on the edge of the sink. It was just a plain old box—so unassuming and ordinary—a three-pack of small, plastic test sticks that had the possibility to change our lives forever.

  Not just mine and Drew’s. This would change the life of every man in The Hut.

  The rest of the fallout we could deal with when we had the test results, though. I was already a hundred and ten percent sure I was pregnant, but this would make the whole thing a reality. This test would give us a definitive answer.

  Pressing my hand to my stomach, I stayed where I was and mentally tried to ready myself for what was about to come. This proverbial can of worms had been opened now. There was no going back to how we had been before those words had fallen from my lips.

  If I wanted the answers, all I had to do was take the damn test.

  Something I was suddenly struggling with.

  “Man up, Ayda,” I mumbled to myself as one foot tapped against the bath mat with nervous energy. It was so easy. There wasn’t much to it. Pee on a stick, wait, and the results would be right there. Easy.

  Except it wasn’t.

  Pushing up from the toilet, I stared at my bruised face in the mirror and winced at my battered reflection. I hated it.

  These bruises were a horrible reminder of the deepest betrayal we’d felt, and that realization now meant that I also had to consider what my body had been through in the last thirty-six hours. What if the pregnancy test came back positive now, and I went to the doctor only to learn that I was pregnant, but something had happened, and that gift of pregnancy had been taken away? What would that do to me or to Drew—the man who was sitting out there, possibly working through all the same shit I was working out in here? Would it have been kinder to have kept my sudden epiphany to myself when he’d caught me after Owen’s attack?

  It was too late to think about that now.

  This was happening, and there was nothing I could do to change how it had all come about. I still had Drew, no matter what, and the two of us could work through whatever was thrown at us together. We’d been through so much in our relationship already and I wasn’t about to let this break either of us, which meant that I had to be strong. It meant I had to hold my shoulders back and be as level headed as he was being right now. Even if that meant I had to be the realist.

  The first step of all of this was to take the test, which is exactly what I did next.

  Reading the directions twice, I went through the steps and rested the test on the side of the sink while I washed my hands, doing my level best not to look at the damn thing before I was supposed to. I left the other two in the box and finally picked up that little plastic life-changer before I headed back to the bedroom where I’d left Drew.

  The moment I stepped through the door, I stopped and took a moment to appreciate him. He was sitting up in bed now, his back against the wall, his bare chest and abs on full display, both riddled with the scars that only ever added to his sex appeal.

  He hadn’t shaved in a while, either, so the stubble that littered his face made him look more angular and hard. Even with that hard masculinity on full display, all I could think when I studied him was how beautiful he truly was. Handsome, yes. Sexy, absolutely, but Drew was also more. So much more that words failed me.

  Easing farther into the room, Drew caught the movement from the corner of his eye and unleashed the intense blue-green of them onto me, temporarily freezing me in my tracks.

  He pushed himself up to standing, staring at me like he was waiting for me to remind him how to breathe.

  When I finally ventured close enough to feel his body heat, I put my free hand over his heart and felt it smashing against my palm with the same urgency of my own.

  “It’s going to take a minute or two,” I finally said. I bit my lip and tried to think of something more profound to say, but all I could do was look at him.

  Drew raised his hands, running them up and down my arms slowly before he let his palms sli
de up to cup my neck. “Have I ever told you how brave I think you are?”

  “Don’t say that. I’m absolutely terrified right now.”

  “You are, but here you stand, with one hand holding our future while your other rests over my heart like you’re the one worried about me, when it should be me worrying about you. You’re crazy, beautiful, strong, and I’m going to spend my life making sure you know it. Then, whether it’s in nine months or nine years, I’m going to make sure our kid knows it, too, and make sure they spend all of their days telling their mama how crazy, beautiful, strong, and fucking loved she is.” He smirked and offered me a small wink. “I’ll just leave out the cuss words for a while.”

  The sting of unshed tears was enough to make me blink several times as emotion overwhelmed me. He always knew exactly the right words to say when I needed to hear them. He always knew how to pierce my heart and make it swell twice the size with nothing but love.

  “Stop trying to make me cry.”

  “Not trying to make you cry, darlin’. Just trying to let you know that I’ve got you, no matter what.” He dropped his forehead to mine and whispered, “Because I love you.”

  “I love you. I hope you know I’ve got you, too. I’ve always got you.”

  I could feel his heartbeat quicken beneath my touch, but he never moved. Drew simply held me with his gaze, trying to create a world where he was my only focus, and all my doubts, worries, fears, and nerves were drowned out by his blue-green eyes.

  It worked. It was so easy to let everything fall away and give him my full attention. His eyes were pools I could drown in, and it was exactly what I needed at that moment, even as the small piece of plastic in my other hand seemed to begin to gain weight.

  “Is it time?” he asked.

  My breath seemed to get stuck in my throat as I broke our gaze and let my eyes fall to my hand hanging limply by my side, clinging to the stick like it was a lifeline.

  It was time.

  It was time to look at the stick and figure out where the hell we went from here.