A flash of anger and something else sparked across his face and was gone again before I continued on. “I hated you when I left home. I hated that I waited. I hated that other guys had been too scared to date me when other girls had no problem crawling in your bed while I was supposed to wait to be of suitable age, or whatever else would make me good enough for you.” I was spewing too much truth now for my own good, but damn if I could rein it all back in. No, I just kept right on with the word vomit and prayed that Heaven help me.
“When I got to college the first thing on my agenda wasn’t even signing up for classes, buying books, or checking out the library. Nope, the first thing I did was grab my roommate,” I poked my thumb in Tash’s direction. “And headed straight for a frat party I’d been invited to that morning when I was moving in.” Sweet sat stock-still watching me with narrowed eyes now. The cocky grin he’d been wearing had slipped from his face as I started my story. I was fairly certain he knew where I was about to go with this little tale, but I wasn’t about to spare him the details since I was never spared having to see and hear about his sexploits. Nope. He had hurt me enough, and a horrible, insidious little piece of me wanted to give that back to him even while I hated that I was doing it.
“I found the biggest idiot frat boy that all the girls were vying for attention from and I pulled him straight upstairs. I let him lead me to his room, and proceeded to get naked and sweaty with him. He was already pretty drunk so there weren’t too many preliminaries. He just tossed me to the bed, and started pounding away.” I sneered those words out, because it wasn’t how I’d ever envisioned losing my virginity. My anger was fueling me back then, and I allowed it to take away what could have been a beautiful memory and replace it with an ugly brutality that still caused me nightmares to this day.
Sweet’s hand was wrapped so tightly around the bottle he was holding I thought perhaps it would shatter and break the spell of hurt and anger that shrouded me now. None of us were that lucky though, because I’d been brewing this particular nastiness for seven fucking years, and it finally found it’s way out, and wasn’t about to be shut back down.
“I didn’t stop there though, no matter how horrific that experience was. I’m here to tell you it was a shitty, painful experience that I did not soon forget. I kept hearing how great sex could be though, so I spent the better part of my freshman year sampling the wares on Greek row until I finally found a guy who made me appreciate what sex was supposed to be all about. You know, the good stuff! So good I got pregnant though.” Sweet’s eyes flashed wide in surprise, and I heard a muttered “Jesus!” from Quickshot.
“Yeah, that sucked,” I spat out in a softer tone. “I lost my baby girl at six months in. That’s how we met Leanne Evermore. She was one of my nurses that took care of me. After what happened, Tash and I ended up moving in with her and stayed there until we graduated. My sex life, love life, whatever after that isn’t really important, but yeah, I don’t think you’ll find any precious flowery virgin types here. We’re fresh out these days.”
Sweet stood then, tossing his beer bottle against the far wall as he did. He stopped, turned back like he was about to say something, but then he just walked away. He walked right out the front door with Quickshot right behind him.
“Jesus, Jamie, that was brutal.” I turned to look at Tash then. Her eyes were full of sympathy, but also tinged in shock. Aside from Leanne, Tash was the only other person I ever told about my pregnancy and only because she was there through it all. “Maybe we should rethink having any more of these little soirees until you can deal with your issues a little differently.”
I simply nodded my agreement. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m just so tired of seeing the cocky smirks and ‘don’t give a fuck’ attitude from the two men that managed to do the most damage to me in my life. I know the choices I made that year were entirely on me, but the darkness that was consuming me, all that hurt and anger, they each had a hand in breeding it into me.”
“I know,” she cooed as she rubbed her hand gently across my back. I started to contemplate whether or not I should regret over sharing with the guys.
“I’m gonna go get some air out back for a bit,” I stated, feeling nauseous. Tash nodded and moved over so I could get by her.
“Want solitary air, or you want company?”
“I think I’m just gonna grab a beer and sit by myself for a bit.”
Two minutes. That’s all the alone time I got sitting on the picnic table behind our clubhouse. Two minutes, half a beer, and a shitload of regretful thoughts later, Quickshot plopped his ass down on the table next to me. “Damn, Jamie, when you go in for the kill it’s straight for the jugular, huh?”
My only answer was a shrug before taking another sip of my beer. “I was going to stay out of shit in the hopes that you two would work through all your history, but every time I step back you guys find new ways to goad the worst possible responses out of each other.”
Again, I simply shrugged until Quickshot’s heavy hand landed on my shoulder holding it in place. “The more I learn about what happened with you all those years ago, the angrier I get. I’m angry with your dad for the shit he pulled with you. I’m pissed at Sweet for being a jackass, but I’m also mad at you.”
I glared up at Quickshot then, surprised by his words. “Why the hell would you be mad at me?”
“You left instead of standing up to them. You put yourself through hell to spite them, and not once did you reach out for help.” He huffed out a frustrated sigh. “Hell, Jamie, that little bomb you just dropped to try to hurt Sweet… That shit guts me too, because I was your best friend from the moment we knew what that meant, and long before. There you were destroying yourself, and I couldn’t help you because I didn’t even know where you were.” His voice was shaking through most of what he’d just said and his shoulders slumped in on themselves as I watched.
“I was confused and extremely angry back then, Wallace. I won’t apologize for leaving anymore. I needed to do it. I am sorry for what just happened in there though.” I tipped my head back indicating the clubhouse behind me. “As my other best friend just pointed out moments ago, I lost my shit a little bit.”
“A little bit, huh?” He chuckled. “I’d hate to see what happens when you complete lose it.” I smiled up at Quickshot then. “Do me a favor, Jamie.” He stopped and looked me in the eye, waiting for me to acknowledge his request before he continued on.
“What favor?”
“Find some times and sit down to hash out your history with him face to face.” Before I could protest he held up his hand to silence me. “Some of the things you think you know about him – you don’t. You didn’t like his assumption that you’ve been waiting around and pining for him all this time, right? Yeah, well, he’s not too keen on those assumptions of yours either. It never occurred to you to ask him if Marisol was telling the truth, huh?” Now, it was my turn to look shocked. “I’m going to tell you the story of the worst day of my life, and you’re going to listen to the whole thing without saying a fucking word. You hear me?” He demanded. I nodded my head in affirmation. “It started when I woke up from a drunken night on Sweet’s couch with the worst fucking headache in the world. Do you remember Manic?”
“Manic?” I questioned, trying to remember whom he was talking about.
“He was a prospect for the club back before you took off. He was too much of a pretty boy for me to take seriously as a biker, but that fucker was crazy as shit. Always busy moving, hence the nickname.” It wasn’t lost on me that he said nickname, not road name. Apparently Manic hadn’t been able to cut it in the MC life.
“Well,” Quickshot continued. “As a precursor to the worst day of my life, as I said earlier, I woke up on Sweet’s couch in his apartment. Not his room at the clubhouse, and from the guest room, out struts Manic. He had a petite little blond tucked up under his arm. No big deal, except him being with the girl in Sweet’s guest room was why I’d had to crash out on the c
ouch when Sweet and I came rolling in at three in the morning that day.
“I remember that cheeky fucker gave me a head tilt and said, ‘sup dude?’” Quickshot chuckled then. “Sounded more like a surfer dude than a fuckin’ biker. It was trippy. I was about to tell him prospects don’t get bedroom usage at anyone’s pad when I realized who was tucked up under his arm.”
My stomach sank as realization began to dawn. Quickshot nodded to me, having obviously witnessed the light bulb going off in my head. “Marisol,” he stated simply, confirming what I was thinking. “Now, I can’t account for Sweet’s entire night because I had my own hookup going on for a couple hours there. I do know he was at the bar when I took off at midnight, and he was still there at two when I came back. We left the bar together just before three to go back to the apartment, and I parked my ass on the couch when Manic was going to town on the blond in the guest room. Make of that what you will.” He sighed as I just stared down at my shoes.
“I’m not one hundred percent that was the day Marisol told you about, but it was only two weeks later that the worst day of my life happened. The day you disappeared. I do know that after it was obvious you were gone, and some of your shit was missing from your house, we went searching. One of the places we went was to see Marisol.” I cringed as I thought about what he might have to say next.
“At first she looked so ashen, and scared. We all thought she was just worried something had happened to you on account of your association with the club. When she never bothered to check on whether you were back, or if we found out anything over the next few days, we went back to pay her a visit. I mean, it was weird, right? Your other best friend since kindergarten didn’t seem to care if you had been found or what was happening with you. We couldn’t’ wrap our heads around that.” I nodded since I would have wondered the same thing.
“The rest of the story isn’t mine to tell, but maybe you should ask Sweet how that conversation went down sometime. I wasn’t there for that talk in person. Wren went with him since I was gone on a run with my pops. You might be surprised to know what transpired though.”
I felt like I was going to throw up already, so I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know what happened. Everything had been such a clusterfuck in my life after my mom died. Thinking back on all the anger and frustration I had carried with me as baggage into my new life, and seeing through different glasses now that some of it, at least, was not as it seemed… It just made me want to go curl up in bed and hide out for a week, a month, hell maybe the rest of the year. Since we were in mid-March that would be a lengthy hibernation period. “Everything is so fucked,” I whispered out.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m so mad at you. Had you just talked to someone, anyone, all this heartache and anger you’ve been carrying around wouldn’t have been weighing on you all this time.”
“That wasn’t all of it,” I started to say.
“Okay, well, I will grant you that. Not all of it was a misunderstanding. I’d still like to kick your dad’s ass. I honestly didn’t think it was that bad for you at home. I knew how he was behaving at the clubhouse and on the road, but I thought your home was sacred, Jamie, and you never told me anything different. You never told me he stopped loving you.” I flinched at those words. “Not that I think he ever did that, but you know, he stopped showing you – and to you, it was the same thing.”
“In a way, when you patched into the MC I lost my best friend, Wallace. I knew the rules. Club first. I couldn’t come to you with my problems about your president.”
“You could have come to me with your problems about your dad, Jamie. That was a family issue, not a club issue.” I just shrugged.
“I honestly couldn’t tell the difference any longer. The club bled into my life so much, whereas it almost never touched it before my mom died. I was trying to adjust, and every time I thought I had it handled, something else happened. First he started bringing the sweet butts home. Then they started tormenting me, or trying to play mommy to gain favor with him, only he never noticed. It was like I was invisible to him. Then, when I finally figured out how to navigate that minefield, he threw me under the bus with the proclamation about Sweet. Then I had to deal with the fallout around that and the same whores tormenting me for a whole new reason.” I shook my head. “The club was my life, but not in any kind of good way. So, when I looked to you, and the patch was what I saw, I knew I couldn’t talk to you about it. Your loyalty would be to the club, not me. I talked to Mare, and you saw how that turned out.”
“This is why I don’t think I ever want to have kids. I look at what happened with you, and I wonder what kind of damage I’ll do to my own, you know?” He grumbled out.
“You’d make a great dad, Wallace. Just don’t repeat my father’s mistakes.” I smiled at him and he grinned back.
“What about you? After what happened are you going to try again to have a family some day?”
I know he didn’t ask to hurt me, but my heart immediately ached again. “My chances of ever getting pregnant again, let alone carrying a child to term are slim to none.” I told him. “There were complications when I lost the baby. I have a great deal of scar tissue as a result.” His arms immediately wound around me.
“Fuck! I’m so damn sorry, Jamie!” He held me while I cried out the old pain made new again. I tried not to think about it often, but when it got brought up it was as if my whole world was torn apart all over again. We sat there like that for a good long while despite the crisp March air that was chilling me to the bone. I almost enjoyed the numbness that was beginning to permeate my body, because if it worked itself in deep enough, maybe it could freeze out some of the feelings that had overwhelmed me the past couple of weeks too.
“It’s cooling off out here and you aren’t wearing much up top, how about we get you back inside?” I’d like to think my brother from another mother had read my mind, but it was more like he felt me start to shiver. As I moved off of him, the point became moot because a leather jacket that smelled suspiciously of Aqua Di Gio by Armani was draped across my shoulders. Only one person I knew of wore that damned cologne, and I’d sent him running not thirty minutes ago.
“Actually, I’d like to talk to you alone for a few minutes, if you don’t mind.” Sweet’s voice was calm, almost subdued as he spoke and I just nodded my head as Quickshot patted my shoulder and kissed my head before walking back inside, and leaving me with the man who had been a very confusing and frustrating part of my past.
I glanced up, wiping the remnants of my tears from my eyes. Sweet was looking away as if he didn’t want to see. We both parked our asses back on the picnic table Quickshot and I had just been occupying. I didn’t bother speaking, because I’d already said enough tonight. It was his turn to say his peace, yell at me, or whatever I was in for.
“I think there’s a bit of our story that you need to be clued in on. Hell, pretty much our entire story has been one fuckup and miscommunication after another when other people get involved, but this one is important, because it’s what caused you to run.” For the first time since he sat down with me he finally looked me in the eye. I couldn’t tell his eyes were the brilliant green of fresh cut grass right now, because it was too dark. They still managed to sparkle in the little bit of light out here though. I sat and waited for him to continue.
“I got back from my run, pissed off because I was missing your birthday for that shit, and so fucking excited, because we were going to be able to hop on a plane and go fucking tie the knot in Vegas.” He smirked with the memory of our plans. We were doing it behind my dad’s back. It was my one request when I told him that I wanted to be with him, and only him. I didn’t want my dad to be a part of our coming together officially, because he hadn’t been there for me in a long damn time.
“Anyway, I hadn’t heard from you, and when I pulled up, Ghost was there, frantic…”
~*~ Seven years ago ~*~
When we pulled into the compound, tired and beat all to shit from
the long ride, the buzz of energy alerted us to the fact that something was wrong. The minute I parked my bike, I snatched my cell out of my pocket to see if I’d missed any messages. There were two from Ghost. Both simply said, “call me.” I didn’t bother calling. We were here now, and I took off for the clubhouse to find Ghost. He must have heard the bikes pull in, because he was already halfway to the door when I pushed it open.
“What’s going on?”
“Have you heard from Jamie? Did she go to meet you?”
“No, she didn’t go to meet me. We were on club business. I never even told her where we were.” Ghost ran a frustrated hand through his hair, and tugged for all he was worth. The man would be bald if he kept that shit up. “What the hell is going on, Ghost?”
Instead of an answer Ghost let out the most pained, animalistic noise I’ve ever had the misfortune of hearing another man make. “What in the fuck?” The words left my lips on a whisper as I started putting two and two together. The questions about Jamie, the pain Ghost was obviously in, and the fact that she’d been distant all meant something I didn’t want to face. I hadn’t heard from her in two days. “She’s gone?” The words left me like a punch to the gut, and literally doubled me over just the same. Someone, I’m not sure who, caught hold of me and sat me down in a chair. “What in the hell happened while I was gone?”
“Nothing fucking happened!” Ghost roared. “She was here. She was fine. Quiet, but fine, and then no one saw her today. Her clothes are gone. The car…” Another gut-wrenching noise escaped the man.
“Come on, brother,” Tuck spoke low and calm to our prez who was falling apart in front of everyone. “Let’s go get a drink, and chill until Quick checks in with us. If anyone can find her, it’s my boy. You know those two are thick as thieves. She’d never leave without telling him.”
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