My chest squeezes tight. She can’t be gone. We made a deal. I put her Goddamn name on my arm. She wears my mark on hers. She’s mine. “When?” I demand. I need answers. I need to see her. Need to hold her in my arms and make shit right. I know I hurt her but I’m sorry. She has to know if I could take it back I would.
“About a month ago.” She shrugs. Fucking shrugs like it is no big deal. Like she didn’t just give me shit news. News that is fucking with me hard. I don’t know how to handle this shit. I’ve never cared before.
“Damn it!” Rearing my fist back I punch the fence post and split my knuckles wide open. She can’t be gone for good. No way. I don’t accept this. I won’t. I’m going to find her and drag her ass right back where she belongs—here with me. In my arms and under me.
Headed straight for my bike, I am jerked to a stop by a hand on my shoulder. “Welcome home, brother.” Romeo embraces me. “Missed your ugly mug. Shits not been right since you left.” He punches my shoulder and gets a goofy look on his face. “How was LL?” Bastard is too big of a pussy to find out for himself, but he still needs to know about her.
I ignore his question about Laura and keep my focus where it should be—getting my woman back. “It’s good to be home, but why in the hell did Red leave?” Not that it’s a question that needs an answer. I know why she left. Weeks ago, I broke her trust and her faith in us. Not that I can blame her for leaving, but why in the hell didn’t Slim or anyone else tell me this news before now. I shouldn’t have to come back to an empty home and discover the shit on my own.
Romeo lets out a breath. “I think we all know why she left your ass, but hell did you expect her to stick around?” I want to punch him in his damn throat, but I don’t. He’s not the one I am pissed at. I’m angry with myself.
“You could have warned me, asshole.”
He cups the back of his neck. “What are you going to do?”
“The fuck you think? I’m going to get her back.”
“Good luck,” he calls out as I walk off.
I flip him the bird over my head.
**
Just like Foxie said I find Red living in one of the apartments by the bowling alley. Shit pisses me the hell off. She didn’t want to let me in, but I threatened to rip the damn door off the hinges if she didn’t. Guess she knew I’d make good on my threat if she didn’t because a second later, I hear the lock click and then she says, “Come in.”
I walk in and look around the living room. It’s bare but furnished. “You got something to say to me?” She standing in the kitchen making sure there is plenty of distance between us and it feels like miles separating us all over again are. All I want to do is grab her and thrust my tongue so deep down her damn throat. I want to remind her how good we felt together. How perfectly we fit.
“What did you expect to happen, Grim?” I wince inside hearing her back to calling me by my road name. “Did you think time would freeze? That I wouldn’t pick up the pieces of my life and move on. I spent enough time being done like shit by Benji to bend over and take it from you too. I knew it would happen the day you said you were leaving. We shared an attraction. It was fun while it lasted.” Her arms are crossed in a defensive manner. Red is closed off to me and isn’t receptive to anything I have to say. She will hardly look at me and it’s killing me. I’ve never fought for anyone but I’m here now fighting for her to give me a chance.
“Baby, please.” I start walking towards her.
She holds her hand up to me. “I’m done, Grim. I wish you the best. When you are ready, we need to make an appointment with Inkman to get our brands removed.” Her voice is cold and defiant. She seems to be settled in her decision but I’m not.
“You don’t mean that, Red. It’s not over. Don’t say it’s over. I'm home now. We can try to make this work.” I cross the living room and enter the kitchen where she has been standing behind the counter. She is trying to be strong, but I can see the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. I’m not above getting down on my knees and begging. Pulling her arms away from her chest, I kiss her hands as she cries, and that’s when I see the perfect little bump protruding from her waist.
Reaching out I rub her stomach, “Are you...” I can’t say the words. The thought that she is with my child and I hurt her is unbearable. “Is it mine?” The thought crosses my mind that she could be carrying Benji’s baby, or someone else’s. Is this the reason she left, did she cheat on me? Fuck, my heart feels like it is in a blender. My palms are sweating; I am trying so hard to control my emotions. I don’t want to hurt her or say something I will live to regret but this shit has me fucked the straight up. I can’t fucking breathe. Is this what true pain feels like?
“Explain this.” Motioning to her stomach I get up from my knees. Her eyes are cast down. She can’t even look me in the eyes. I realize there are so many things about this woman that I don’t know. How many secrets is she hiding?
She had so many secrets, I may never know them all. I would spend my life trying to unravel them all.
Her finger jabs me in the chest. “You left. You cheated on me. I found out I was pregnant, and I left. Think that pretty much covers it.” Stepping around me, she goes to the sink for a glass of water. “Can we not discuss this right now?” She takes a long hard drink from her glass.
It’s taking everything in me not to lash out right and attempt to keep my damn cool. “Hell no, we are having this conversation. For four Goddamn long ass motherfucking months, I’ve thought about you. And I finally come home to find that you have walked out on me. Why and the fuck did I just find this shit out today?” Kicking a chair out with my feet, I order her to sit at the kitchen table.
Taking her seat, she shocks the hell out of me. “It was a club decision. Slim thought it was best I wait until you came back. Said he needed you in Chicago and if I told you I was leaving you or that I was pregnant you would have disobeyed orders and come home early. Then he would have had to punish you. I didn’t want to see that happen.”
Slim is going to hear it from me. He might have just cost me the only thing I have ever wanted. “The baby is yours, you can be a dad or not, choice is yours. I won’t stand in your way. But right now, I’m late for work. I’ll come by the club sometime and you can tell me what you want to do.”
Late for work? “Baby, you shouldn’t be working. My money is your money. You know that if you need something you just have to say the word.”
She laughs. “Yeah your club cares so much about me and my needs or yours for that matter.” Scooting back her chair she stands to face me. Her soft palm reaches for my cheek and she rubs my jaw tenderly. The action makes me think I’ve not lost her until she opens her mouth to say, “Goodbye, Grim. I’m glad you are home safe.”
How do I walk out of here without her? How do I walk away from the only person I have ever wanted to be with? The one person I have ever felt connected to on a deeper level.
I should have thrown her over my shoulder and made her see, I was crazy about her, but I didn’t. I respected her wishes. I was trying to be that man who was worthy of her forgiveness. A man she could be proud to stand by.
I swallow my pride. “Who’s keeping you safe?”
“Slim, he always sends over a potential to check up on me.” That shit boils my blood, I feel like a hornet’s nest is swarming through my veins. I want to rip his head off and shit down his throat.
“Where are ye working at?” She glares at me. “Don’t look at me like that. I won’t cause no shit. Just give me a peace of mind, okay?”
A shudder ripples through her chest like she might cry but she holds it together. “Foxie got me a job working for her daddy at the carryout.” Well that eases my mind a little, the carryout is under the club’s protection.
Unable to bear it any longer, I move to kiss her, and she flinches away from me. “What the fuck, Red? I can’t kiss you now? I’ve been burning for you. Aching to feel you. Needing to taste you and you’re gonna deny me?”<
br />
Tears roll down her cheeks. “Don’t ask me...you can’t expect...” she trails off with a sob.
I did this.
I brought this on myself.
I feel like the lowest of the low.
“Please. Just go. I need to get to work. I will be in touch later.” That dead look in her eyes guts me. Her fire is gone. I fucking snuffed it out.
I’ll leave for now, but this is far from over. Far fucking from it.
Chapter 10
“Tonight we welcome our brother Grim home. Who’s ready to fucking party?” Slim announces, but I feel anything but like celebrating. I should be happy to be back but if I knew this was the hell I’d catch when I returned, I would have kept my ass in Chicago a lot longer.
“Hell yeah!” the Roadhouse erupts with whistles and cheers. I look around the club seeing my brothers’ celebrating my homecoming. Fuck it, tonight I’m going to have a good time. If Red wants space, I’ll give her some motherfucking space. I down five shots hoping they will numb all these bullshit feelings that are bringing me down. I’m not cut out for this. For her turning me down. Knowing she is carrying my child and wants nothing to do with me because I hurt her. I knew she had been drug through the mud, but I had to shove her face deeper down it with my actions.
Betty slides up on the stool next me at the bar and hands me some apple pie shine. I take one look at her hoping to feel anything but this worthlessness that has taken root in my heart.
“Welcome home.” Her fingers trail up my arm seductively. Taking a swig from my jar of moonshine, I decide to hell with Red. To hell with it all. I take Betty by the hand and lead her upstairs, just like old times. Taking my keys out of my pocket I unlock my door. The fucking room smells stale. I’ve not been in here since Red. Her name in my head has my heart squeezing tight in my chest. I take one look at the bed and I am fucking haunted by the memory of her here in my arms.
Betty is waiting. “Grim?” she questions from the hallway, and I feel disgusted with myself.
Fuck. I slam the door shut and tell her, “Take your attentions elsewhere. They won’t do no good here. I meant what I said before. Stay away from me and my dick.” Red doesn’t want me, and I haven’t been with her in months, but her pussy still has a hold on me. She has a hold on me. Betty appears put out, but she stomps back down to the party. I lean into the door burying my head against my arm.
I was young dumb, and full of cum. My pride was killing me. Gypsy Red was killing me. I’d never had a broken heart until her. I was aching deep for her. I had never felt a love like hers and I wished in that moment that I never had.
Slim still has a lot of fucking explaining to do. I am down for doing what’s best for the club, but he had no right to play with my life like that. It wasn’t his secret to keep. How could they not tell me I’m going to be a father?
I go back downstairs. Betty is already sucking someone else’s dick. I don’t know why I ever let that cunt put her mouth on me.
Walking behind the bar, I grab a case of moonshine and take it to my trailer. I am feeling pretty fucking betrayed, even if good intentions were meant. Collapsing on the couch, I grab the cordless phone off the receiver that sits on the end table.
I dial the liquor store.
“Liquor Barn,” her soft voice carries over the line.
“Hey, baby. I want you to know that I coulda had my dick shoved down some whore’s throat tonight, but I didn’t. I came home. I’m here waiting for you to come back to me.”
“How convenient,” she drawls, sounding pissed off and I chuckle.
“Does that make you jealous?”
“Are you drunk or just plain insane?”
I smirk like she can see me like a drunken fool. “Maybe I’m both, but I’m fucking crazy about you.”
“I have to go. You can’t be calling me at work like this.”
“I’ll call you any time I motherfuckin’ please. You’re still mine, Red. You can fight it all you want, and I’ll give you a little space but not too much. You’re in my veins and I can’t get you out no matter how hard I try.”
“I have to go.”
“Come see me when you get off.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I think it’s damn good one,” I tell the dial tone. She hung up on me and when I try to call back the line is busy like she took the fucking phone of the hook. I stare at the bottle of moonshine in my grip. “It’s just you and me.” I snort.
**
“Grim, come on man open up. Romeo is hurt bad. Someone raided the cabin.” Slim is beating on my bedroom door. I haven’t left my trailer for days. Hell, maybe it has been weeks I lost track. Been drinking my way through this case of moonshine. Been drinking all my troubles away. Been trying to drink that redheaded witch and her cursed pussy from my thoughts.
Rolling my sorry ass out of bed, I sling the door open.
“Co-me on, bro-ther, let’s ride the-n,” comes out in a slur. My legs feel like cooked spaghetti noodles as I open the door for him.
“Fuck, man.” He waves a hand in my face. “Your drunk ass ain’t riding no-fuckin-where. Get your stinky ass in the shower and meet me at choir in twenty.” He looks as mad as I feel because I just remembered I have a bone to pick with this motherfucker. He and I are going to have a real fuckin’ talk at choir tonight. This business is going to be settled.
I get my ass in the shower and afterwards I drink a pot of coffee that hits my stomach in the worst possible way sending me flying to the damn toilet. Shit tears my insides up so bad I’m sweating fucking bullets. It takes me an hour to get from my trailer to the clubhouse.
Slim is pissed off and the rest of the club seems to be sporting I hate Grim for making me wait expressions too. Well fuck them. They aren’t the ones who got shit on by Prez. He crossed a line when he told Red to keep shit from me. Fucking with my personal life—with my relationship with the mother of my unborn child is real fucking dirty even for him.
“We have bigger problems than whatever shit you go going on with Red. All of our fucking moonshine at the cabin is gone. Two motherfuckers showed up in the middle of the night and fucked Romeo up pretty bad. We have a good supply in the warehouse in Chicago, but shits already been sold. Our payment for Hook is due and if we pay him, we can’t pay the rest of our bills this month.”
“Has to be Hook and his cock sucking rejects,” Skull chimes in.
“No evidence to prove that it was,” Squirrel, Slim’s brother-in-law throws his hat into the conversation. I don’t know why this little piss ant is even here in the first place last I knew he hadn’t been patched in. Shit around here is really pissing me the hell off.
“Someone’s gone dirty, that cabin has been our best kept secret for six years.” I’m not buying this bullshit, they know fucking Hook has put a tail on Romeo and hit us where it hurts to prove a motherfuckin’ point. Shit’s just not sitting right with me. Lots of decisions have been made in my absence. Makes me think Chicago and losing Red is Slim’s way of letting me know my place. Starting to think my Vice President patch doesn’t carry the same weight it used to. Not sure when we started patching members in without my vote. Squirrel was a potential before I left—a potential I have voted down for the past two years. Something about that boy rubs me the wrong way.
“Who’s been watching over Red? Just because she’s not living on club property doesn’t mean she doesn’t fall under our protection and her being pregnant with my child solidifies her as untouchable.”
Squirrel shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “I’ve been keeping an eye on her at the carryout. There is something you should know.”
Slim cuts him off before he can finish what he was about say. “Now’s not the time, brother.”
I bang my fist down on the table. “If the kid has something to say about Red, now is as good of time as any.”
“Later, Grim let it go.” Slim closes the meeting, but that doesn’t stop me from cornering Squirrel to get wh
at I want.
I grab the skinny bastard around his throat and shove him against the wall. He nods at me and grabs at my fingers. I let him go for now.
“Well we have been watching her for her protection of course, but she has had contact with the Devils Rejects. Not sure what kind of information she has, but she knows shit and is sharing it with the enemy. We didn’t want to preach it to the choir without proof, but now that you are back maybe you could find out what’s going on.”
My irritation just reached an all-time new level. Are they saying Red played me to get in with the club? Are they saying she fucking took advantage of me? No fucking way, I don’t believe it. Squirrel has put shit in Slim’s head, giving the impression that Red is a rat or better yet that so am I—I’ll prove them wrong. If Red has had contact with Hook or his men, there has to be a good reason. Only reason comes to mind is she’d do anything to get Sarah back.
A mother will do anything for her a child. A good mother will that is. I know how much that little girl means to her. Another broken promise on my part. I haven’t even attempted to look for the kid, but in my defense, I haven’t had a real opportunity to do a damn thing. I’ve been caught up in my own problems.
Chapter 11
I throw a beef jerky stick on the counter and smile at Red when she looks up from the magazine she is reading behind the counter. “Hey, Red. How you feeling today?”
Rolling her eyes, she puts the magazine down. “Will this be all for you?”
“That depends. Can I bag you up to go too?” I wink and she lets out an annoyed huff.
“That will be a dollar fifty-nine.”
I dig a couple bucks out of my pocket to pay for the jerky stick. Then I pull a hundred out and slide it into her palm. “This is for you.”
Her faces twists up. “I don’t want your money, Grim. I can take care of myself.”
“I can see that. Well it’s for the baby then. Or a doctor’s appointment. You’re going to the doctor, aren’t you? Getting your vitamins and shit.” Her lips lift into a smile though she is trying to fight it.
Just Ride Black Rebel Riders' MC Volume 1 Page 7
