“I know, but I love you—I always have. That’s something that will never, ever change. I’ll never forgive myself, but I’m hoping you will one day.”
My throat thickens. Struggling to speak, I opt for a nod instead of words.
It’s strange as we sit in silence with so many words still to be said, but it’s comfortable for now. As Sebastian sleeps soundly in his arms, neither of us can take our eyes off of him. Not until someone knocks at the door.
Getting up, I open the door to find Alannah and Cas on the doorstep, holding a bouquet of flowers and a bag of gifts. I don’t know why I thought I had to buy so much, because everyone’s been extremely generous.
“We don’t want to impose, but we wanted to stop by and offer our congratulations,” Alannah beams as I invite them inside.
I doubt Cas came on his own, but I appreciate it all the same.
I follow them into the living room, where Alannah’s already standing next to Zach, cooing over our son.
“Look at you. How adorable,” she murmurs quietly to keep from waking him.
Zach scoots to the edge of the couch before gesturing to Alannah so he can pass him over.
“This is what I’ve been waiting for,” she gushes.
I’ve come to the conclusion that babies make people crazy.
“How does it feel to be a dad, Zach?” she asks him.
He tenses, seeming as if he doesn’t know what to say. “Different.”
Alannah giggles, telling a sleeping Sebastian, “We’ll have a big party soon to welcome you to the world.”
“Any excuse for a party,” Cas grunts, but he’s smiling too as he shakes Zach’s hand.
“I wonder how Rayna will be when she meets her new cousin?”
We don’t have to wonder for long. There’s another knock at the door, but this time, Zach goes off to answer it. I take a seat, grateful to be off my feet.
Leo walks into the room, carrying Rayna in one arm and a bag in the other. More gifts. I’m going to run out of room to store them all soon.
“Mom picked them out. They’re from Rayna,” he tells me, passing me the bag.
“Thank you.”
Alannah hands Sebastian back to Zachery and holds her arms out for Rayna. I watch on as the cousins meet for the first time, and my eyes slowly drift closed. Everyone’s keeping their voices down because Sebastian’s asleep, and the next thing I know, Zach’s nudging my arm.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“About an hour. Everyone left about twenty minutes ago.”
I sit forward, rubbing my eyes while searching for Sebastian. He’s been transferred to his crib at the end of the couch, and I wonder when Zach would have put it together. Kyle, the prospect, only built the furniture in the nursery.
I left the crib in its box in the corner of the living room and forgot about it.
“You finally built something,” I murmur, not meaning to be a bitch, just merely pointing out the obvious.
He flinches at my words. “I took advantage of the time to put it together while Alannah held Sebastian. It’s got to be more comfortable for him than the car seat.”
I agree.
“Do you need anything?”
I don’t know what comes over me, but I begin to cry.
Kneeling in front of me, he reaches for my hands. I don’t shy away from his touch, wanting to bask in his warmth.
“Please, don’t cry.”
“I don’t know why I am.”
He pulls me forward and leans in. Releasing my hands, he wraps his arms around me, his cheek resting on the top of my head. We sit this way for a while, until my weak sobs fade to a whimper.
“I needed you like this a long time ago.” And more recently. But since giving birth, everything before feels like a lifetime ago.
“I know, darlin’. I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.”
For how long, though? How long will this last? Because the last time he promised me forever, he went back on his word.
Sebastian’s fed, burped, and sleeping away in his crib. I wish I could sleep so I wouldn’t have to breathe through the tension in the house. Feeling hungry, I look at the clock, not surprised to see it’s dinnertime.
I have too much time to think as I chop the onions and brown the ground meat. Zach’s here, but I don’t feel any closer to him. Sure, he’s finally started to open up, but I still don’t know any more than I did before, except for what I’d assumed myself.
“You should be resting.” I turn to see Zach hovering in the doorway.
“We need to eat.”
“I can make dinner.”
I tighten my grip around the knife, and for the first time in months, I laugh. He’s unbelievable.
“Please, don’t do this.”
“Do what?” he quips.
“Act like you’re someone you’re not. I can count on one hand the times you’ve cooked dinner since we’ve been together.”
Turning around, I continue to chop the tomatoes, sensing him moving closer until his shadow looms over the countertop beside me.
“You gave birth a few days ago. I’m sure I would’ve made dinner under different circumstances.”
Dumping the tomatoes into the pan, I argue, “We would’ve eaten takeout,” because it’s true. There’s no way he would’ve cooked. “And the circumstances are no different. Just let me make dinner, and give me some room to breathe.”
He pushes away from the counter with a sigh. I can’t bring myself to care if I’ve hurt his feelings, because mine are still raw. And when someone knocks at the door, once again, I don’t have the energy to hide them, and wish Zach would ignore it.
“Come in,” I hear him say from out in the hall, and I groan.
Stirring in the spaghetti sauce, I keep myself busy at the stove, preparing to ignore whoever has come to visit.
I concentrate on the movements in the sitting room, learning it’s Slade and Kristen. I listen to the deep murmuring between Zach and his dad, and jump when Kristen lays her hand on my shoulder. I didn’t hear her come into the kitchen.
“How are you feeling today, Nina?” she asks, hanging her purse on the doorknob.
“Tired. You?”
It’s only polite to ask, but it feels wrong, knowing what her answer will be.
“I came over to see if you needed help settling in with Sebastian,” she replies, avoiding my question. I can’t say I blame her.
“It’s not been so bad. I think we’re doing okay.”
She offers me a small smile and goes quiet. “Have you eaten?” I ask.
Confusion shines in her eyes as she stands there a moment, frozen in her own mind. It wouldn’t surprise me if she can’t remember the last time she ate.
“No.”
“You’re more than welcome to stay for dinner.”
I was making enough for and Zach and I, with plans to freeze the leftovers. There’s more than enough to go around.
“That sounds good, Nina. Thank you,” Slade answers for her as he walks into the kitchen, followed by Zach.
I curse myself for offering when it hits me that we’ll all have to sit around the table together. Zach and I are barely speaking, and Slade and Kristen are even worse. This is going to be a nightmare.
Zach grabs two beers from the fridge, throwing me a crooked smile—which I don’t return— before he joins his dad at the table.
Kristen hovers close to me until I ask if she can set the table. She seems happy to have something to do. And when dinner is done, I pass over the task of dishing it up to her so I can check on Sebastian.
I carry his crib into the kitchen, and Zach is quick on his feet. “I would’ve carried him through.”
I roll my eyes. “I carried him for nine months. I’m sure I can carry him through two rooms.”
Biting my tongue, I keep my head down as Slade and Kristen’s eyes dart between us. Zach sits back down, and I choose to sit at the other end of the table, leaving Kristen and Slad
e no choice but to sit opposite of each other. The earlier tension has now grown so thick, I don’t think I’ll be able to force down my dinner.
“I bet you’re glad Zach’s home now,” Slade murmurs, pushing his food around his plate with his fork.
“Oh yeah, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” Hearing the words slip out of my mouth, I cringe internally. “I’m sorry. I’m tired, and…”
I don’t know how to explain it, or if I even want to. Kristen has yet to pick up her fork and attempt to eat.
“The main thing is you’re all back in the same house. You can move forward together naturally,” she insists.
I regret asking them to stay.
“What? Like you and dad are?” Zach throws at her, the only one digging into his food.
Half of me is glad he’s attempting to shut his mom up. But the other half feels bad because our problems are nothing like theirs.
“We’re not talking about us,” she murmurs, looking down at her plate.
“Well, we’re not talking about Nina and me either.”
Slade’s fork bounces off the plate as it drops from his hold and he stands, pushing his chair back against the wall as he goes.
“Sorry, but I can’t sit here and pretend this isn’t fucking awkward.”
With that said, he walks out of the kitchen and slams the front door shut on his way out, waking the baby.
My dinner forgotten, I attend to Sebastian, who stops whining as soon as he’s in my arms.
“Zach, why don’t you take your mom home. It doesn’t sound like your dad’s waiting for her,” I say, hearing their car peel off down the street.
Kristen quietly pushes up from her seat and smiles at Sebastian before going to grab her purse.
“It’s okay, I’ll walk. I could do with some fresh air.”
She doesn’t wait for one of us to see her out, and the door softly clicks closed as she goes, leaving Zach and I in awkward silence.
“Could you have made it any more obvious you wanted her to leave?”
I narrow my eyes. “She didn’t want to be here. Your dad left, and right now, I have no idea what to say to you.”
Walking through to the sitting room, I make myself comfortable with Sebastian in my arms, basking in the emptiness of the house.
“I thought we were getting somewhere,” he challenges.
Closing my eyes, I try to find the strength to go around in another circle with him.
“And I thought you understood this was going to take time.”
“Nina—”
“No, Zach. If you don’t like it, you can run off back to the club. That’s what you’re good at.”
I don’t know where this anger is coming from, but it’s building, and it excites me to unleash it. I’m grateful when he walks out of the room, giving me some space. I would’ve done anything for him to come home last week because I hated being alone, and now I’m craving the silence and alone time. But I’m not done with him.
He’s sitting back at the table, shovelling spaghetti into his mouth, infuriating me even more.
“I’m glad someone has an appetite.”
Sighing, he drops his fork on the plate and leans back in the chair. “There’s no point in letting it go to waste.”
“What are you still doing here? Seriously, this has to be the longest you’ve been home in months.”
Pinning me with his dark eyes, the eyes that have held me captive here in Willow’s Peak, he declares, “I’m putting things right.”
“How? By getting under my feet all the fucking time?”
Pushing up from his chair, he strides toward me.
“Do you want me to leave, Nina? Is this you saying there isn’t a chance for us, and that you want me to go?”
I’m literally seething, but I can’t do much holding my new born son in my arms.
“What I want, you can never give me. I want the last few months to be like they never happened. I want you to truly understand how it felt for me—”
“Oh, I’m feeling it. You’re not exactly making me feel at home, babe. How many times do I have to apologise?”
“I don’t want your apologies!” I scream, and instantly recoil.
“What do you want, Neen? I’m trying hard to figure it out, but you’re giving me nothing.”
“Good. Nothing is all I’ve gotten from you.”
The need to fight is draining out of me, so I walk out of the kitchen and head upstairs. My head’s scrambled. I don’t have the energy to keep this up for much longer.
I freeze at the top of the stairs, hearing a plate smash against the wall downstairs. He can take his anger out on whatever he likes, as long as he doesn’t come up to our room.
What if this is it? What if we can’t come back from this? I’d rather move on now, but as I sit on the bed and look down at our son, I can’t bring myself to admit it’s over between us.
Sebastian’s sleeping away in his crib as I lay on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, staring into the darkness. The only light in the room spills in from the lamp in the hallway, but I don’t have the energy to get up and turn it off.
I haven’t heard a peep from Zachery downstairs since the plate incident, and I’m suffocating by hiding away up here.
Though it’s one o’clock in the morning, I get up quietly and retrieve my robe from the back of the door. Keeping it open, I run a bath for myself, adding plenty of bubbles, and grab fresh towels from the linen closet in the hall. After tiptoeing back into the bedroom to check on Sebastian, I pick out a pair of clean underwear and strip out of my clothes before slipping into the hot water.
It feels so good tingling across my skin. And finally, my shoulders begin to relax.
“You know I love you, and you know I’ve been struggling. Why can’t you let this go?” I open my eyes to his soft voice, seeing him standing in the doorway.
“I’m angry, Zach. I’m so fucking angry, I don’t want to see you again.”
“But? Please tell me there’s a but,” he urges.
“But I don’t want you to go. I can’t imagine my life without you.”
He steps into the bathroom and falls to his knees, resting his arms on the side of the tub. His forearms are covered in tattoos, and I focus on them rather than his eyes.
“I spent a lot of time at the cemetery. I’d sit there for hours at her grave, talking to her, trying not to think of all the times I was an asshole to her. Most of the time, I’d get so high, I’d crash and wake up, and it’d be morning. Other times, I’d drink so much, I didn’t know where I was. Fuck. Sometimes it’d be a mix of drink and weed, and I’d swear I heard her talking back to me.”
I don’t want to interrupt him. I want to hear everything he has on his mind, but the small voice in the back of my head thinks he’s only opening up so I’ll forgive him.
“Why are you telling me this?”
He’s frowning when I finally look him in the eyes.
“You wanted me to talk, so I’m talking.”
“Yes, but are you telling me because you finally want to share this shit with me, or is it so I’ll forgive you and make your life easier?”
There’s a huge difference between the two, and there’s only one answer I want to hear.
“Shit, Neen, I’m telling you because you’ve been right all along. I’m leaning on you.”
And that’s the answer I wanted to hear.
“I thought you were just at the club or at your parents’ house. I didn’t even think about the cemetery.”
Sighing, he lifts his shoulders, looking sad. “When I wasn’t with her, I was at the club or with my parents, but nowhere felt right.”
Because you were meant to be here. That’s what I want to tell him, but I keep it to myself.
“Zach?” I stop, because what I want to say won’t come out. I want to tell him everything is going to be okay, but I can’t. Not yet.
“Yeah?”
So instead, I say, “Don’t forge
t to take the spare blanket down with you. The first floor gets cold at night.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he’s doing this, but it changes nothing of the last few months, no matter how much I want it to.
Slade
Kristen comes down the stairs shortly after nine, holding a blue blanket in her hand. She ignores my presence as I follow her into the kitchen, and finds a bag to put the blanket in.
“Where did that come from?” I ask, pouring us both a coffee.
It’s not until her lips purse tightly together that I remember we don’t talk anymore. She’s been more alive over the last few days because of the baby, and I’d hoped our grandson would be a starting point for us to at least converse a bit. Obviously, I was wrong. Our attempt at sitting down as a family yesterday proved we’re nowhere near being a family.
“We need to talk,” I sigh, adding cream and sugar to her coffee. Stirring it in, I pass it over to her. She begrudgingly takes it from me, but I get no thanks for it.
“No, we don’t.”
“Darlin’, please,” I urge. She’s obviously heading round to Zach and Nina’s, so I offer, “At least let me drive you.”
She graces me by looking my way, but it’s not a nice look. Such disgust engulfs her, all directed at me.
A sudden knock at the front door has her bustling by me, and I stay where I am.
I look around the kitchen, remembering the years we shared so much laughter over breakfast. Now all I see is nothing, hear nothing, and it breaks my heart.
“Would you like to come in?”
“That would be lovely. Thank you.”
His familiar voice hits me. Slamming my coffee down harder than necessary, the bitter liquid spills over the rim of the mug. I make it to the hall before the shadow filling the doorway can step over the threshold. I’ve only heard the voice once before, but I’d recognise it anywhere now.
“No.”
I walk until my hand connects with the door, and I pull Kristen back, slamming it shut in the fed’s face.
“Slade!”
I stare at the frosted glass window until I see the dark blur move away, then turn to my fucking wife.
His Last Chance : Sons of Lost Souls MC Book Seven Page 9
