“And?”
“And…” Tex took a deep breath. “And then Koppel saved my life.”
“Koppel?”
“That was his name. Ryan Koppel.”
“Was?” Spider said quietly. “What happened to him? To Ryan?”
“What happens over and over again in war?” Tex responded. “He died, and he died horribly. I won’t talk about it, Spider, and I hope you can understand that. But here’s the thing: he died saving me. He sacrificed himself for me. I’m here helping you now because of him, and I think about that every single day. I will never stop being grateful to him, and I owe him a debt that can never be repaid, and I know it.” He stared down at his plate, not seeing the food there. “He had a choice that day… to save himself, or save me, and he chose me. He did it without hesitation and he was fierce and fearless in that choice. He was the best human being that I’ve ever had the priviledge and honor of knowing – and the fact that he was gay is the last thing that I think about when I think about Sargeant Ryan Koppel now. You get me?”
“Yes.”
“So.” Tex raised those incredible eyes to Spider’s again; all Spider saw there was hurt and pain. “I may never really understand the attraction to men, but I have zero problem with men together – saying that aloud just made Daddy roll over in his grave, I’m sure – but what I don’t understand at all is the attraction to that man.” Tex vaguely pointed his fork at the ceiling above them. “I don’t understand why the hell you’d want to be with Ace Cuddy, of all men wandering the planet. I’m asking you to please explain it to me, as much as you feel comfortable sharing.”
“I know it’s baffling to you,” Spider said, a bit of his humor surfacing. “And not just to you. I see the way that King and Jack look at Ace, then at me, then back to Ace. I know that none of you see what I saw in him. To be fair, though, I don’t see what I saw in him. Not anymore.”
“What did you see?”
“Well… maybe you want to hear how things started between us,” Spider said. “Then maybe you’ll understand better.”
“Wherever you want to begin, man,” Tex said. “And as much as you want to tell.”
“God,” Spider said softly. “I haven’t talked about him in – well. Years, Tex. Years and years.”
“You don’t have to.”
“No.” Spider turned his coffee cup around and around in his hands. “No. I want to. I think – I think that I even need to.”
“OK.”
“Well…” Spider sighed. “Well, we met at The Grinning Skulls.”
“The Fallen Angels bar? In the MC clubhouse?”
“Yeah.” Spider grinned at the look on Tex’s face. “Can’t quite imagine me there, huh?”
“In some ways, I can,” Tex said. “You’ve got the ink and the silver…” He lifted his chin to indicate the spider web tattoo across the other man’s face, the tiny spider tattoos all around his neck, the multiple silver piercings in his ears and on his face. “But I can’t imagine you voluntarily walking into that den of rampant homophobia.”
“Right? But I was there with a friend of mine who was seeing one of the members, and she didn’t feel great about going to Skulls alone. She asked me to be her protector, if you can believe it.”
“You were the muscle?”
“To this day, I wonder what the hell I was thinking when I agreed,” Spider said wryly. “But I just didn’t want Melanie going in there on her own, and so I said yes. That was how I ended up at the bar, see. Mel went to one of the backrooms when her boyfriend, and I stayed out there drinking beer and trying not to attract attention.”
“But you obviously attracted some,” Tex teased him. “Ace Cuddy’s, to be precise.”
“I did. I was just standing there, minding my own damn business, trying not to see anything that was going on around me. I was alone, so was he. We looked across the bar at each other at the exact same time, and our eyes met. And… well. It was just there between us – despite it being the worst place in the world for this kind of thing to happen, surrounded by bikers and criminals – it was there and it happened anyway. That – spark that you feel with some people, you know? That connection, that sense of feeling like you knew them before, and you’re just then being reminded of it. Like… you’re coming home. ”
“Did you guys talk?” Tex asked.
“Oh, not that night. I think it freaked us both right the hell out, and I had no intention whatsoever of following up on the attraction. I thought that Ace had just been drunk and that he’d just slipped up and I’d probably seen something that he never showed the world. I figured if I pushed it, he’d kill me, either to keep living in denial or to protect himself from his MC finding out. I knew he was gay, or at least bisexual – of that, I had no doubt, even from the get-go – but I also knew that he wasn’t living the life. I knew he was hiding all of it, and I didn’t blame him.”
“So how did you two get together, then?” Tex said. “If he was hiding and you were running fast in the opposite direction?”
“Melanie,” Spider said. “She and the biker kept on seeing each other, and it went on between them all summer, much to my surprise. So for almost three months, she’d drag me along to Skulls and to MC parties and barbecues – and to the biker camp one weekend. That’s – that’s when things finally happened between us. Me and Ace. We’d been avoiding each other for all those months, never said one word to each other. Not once, not ever. Every time one of us showed up, the other disappeared. Every time one of us changed locations, the other moved places just as fast. But we were always watching each other, always totally aware where the other was, all the time. We were circling each other that whole summer… just going around and around. But then that weekend up at the cabin… we stopped circling. For the first time, we stood still.” Spider fell silent.
“C’mon, man. Spill it.” Tex was rapt, and he was a bit surprised by that. “Don’t leave me hangin’ here.”
But Spider was still quiet, remembering that amazing, astonishing night up at the lake. Everyone else had paired off, then taken off to one of the numerous bedrooms in one of the dozen or so cabins scattered around the water’s edge. By midnight, just he and Ace had been left at the campfire, under an endless sky of perfect stars. It had been achingly romantic and beautiful – and Spider had quickly escaped to his own small room, set away from most of the others. As he’d left, he’d joked about the overwhelming heat of the roaring fire, but really, he’d been almost breathless at the heat in Ace’s eyes… those black eyes that were normally as cold and bleak as death were suddenly hungry and wild and alive. Wolf eyes.
So Spider had scampered away like scared prey… and like a predator giving chase, Ace had followed him.
God, Spider still remembered the quiet knock on his bedroom door, and how his heart had leapt at the certainty of who was standing on the other side of it. He had known in that moment that if he opened that door, then his whole life, his whole world, his whole reason for existing, were all going to change forever.
He’d opened the door.
Ace had launched himself at Spider like a man who had held things away from himself for too long. Like a man who was done waiting. Done holding back.
Despite his urgency, Ace had been sweet and gentle, almost shy. Spider had half-expected roughness and dominance, maybe even violence, and had been ready to hit Ace over the head with a hidden baseball bat if necessary. But there had been none of that – and that was because Ace hadn’t ever been with a man before. He’d pushed down hard on those urges in himself for his entire life, but with Spider, denial was no longer an option. It was impossible.
So, from the very beginning, Ace had broken all the rules, taken all the risks, and he’d done it for Spider. How could Spider not fall for a man who broke and risked it all, just to be with him?
And if Spider were being honest with himself, he’d
enjoyed the rule-breaking and the risk; the forced secrecy and the more-than-a-tiny hint of danger. Ace Cuddy was nothing if not a bad boy, and Spider had a serious thing for bad boys. All of this added to the excitement, of course, and the thrill. It was fun and it was reckless – and when it all began that night at the lake, neither man thought for one second that it was going to be anything real. Spider especially had thought that Ace was going to come to his senses at any time, or get freaked out at being discovered, and then threaten Spider within an inch of his life to keep his mouth shut about everything.
Things had changed for good and for real when Spider had woken up one morning to find himself all wrapped up in Ace’s arms, Ace stroking his hair and cheek. The tender look on that hard face would have taken Spider’s knees out from under him if he’d been standing, and he’d actually felt tears prickle behind his eyelids.
“Hey,” Spider had whispered. “You OK?”
“Yeah,” Ace had whispered back. “I was just thinking…”
“Thinking what?”
“That you’re the first person I’ve ever really cared about.”
Surprised, moved, touched, maybe a bit afraid, Spider had propped himself up on one elbow. “Your family?”
Ace had been silent for a minute. “I imagine that I cared about my Mom, but I don’t remember her. She died when I was two.” He ran his rough fingertips over Spider’s full lips. “But I care about you, and no bullshit. You’re – you’re important to me, in a way that I didn’t know another person could be.”
They had stared at each other, acknowledging the depth of feeling between them for the very first time. What had started as a crazy risk, a wild need, a celebration of freedom, had changed and they both knew it. The earth has just shifted underneath them, and suddenly, they were in uncharted territory – but at least they were in it together.
“This is dangerous, Ace,” Spider had said quietly. “This can get us both killed.”
“I know.” Ace’s black eyes had been as gentle as they ever got. “But we’ll be careful and nobody will ever know. I’ll never let you get hurt, sweetheart, and that’s a promise. I’ll take care of you.”
And Ace had kept that promise for the next two years: he had taken care of Spider. And then the Fallen Angels President at the time, Butcher Peterson, had gotten himself shot and killed, and Trigger MacGee had stepped up and into position – and had tapped Ace to be his VP.
And that was the beginning of the end. That was when Ace stood there in that hotel room and packed his bag and chose the MC over Spider. Over his love for Spider; over Spider’s love for him.
That was the day that a piece of Spider’s heart had broken off and shriveled up and blown away, and it just hadn’t come back. It probably never would come back, he thought.
And as it turns out, he’d been right about that, because here and now, in this kitchen with a hulking Texan bodyguard, and the love of his life sleeping upstairs and down the hall from his own cold and empty bed, Spider was still heartbroken. Still hurt, still confused about Ace’s choice.
And really, look what it had all come to in the end, right? Ace had left the Fallen Angels anyway, he’d left in a blaze of destruction and betrayal anyway. He was running and hiding for his life anyway, Spider was in danger anyway.
It had taken seven years to get here, but they’d ended up here anyway.
Goddammit.
“Spider? Hey, Spider?”
Startled out of his thoughts, Spider looked across the island at Tex, suddenly just wanting to be alone. “Hmmmmm?”
“You OK?”
“Oh, sure.” He pulled himself together, took a bite of omelet. He didn’t want to talk anymore, though just ten minutes ago he’d needed to. “Where was I?”
“You said that you and Ace got together that weekend up at the MC camp.”
“Right.” Spider made sure to keep his tone brisk and impersonal. “We did. We were a secret thing for about three years after that, off and on.”
“Three years?” Tex gasped. “How the hell did you manage that?”
“Ace is a very good liar,” Spider said coldly. “And I have a thing for bad boys.” He shrugged, sipped his lukewarm coffee. “It was really just a casual fling that dragged on way too long. It was fun, most of the time, but we didn’t get serious or anything. We’d go weeks without seeing each other, ‘cause he’d be on some MC business out of state, or in lockdown, or whatever.” Spider forced down the terror that was rising in his throat at those memories; God, he’d been so, so terrified every time that Ace had left his bed, sure that he’d never see him again. “So really, it was pretty random.”
“So… that’s all it was, huh?” Tex didn’t believe it, of course, not after what Spider had said about feeling like Ace was his home, but hey… he wasn’t in any position to judge people’s love lives. “A drawn-out fling?”
“Yep. It was never going to be anything else, was it? Ace being Ace, no way he was going to choose me over his brothers.”
“I suppose not,” Tex said carefully, not even slightly fooled. So that was the heart of the matter, was it? Spider had wanted Ace to leave the MC, and Ace had refused? Yeah, Tex could see how a man could be bitter over that – especially since said man was now hiding out in a safe house because his dipshit ex hadn’t bothered to delete a bunch of pictures. “Guys like Ace think of the MC as a family. That’s tough to walk away from.”
“I suppose so.” Feeling pretty desperate for escape now, Spider got to his feet and picked up his half-eaten breakfast. “I’m going to finish this upstairs, if that’s OK with you.”
“Sure it is.” Tex paused. “You alright?”
“Uh-huh.” Spider pivoted sharply. “Just awesome.”
“Spider?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“For what?”
Tex fiddled with his fork, wondering how far to take this, wondering why he was feeling semi-bad for Ace Goddamn Cuddy. “I’m not totally sure, to be honest. I guess – for it all.”
Spider cocked his dark head. “Not too much to be sorry about then, is there?”
He turned and headed upstairs. It wasn’t until he was alone and the door was closed that he allowed his grief and loss and pain to resurface… yet again.
I want to kill him.
I want him back.
I hate him.
I love him.
No. I hate him.
No. No.
I love him.
Fuck.
**
Ace lay on his bed in a patch of weak winter sunlight, his arms crossed behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He’d managed to sneak back upstairs before Liam had come up, and now Liam’s words were ringing in his ears over and over again.
Ace is a very good liar.
It was really just a casual fling that dragged on way too long.
Not too much to be sorry about then, is there?
None of it was true, of course, and it had all been said for Tex’s benefit and for Liam’s self-protection. Ace knew that. He’d never forgotten the agony in Liam’s voice when he’d begged Ace to leave Denver with him. And that look on his face, when Ace had told him that he was dead to him… well. It was the face of a man wrecked with hurt and pain. Ace had put that look there – and he’d done it on purpose.
Sure, he’d done it to protect Liam, but somehow, that excuse had never flown with Ace, not in his most secret heart. Over the past seven years, Ace had spent many, many nights staring at ceilings, thinking about Liam, and asking if he’d really walked out that door to protect Liam… or had he done it to protect himself?
The hard, awful, ugly, unvarnished, devastating truth was this: Ace had left the man that he loved because he’d been too fucking cowardly to stay.
That was the truth. Ace knew it, and Liam had al
ways known it.
The question that Ace was now grappling with was: how the actual fuck was he to gain Liam’s forgiveness for that stupid, tragic, selfish mistake? How was he to ask for a chance to make it right, for a second chance with Liam? Hell, their lives were blank slates now, weren’t they, and they were both outed to the Fallen Angels. Ace was going to have to leave Colorado for sure, and the country almost definitely. He didn’t want to go alone… he wanted Liam with him when he started again, the right way this time. He wanted to ask Liam to run with him now, the way that Liam had wanted it all those years ago… but how the hell to ask Liam to do that?
“Only one way, idiot,” he said aloud. “You go and ask for it. You ask for all of it.”
He couldn’t, though. Not yet. Not just out of the blue, and not when Liam was still angry and reeling from the shock of being pulled out of his settled, safe life. No, this was a situation that required compassion and patience, and though those weren’t words that any sane human being would ever associate with Ace Cuddy, he knew different. He knew that where Liam was concerned, Ace’s compassion was as deep as the deepest part of the ocean, and his patience went beyond the broadest expanse of sky.
Where Liam was concerned, Ace was the best man that it was possible for him to be.
Now he just had to prove it to Liam. And that was going to take time.
Thankfully, they had nothing but time here in this lonely farmhouse.
So, Ace lay on his bed in a patch of weak winter sunlight, his arms crossed behind his head, staring at the ceiling… planning how to win back the only person that he’d ever really, truly loved.
Chapter Five
Telling the ladies that they had to go into protected hiding for an unspecified amount of time had gone about as well as could be expected – which was to say that it hadn’t gone well. At all.
Well-intended, though severely-misguided, jokes about a ‘girls’ slumber party’ had been met with the appropriate levels of scorn and derision, and precisely the correct amount of eye-rolling and huffing. Sarah, Naomi, Gabi, Mirrie, and Maria had all fought it – and they’d fought hard. No way they were leaving their homes, jobs, men – their entire lives – because there was a chance that they might get hurt.
Extreme Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 7) Page 7
