I think about Bates as I wash my hair. It’s been years since I’ve seen him. So many, in fact, that I hadn’t known he was even back from his duty in the Marines.
Bates Lukin—talk about a blast from the past.
He dated my sister when she was fourteen and he was seventeen. She loved him, really loved him. I watched her fall apart the day he left for boot camp, and she was never the same.
Something happened between them, something I couldn’t understand, and she’s been changed since.
“Sugar,” Pierce calls into the bathroom as I turn the water off and grab my towel.
“Yeah?” I ask, drying off before stepping out of the shower.
“Gotta go. Got shit to do. You gonna be okay the rest of the day?” he asks, pressing his hand against my lower back, bringing my body closer to his.
“Yeah, I have some houses I’m going to go and look at in a little while, then dinner with my parents,” I shrug as I trace my finger along the black swirl tattoo on his shoulder.
“You got someone you can take with you to those houses?” he murmurs as he tips his head down to watch my finger on his shoulder.
“I can go it alone. The keys are at the office,” I say, tipping my lips in a half smile.
“I don’t want you goin’ alone to a bunch of empty houses, baby girl. Be better if you took one of your bitches with you, at least,” he says.
I take his words into consideration. He’s being protective and I like it. I love it, actually.
“Yeah, I’ll find someone. Maybe Brentlee will want to come.”
I smile and he leans down to place a sweet kiss on my lips. He doesn’t need to know that I don’t really have any friends. That’s what happens when you’re kind of nerdy in school, introverted. Brentlee has a slew of fake friends, but I couldn’t handle that. Not at all.
“Good girl. Now, I gotta go. Call me when you’re done with the family and I’ll come over.” He squeezes my hip before he turns to walk away from me.
I stand in the middle of my little bathroom, wrapped in a towel, watching his perfect jean encased ass go. Then I shiver.
Fuck, he’s hot.
Once Pierce is gone, I call my sister, and it only takes two words—house hunting—to get her raring to go.
Brentlee likes to shop, she doesn’t care what she’s shopping for. As long as it’s shopping, she’s in her element.
Pierce never did give me a budget, so I found four homes to look at—all rentals, all with a garage, and all with a moderate price.
It’s more than I could ever afford on my own, but with him pitching in, I’m fairly certain we can make it work.
“I didn’t know you wanted to move?” Brentlee asks as I give her directions to the first house. I don’t really feel the best and talked her into driving.
“I wasn’t, but things change,” I say, trying not to give it away.
I won’t be able to last. I never could keep secrets from Brent. She can keep them from me, but I’m an open book.
“Spill it, woman,” she says, grinning as we pull up to the first place.
I take a look at the house and sigh. It’s in a decent neighborhood, not the best, but not the worst. They are fifties style houses, all lined up.
If they weren’t different colors, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.
The yard is neatly kept by our company’s lawn service, and I wonder if Pierce will be outside pushing a mower when we move.
I bet he’d look spectacular all sweaty and hot doing yard-work.
“Well…” Brentlee says as we walk up the front porch.
I ignore her while I open the house. Once we’ve walked inside, I lock the door and turn to face her.
“I’m pregnant,” I confess. Her mouth drops open as her eyes bug out.
“Shut.Up,” she screeches.
“I am,” I say, tearing up.
Then, to my surprise, she wraps her arms around me and pulls me into her body in the first sisterly bit of affection we’ve had in years.
“Kentlee,” she murmurs into my hair. “Who is this bastard? Where is he? I’ll kill him,” she cries out.
I take a step back from her and am surprised by her fierce protectiveness. Seems like this pregnancy is bringing out people’s need to take care of me.
I’ve been taking care of myself for so long that I’m not used to other people caring about what I’m doing or what’s happening to me.
It feels good, though—it feels nice that Pierce and Brent are both willing to take care of me, in their own way.
“He wants to be with me—wants this, wants us. This house is for us to start a family,” I explain. Brentlee’s eyes widen once more.
“That hot dude that dragged you out of the club?” she asks.
“Fury, yeah,” I admit.
“Kent, that guy is a Notorious Devil. You can’t have a relationship with one of them. You can fuck them for a good time, but you can’t actually be with them. They’re dangerous,” she says.
I know she’s saying it out of concern and not anything else, but her words still sting.
Pierce doesn’t feel dangerous to me. But from the outside looking in, I can see why she would think that.
“We’re going to try, Brent. Maybe he’ll be bad for me, but he cares for me and he wants this,” I say as my voice wavers and tears fill my eyes.
“I just…he was old… I don’t understand it at all,” she says, pressing her lips together as she shakes her head.
“He’s thirty-five. Yeah, he’s older than me, but we have something, Brent. I honestly don’t understand what you and Scotty have, but I don’t meddle in your choice when it comes to him,” I confess.
I watch her eyes dull slightly before she shakes her head and the look vanishes.
“He’s safe,” she tells me as we walk into the tiny little kitchen.
It isn’t the best kitchen I’ve ever seen, but it would be doable.
“Because Bates wasn’t?” I ask.
I watch her from the corner of my eye as she bites her bottom lip, something she does when she feels emotion.
“Bates was…Bates. No man will replace him. But yeah, he wasn’t safe,” she says, nodding.
I drop it. I want to tell her that I just saw him, that he’s back in town, but I don’t. He thinks she’s happy. She thinks she’s happy. There is nothing I can say that would change anything at this point.
We stay silent as we finish looking at the first house. It’s not the best, so I hope the rest are better.
Maybe I should have upped the budget I set for myself. This first house is kind of dumpy.
Brentlee and I get in her car to go to the second home. We don’t talk about anything as I give her directions to the home.
It’s an uncomfortable silence and I look over to her, knowing she’s thinking about something, practically watching the wheel’s spin in her brain.
It isn’t until we step inside of the second house that she finally speaks.
“Is he your Bates? Is he the one, then?” she asks.
“I think he could be,” I say as I step into the kitchen.
It’s beautiful for a rental. I can’t help but imagine myself behind the stove, with Pierce standing at my back, his hands on my hips and his lips on my neck.
Perfect.
“I hope he is. God, I hope one of us gets to keep the love of our lives,” she says, grinning.
I wrap my arm around her.
“Scotty is the love of your life,” I tell her. She scrunches her nose at me.
“Scotty is comfortable. He’s safe, he’s predictable, and we’ll be happy together. I love him, don’t get me wrong, but he’s not the one who makes my stomach clench and my pussy ache. That was always Bates, always will be. He’s the only man who has ever made me feel that way,” she admits.
Brentlee’s words are telling, so telling and so damn sad. I want her to have him. I want him to have her.
They deserve epic happiness and I wish th
ey could have that, but it doesn’t look as if it is in the cards.
That makes me depressed for them.
“I want you to have it all, Brent,” I say as I step into the backyard of the home.
It’s small and manageable, but big enough that maybe we can put a small play-set in the corner.
“I’ll have it all, Kent. I’m going to be a fancy lawyer’s wife. I’ll be able to stay home with our kids and be the perfect wife and mom. I’m going to have a husband who dotes on and adores me. I’m going to be the envy of all my friends. What more could I want?” She sounds so spoiled, so vain—that’s not her.
This is the Brentlee she shows her girlfriends, the phony party girl.
I don’t care for her.
I like the real Brentlee, but she’s hiding from herself, and hiding herself from the world.
“Okay, baby sister, you’ll have it all. I want you to have everything you want,” I say, wrapping my arm around her tiny waist.
“Mom’s going to flip her shit,” she says on a sigh.
“No joke.”
“This is your place, you know?” she states.
“Yeah. This is it, isn’t it?”
“You’ll be happy here, with your man and your baby.”
We don’t say anything else. There isn’t anything else to say. Brentlee is making the life she thinks she wants.
She’s nineteen and thinks that she knows it all. There’s nothing I can say or do to advise her at this point.
I don’t think Scotty is the man for her, but she’s determined to make her relationship and future marriage with him work out. I can only hope that it does, for her sake.
I look out the window and sigh as we drive toward my parents’ house in silence. I’m starting a path I never thought I would be on. I’m going to move in with an outlaw biker—the president of his club, at that.
Nothing is as I had planned.
Plans have a way of never working out, and I am okay with that—so far.
I have a man who wants me, who wants to take care of me, and who wants our baby.
How can I complain about life being not as I planned when life is giving me so damn much right now?
My parents’ house comes into view and I suddenly feel sick to my stomach with nervousness. I am dreading this conversation, but it needs to happen. They need to know what is going on in my life, even if they won’t approve of it.
I just hope that they can be open-minded enough to accept my decisions on the matter. I shouldn’t hold my breath, though. They barely tolerate the fact that I’m unmarried and not relying on a man.
Little do they know that they’re about to get their wish, it just isn’t what they had envisioned.
“Girls,” my mother cries as soon as we open the door.
I want to roll my eyes.
Brentlee lives here at home still and I just saw my mother last week. Yet, she acts like we haven’t seen her in months. Drama-Queen.
“Mom,” I mumble as I hang my purse up on the hook by the front door.
“You’re just in time to set the table, Kentlee,” she directs.
I do as she says, knowing that if I don’t, she’ll raise hell until I do.
I need to stay inside of my own head until it’s time to spill my secret. Brentlee, surprisingly, helps me set the table, and it feels like we’re little again—like it’s us against the world.
I know that this feeling won’t last. Once my secret is revealed, Brent will fade away while I’m roasted on a spit; but it feels good to have her at my back, for the moment.
Once the table is set, I go in search of my dad. I find him in his office on his computer. He must be on call.
He is studying the computer monitor so intently that he doesn’t hear me walk inside or shut the door.
I clear my throat to alert him to my presence. Only then does he tear his eyes away and finally focus on me.
“Kentlee,” he murmurs.
“You on call?” I ask, lifting my chin toward his computer.
“Yeah. I’m monitoring three patients right now,” he says before he stretches his body.
My dad still looks good for his age. He’s tall, with an olive complexion and thick dark hair, only a touch of gray at his temples.
He’s still fit, too, spending too many hours living off of coffee alone, then visiting the gym at least four times a week to play tennis or basketball with his friends.
“I have to talk to you and mom tonight. You’ll be eating with us, right?” I ask, knowing that sometimes he’ll take his dinner in his office when he’s on call.
“Wasn’t planning on it, but if you need me to, I will,” he offers with a smile.
“Yeah, probably should. It’s important,” I say, looking at my feet.
I can’t look him in the eye. We aren’t very close, my father and I, but he’s still my dad and I still seek his approval in everything that I do.
“I’ll be there in five minutes. Just let me open up my iPad and get it set up,” he says with a serious nod.
I leave my father’s office and head toward the kitchen to help my mom finish setting the table. My thoughts travel to Connellee.
I wish my big brother were here. He’s always the one on my side. We aren’t best friends, but when my mom gets on my case, Conn is always there to tell her to back off.
He would support me. He would offer help in any way he could give it—or any way I would accept it.
I miss my big brother, but he’s off living the college life, studying and becoming a doctor. He amazes me. He succeeds in everything he attempts. I wish I could be more like him.
“Well, what’s this you wanted to talk to us about then, Kentlee?” my father asks as we sit down at the table.
My mother’s head pops up and her eyes widen in surprise. I didn’t want to tell her ahead of time that I wanted a chat. She would have been relentless trying to find out first.
“I–uh–I met someone,” I begin.
My mother’s eyes round as her face lights up.
“What’s his name? What does he do?” she immediately asks.
I pinch my eyes closed for a moment, taking a deep breath before I continue. I’m just going to spit it out quickly, like ripping off a band-aid.
“His name is Pierce and I’m not exactly sure what he does, but we’re moving in together. I’m pregnant with his baby,” I blurt out.
I then watch my mother’s face go from excited to absolutely shocked. Then, I chance a look over to my father, who is emotionless. However, I don't miss how his fists and his jaw are clenched.
He’s pissed.
“You’re pregnant?!” my mom screams.
“I am,” I answer.
“Who is this man, Kentlee? Don’t lie to me,” my father grinds out.
“He’s the president of the Notorious Devils,” I confess.
My father’s face turns bright red in anger.
“Are you fucking serious?” my mother screeches.
I stare at her in complete surprise. I have never heard my mother curse before—not in my whole life.
“Mom…” Brentlee begins. My mother shuts her up with a side-long glance.
“You’ve just ruined your life and this entire family,” my mom announces.
“That’s not fair,” I begin.
My dad holds his hand up, which shuts me up.
“I cannot have trash like that in this family, Kentlee. We have to uphold a certain image in this society, and a man like that? He doesn’t belong. Men like Scotty belong here. I could overlook it if you fell for a man with a blue collar job. I wouldn’t be happy about it, but if you dated a police officer or a firefighter, at least it would make us still look decent. This guy? No, Kentlee. I won’t stand for it,” he states.
“So, if I move in with him, then what? I’m out of this family?” I ask, my lips trembling with each word.
“I’m sorry, but yes. You either take care of that baby and break it off with him, or you’re out,” he sa
ys.
I blink in shock.
Of all the ways I saw this going, never in a million years would I think my own father would suggest an abortion.
“Dad, I could never abort my baby,” I say, my voice shaking and tears forming as I place my hands on my belly.
“That’s your answer?” my mother interjects.
I stand and my eyes flick back and forth between them, unbelieving that my parents would do this to me—would make me choose between my baby and my family.
Even if things don’t work out with Pierce, I will never regret keeping this baby.
I couldn’t.
“I will never destroy a life to appease you. This wasn’t planned, at all, but it happened. I’m not ashamed that it happened, and I’m not ashamed that it happened with Pierce.
“He’s been good to me and he’s willing to do what it takes to make this work—or at least give it a try. I’m sorry that you feel a baby would give you so much shame,” I say before turning to Brentlee. “I love you, Brent. You’re always welcome in my home and in my life.”
I turn and I leave.
There is nothing left here for me.
Grabbing my purse off of the hook by the door, my fingers linger on the knob—waiting—hoping that my parents will realize their mistake and stop me. They don’t.
I walk out of their house, leaving them to their small-minded world.
I have a life to live, a beautiful life with a new family of my own. I begin to walk, irritated that I allowed Brentlee to drive me, because now I’m without a ride. I dig my phone out of my purse and place a call to Pierce.
It goes straight to voicemail.
“Pierce, things didn’t go well with my parents. My sister brought me over to their house, and I have to walk home. If you get this, maybe you could call me and give me a ride?” I ask before ending the call.
It’s dark and lonely on my walk home, so I decide to call Connellee before my parents get to him first.
“’Ello,” he answers with a yawn.
“Hey, big brother,” I say, smiling. Even his sleepy hello makes me smile.
“Kent? What’s up?” he asks with concern laced in his voice.
I never call him, like ever. He’s my brother and I love him, but he’s been gone for years and hardly comes home from school.
The Notorious Devils MC: Complete Collection BoxSet Page 10
