"Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that, Trey, if it makes you feel better." Silo's advice was given with more than a measure of doubt that Trey's take on the situation would be accepted. "Try sinking your dick into that particular justification the next time it gets hard."
"That's it? That's what you fucking came up with?" Dare deepened his voice. "Uh, yeah, babe. I could've fucked her but I didn't. Ain't I a good fucking guy?"
"He did fucking what? And Lally fucking saw?" There was no missing the roar from the kid in the kitchen. Both Dare and Bishop shot behind the swinging doors and into the kitchen before Silo had even pulled Trey all the way off the barstool. Everyone knew while Drake had made great progress in turning his attitude around, all it would take is for one small thing to set him back.
"Time for you to getcha ass on your bike, brother," Silo explained, yanking his president towards the exit. "I want you to getcha bad-ass self to wherever she fucking is and do goddamn damage control. Not because I think you fucking deserve it but because she does. You wanna be an asshole and end it? Cool. But you goddamn do it the right fucking way. You get me?"
Trey mounted his bike as Silo stormed back into the clubhouse, the sounds of Drake's shouts coming clear and sharp as the door opened.
God, what a fuck up!
He checked his phone and was no longer surprised there wasn't a responding text message. Pulling up her number, he tried calling but it went straight to voicemail.
Only one thing to do, then, he told himself with a sigh that only hinted at the heaviness inside as he pulled out the driveway and headed towards the hospital.
He had to find his Dallas.
AS-fucking-AP.
*.*.*.*.*
I halted my meltdown when I heard my parents stirring next door. It was agony but I managed to take another shower and get dressed before going to see them.
"We thought you'd already gone to work, girl," dad said when I was loading their cabinets and fridge with the food I'd gotten the night before.
"Feel like I'm coming down with something so I took the day off." Man, my lies were starting to pile up and I wondered if I was going to have to include another list of them just to keep them all straight. "Here's a new phone for you guys. I've already programmed it with my number and all your doctor's numbers. Thought maybe we could investigate a couple of those assistant things Tr-Trey suggested to see if they might work for when we go home."
"Your dad told me about them and I think it wouldn't be so bad to get some extra help, Lally." Mom was using her new walker and getting around pretty good in the small space of their room.
"I'm also going to file the insurance claim this morning. Hopefully we can get that sorted quickly." I saw dad's face turns towards me.
"Never said it, Dallas but thank you for not listening to your old man. I don't like that you went behind my back but you saved our asses by doing so." I could feel my cheeks heat at dad's words but even worse was the memory of Trey's smile and wink when I'd confessed about the insurance policy.
"Need to go get some stuff for this cold." My explanation covered my sniffling pretty well. "You guys want anything?"
My mom shook her head as she stepped back to the carefully made bed. "Nothing for me, thanks."
"I'll try and stay away for the rest of the day, then. Just in case I'm like, you know, contagious or something." Neither one of parent's faces held the least suspicion of the lies I'd spewed.
Which I counted as a good thing and which turned out to be just about the only good in my whole damn day.
*.*.*.*.*
He rode for what seemed like hours even checking places he didn't know if she'd fucking go much less take her damn parents. At some point in his wild search, it had started to rain, a cold wet autumnal downpour that was a precursor to the Montana winter.
In Trey's mind, both the water hitting his head and the water splashing up from the street just echoed the desolation he held inside.
He'd fucked up.
If his men were right and Dallas had seen what he'd gotten up to with Bambi and had reacted to it, then, shit. All bets were off.
At one point, he'd stopped and purchased a quart of bourbon just to grease the goddamn wheels of both his brain and his hunt. Had even called Brand, who'd answered the phone out of breath, asking his second lieutenant to call out patrols to look for Dallas's motherfucking truck.
But it was all for shit because he couldn't find her.
All for motherfucking shit.
Trey pointed his face to the sky. Rain, he decided, was good. Because it covered whatever leaked out of a man's eyes when he was without hope.
*.*.*.*.*
"Yeah, Brand? Uhm, we've found him. Ah, at the Sheridan's place. On the porch. Drunk off his ass, uh-huh. The noise? I don't know. He's singing some kind of fuckin' Zepplin tune I think. No, sir. He won't be able to ride either his own or behind. Think we'll need a car if you could send one."
*.*.*.*.*
Trey awoke to the sound of pounding but whether the hammering was from his massive hangover or someone at the back door, he couldn't be sure. In fact he wasn't sure of shit. For some strange reason, he seemed to have slept on his fucking couch, fully clothed and with what he thought had been a herd of elephants tramping through his foul tasting mouth.
He closed and then tried reopening his sticky, gummy eyes. The view remained the same and the pummeling was definitely coming from the back door. Although his head was playing an accompanying bass drum to it.
Easing himself up into a sitting position, he realized he was still more than slightly drunk. "I'm coming," he tried to shout but couldn't manage much more than his regular volume.
He stood, feeling like the floor was a long way away from his head. A distance so vast it almost made him dizzy. With one foot in front of the other and by hanging on to walls and conveniently placed furniture, he finally made it to the back door.
"Amigos!" he cried, throwing it open.
"Jay-sus, what's that smell?" Huff asked, side-stepping to avoid the hug Trey seemed intent on giving him.
"Think it's that fucking bourbon he likes," Silo replied, taking in the sight of his normally clean and sober president who was, at that moment, anything but.
"It's not even six in the morning, man. And he's already hitting the bottle?"
"You go make the coffee and I'll throw his ass in the shower. He'll need to be sober for the shit we've got." Silo hated to have to give anyone bad news but he'd never ran chicken before and he wasn't gonna start at that stage of his life.
After one very cold shower, done fully dressed to start, and a half a pot of coffee, Trey was less drunk but more pissed. "Thanks for the help, ladies. Now you want to tell me the why behind this social call?"
"Sheridan left me a voice mail. She's taking time off, saying to use her accrued vacay and sick time," Silo said, preferring to get the info plainly out. A man couldn't work what he didn't know.
"There's been no activity at their house either," Huff continued as he refilled Trey's cup and trying not to add the 'except for your drunk ass' to his statement.
There was quiet as Trey tried to accept what they told him. "Her mom was released last night. As far as I can tell, no one has seen them since. And I'm guessing since I only remember being on my bike in the rain that one of you pussies poured me into my house after I got the bright idea to start drinking."
"Brand. He got a call from one of the patrols and went to pick you up," Huff explained slowly, his eyes shooting to Silo.
"Where'd they find me?" Trey asked but his voice said he really didn't want to know.
"Er, the front porch of the Sheridan house." Silo's growl was slow to answer.
Trey allowed his brain a few seconds to process that info even though he had no fucking recollection of any of it.
"I talked to her brother before coming over. He hasn't heard from her or his folks." At Silo's statement, Trey felt his hands come up to cover his face. He didn't even want to k
now what his expression held although if it was anything like what was on the inside, he knew it wasn't fit to be seen by other people. Especially not his brothers.
"What's the play? We'll do whatever needs doing, brother." Huff's voice seemed to hold an empathetic ache one that seemed to match the similar space inside Trey.
"Don't think there is one. If I were to guess, I'd say she's in the wind." Trey's normally hearty voice was flat. "All her shit's still here and goddamn if I can get her to call me back. So I guess I fucking lost the opportunity to make whatever damn play I could've made."
The ensuing silence was long and deep.
"Need you and the others to take over for today. I might be by the clubhouse later but think I need to sleep the rest of this shit off."
"No worries, brother," Huff assured him.
"I also want you to have a word with Rita, Si. I know Sheridan was our only female tradesman but I want her warned against opening her fucking yap to the civilians about the club or its members." Trey could feel his anger flare at the thought of what Dallas had been told, superseding the pity-party he was sliding in to.
"Was already on the agenda. Just couldn't decide if Brand would be better for the job since I've been told I talk too fast."
"Don't give a shit who does it. Just want it fucking done. Now if you boys will excuse me…" Trey's cellphone rang from the other room and Silo moved quickly to retrieve it. "Bishop."
"Gotta call from Silo. Just wanted to offer my services in case you wanted to keep tabs on her. You know, hits on her credit cards or bank account."
"Appreciate it, brother. But only do it to keep her on radar and only for her own safety. I don't want to know where she is or what she's up to." He saw the men in the kitchen exchange a glance. "Gotta figure if I'd gotten an eyeful of her doing what I did and it cut me so deep I thought I had to take a runner, then I wouldn't want to be found."
That was the one goddamn thing that Trey remembered from the last bit of his thoughts in the quest of the night before. That she'd always come at him with dignity and respect even though she wasn't a part of his club. But she'd still given it to him anyway without him having to even fucking ask.
So, he'd allow her the dignity of walking away if that was what she damn-well wanted.
"Got it. Knowledge of but no contact," Bishop recapped.
Trey disconnected the call and saw the look on Silo's face. "What?"
"How would you've reacted if you saw her sucking face with someone else?"
Trey let his silence answer before he walked slowly and unsteadily down the hall to his bedroom.
Chapter Twenty Two
"What'cho doing sitting all by your lonesome, Trey? It's a party and parties are for you to be social with your boys," Carmi said with a only a slight slur as she sat down next to him at one of the picnic tables, bumping his shoulder hard enough to shake her half-exposed tits and endanger his beer.
"And your girls!" Bambi chimed in, plunking herself on his lap and aiming her mouth towards his.
Christ! What once would've had him half-hard now made him almost disgusted. Bambi smelled of alcohol and soured girl-sweat, her makeup partially smeared and what little clothes she wore in disarray as if she'd already been at it with one or more of the other brothers.
Something that wouldn't have found him batting an eyelash at a month ago.
But he'd had a taste of clean and real. It may have only been a week before, but he still longed for it every fucking minute of every fucking day since he'd last seen her.
Dallas.
Her fucking name was like a goddamn stab to his heart every time he even so much as thought it.
"Let's go round back, baby," Bambi whispered as her tongue traced the shape of his ear. "You always fuck me so damn good."
Trey yanked his head away and tried to stand. "You're drunk, Bambi."
"So?" She countered with a sexy smile. "Thought you liked me better after I've had a few."
Trey knew he probably had said something like that because Bambi was a screamer and when drunk didn't get quite as loud. The standing joke at the club was that, with Bambi, you got it good but paid for it with hearing loss.
"How about a two-fer? Me and Bambi together. Would that help our grumpy-wumpy Prez get his dimples back?" Carmi offered with a laugh. He'd had her too, more than a couple of times but couldn't remember the particulars.
Goddamn! Had they always been this…this fucking slutty before? He glanced around the forecourt and saw hookups being made right and left. Honeys offering and his brothers accepting and knowing with the ratio of men to women, the females would be working brothers almost back to back. Or at least the ones that didn't want to share in a three-some with one of the married couples.
"Think I'm gonna pass on it as lovely as your offer sounds," Trey lied, trying hard to keep his shit together in front of the two young Honeys. "But have fun."
"Let us know if you change your mind, Trey," Bambi said, pressing her partially clad breasts against him and running a hand teasingly over his crotch. Carmi bracketed his other side wiggling her body and he felt her hand make run over his ass. "We'll be around all night."
"Thanks," he growled, peeling away from them. Feeling like he needed another shower after they'd let go. He stepped to the food area and grabbed another beer, wondering how long he was gonna feel like this. There was a stick up his ass and for the life of him he couldn't dislodge it. All he knew was that his bad mood was starting to affect his crew.
"You are not feeling the love tonight?" Brand was working the barbeque and Trey saw a wide selection of meats in various stages of doneness dotting the large grill.
"Not particularly."
There was quiet between them as Brand turned over a couple of pieces of chicken.
"Do you remember what I went through with my Reese after her first visit to the club?" Brand asked, keeping his eyes on what he was cooking.
"You mean the one that ended up with her calling you a dirty biker, man-slut?" Trey couldn't help but smile at the memory. Brand's wife Reese was a pistol and didn't mind calling a spade a spade when the occasion warranted it.
"Yes. But what you do not know is that her reaction was also because of something else I had done before that."
Trey waited, carefully schooling his features. He couldn't imagine what else Brand could've done that would've set his pretty wife off because the man was almost as straight as they came.
"The first time we had sex I—ah— I called her by another woman's name without realizing it," Brand confessed.
Even Trey had to agree that was a big goddamn no-no in the female arena. A man could call his partner any number of endearments or nicknames but to actually use another woman's name when he was pumping one out? Brand was lucky he still had his fucking balls with what Trey knew of his wife's temper.
"Ouch," Trey commiserated with a chuckle.
"Yes. That is a good word to describe it. But, I do not think our circumstances are so much different with our women. The only difference is that my Reese needed me and could not run."
"I wasn't married to Dallas, Brand." Again with the fucking heart stab at just saying her goddamn name.
"No? You did not value her and count her as your own? The two of you were not connected in a way that you could not explain or define?"
"Well…"
"You did not see a future with her, one of her in your bed every night for the rest of your lives? The face you could imagine around you every day and never get tired of seeing?"
"When you put it…"
"Or why you took on the responsibility of her family. There was no reason for you to order the Hellions to step in with her brother or to spend time at the hospital with her parents. These things all speak of a couple more tightly tied than some who are married, do they not?"
"You're quite the philosopher, aren't you, amigo?"
"And you deflect when you are uncomfortable." Brand's grin was contagious. "So my question to you, my frie
nd, is why are you fucking sitting on your hands instead of fighting for your woman?"
"Who the hell am I supposed to fight? Her? She's the one that damn well took off and doesn't want a fucking thing to do with me!" The anger that had been simmering inside him for a full week went straight to the surface.
"Since when have you ever backed down from a fight, Trey? From getting what you want. I say if you want her then grow a pair and go get her. You will probably get an earful and there may even be physical violence inflicted, but I think you are man enough to take it."
Trey glared at the fucking gall of the other man. "Who the fuck do you think you are, man?"
"The brother who wants to see you whole again," came the deep, soft reply.
Even Trey couldn't argue that one.
And, he decided, that was weird because it gave him hope that what he'd had with Dallas was redeemable.
*.*.*.*.*
It had been a week and I could admit I was better. Better at covering my tracks with my folks by staying at the local library most of everyday when they thought I was at work. Better at using the library's computer to file the insurance claims on the house, redirecting our mail to one of the post office boxes at the local shipping stores and using the equity in my truck to buy another one. One that wasn't as new and with a lot more miles on it, but one that neither Trey or the other Hellions would recognize.
And I thought I was getting close to convincing my parents to sell their house citing none of us would feel safe there after all we'd been through. The only hiccup in that part of my plan was that both were unwilling to move out of town and wouldn't even consider out of state.
"But our doctors are here!" my dad had yelled, effectively shutting my shit down in that regard.
The Possibility of Trey (A Hellion MC Novel) Page 18
