by A. J. Downey
When I went inside it felt incredibly empty. The work had been finished but I hadn’t furnished or decorated any of the other rooms yet. I shut the door and the outside world and slumped to my entryway floor and lost it all over again. Great noisy racking sobs until I was completely empty. A hollow shell of the girl I used to know, before Ashton, before The Sacred Hearts, before Reaver.
Eventually I heaved myself to my feet and moved about my empty home, numbly going through the motions of doing laundry, showering and getting dressed in my nightclothes which had me in tears all over again because all I had was what Reaver had bought me. Sometime around dusk there was a knock at my door. I went down and opened it to Ashton and Trigger with cartons of Chinese food in their hands.
“Oh, I don’t feel much like company right now,” I said and Trig barged his way past me.
“Too bad, Doll,” he said and I flinched. Ashton sighed.
“He hit him you know,” she said and looked sad.
“What?” I frowned.
“For what he said to you, Ethan hit him, as soon as were back at the club, off the bikes.” I blinked and looked at Trig who was in my kitchen going through cupboards and finding nothing.
“I haven’t finished anything,” I said and let Ashton in, Trigger was frowning.
“He’s hurt, I get that, he’s my best friend but that was bullshit,” he said. I didn’t disagree but…
“I’m really tired,” I said and sighed.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” Ashton murmured.
“No! Its sweet you guys, really, I’m just… I need to decompress,” I finished lamely. Trigger smiled, opened my empty but working fridge and dumped the Chinese on the top shelf and swung the door shut.
“At least you have dinner for tomorrow,” he said and I went to him and hugged him and then hugged Ashton.
“He really loves you,” she whispered. I nodded mutely not trusting my voice. That was the trouble… I loved him too.
I went to bed alone that night and fell into a nightmarish sleep filled with bloody hands and Reaver’s voice asking over and over again, “Why didn’t you trust me, Doll?” I thought I did… Didn’t I?
Chapter 27
Reaver…
I couldn’t stay away from her. I know, it was creepy as fuck, especially after my parting shot at the lake. Still, the night we came back, after I had made sure Shelly was settled, I went to her. Broke into her town home and slipped up to her room where I found her sleeping. I pulled out the chair by the antique dressing table and set it beside the bed. I sat in it most of the night, my heels resting on the steps leading up into it and I watched her. She looked haggard and worn, her sleep restless and I felt completely blasted apart and like a total raging cunt for what I’d said.
Ashton wasn’t speaking to me, and truthfully, neither was Trig. In fact, when we’d gotten stopped at the club house, he’d strode over to me. Put his hand on my shoulder and with a look that was half pity, half something else had buried his fist in my gut. I’d doubled over wheezing and he’d kept me on my feet and without a word, once he was sure I wasn’t going to go over, he had walked away. Everyone else had given me nervous and silent looks, some were fear some were pity and some… well some were just plain disgusted. I’d been assured that they weren’t disgusted by the retribution I’d exacted out of Sparks. No. It was purely over what I’d said to Hayden.
Truth was, the only person who hated me more than her was me and I wasn’t entirely sure she hated me at all. I’d watched her toss and turn for most of the first night she was back and throughout the next and the next… I was making a habit of this and I knew it was unhealthy but there it was. I loved her, she was my obsession and I couldn’t stay away. But I had to. I had to let her go and it killed me a little bit more with every day.
Chapter 28
Hayden…
“How are you and that Rhett boy doing?” my dad asked, I paused for a little too long.
“Oh… oh honey I’m sorry…” I put on a false smile and lied.
“No! Oh no! It’s nothing permanent!” I said with false brightness, “We both just have a lot going on and are taking a little bit of a break for a while, that’s all.” I didn’t want my father to worry. He was quiet for too long on the other end of the line.
“Honey, do you love him?” he asked quietly and I pinched the bridge of my nose. It had been a month since the Fourth of July ‘lake run of doom’, as Ashton and I had started calling it, and I had heard nothing from Reaver though I had a funny feeling, a strange sense that he had been near.
“Daddy I thought I loved Andy and you saw how that turned out,” I said letting out an explosive breath.
“Hayden…” he said with admonishment in his tone, “Don’t you do this, don’t you dare let what Andy and your mother did keep you from being happy. Granted Mr. Butler isn’t the kind of person who a father would want to see his daughter with, I mean a Biker, honestly… But if I have learned anything it’s that looks can be deceiving,” Boy wasn’t that an understatement!? “And I never saw you even a sliver of the kind of happy with Andy than I saw when you were with Rhett,” he finished, I sighed, mostly because he was right. I pursed my lips.
“Reaver, daddy. He hates being called Rhett,” I corrected gently.
“Just… Just don’t give up too easily Baby,” he said and there was something in his voice…
“Daddy, why are you really calling?” I asked softly. He let out a huge breath.
“Daddy?” I asked.
“I’ve asked your mother for a divorce,” he said quietly and I sat back in my office chair.
“Oh…” I said softly, I didn’t know whether to say I was sorry or tell him congratulations. The last time I went to their house for dinner was the weekend after the lake run and I had left in silent anger. My mother had been in rare form and with everything happening with Andy, with Reaver, with my home… No. I hadn’t been willing to deal with her. So I’d left, gone to Ashton’s and let her and Trig get me drunk.
“It’s time Hayden,” he said and sounded haggard.
“I agree,” I said solemnly. We’d ended the conversation pretty quickly and I’d sat staring into space thinking for a very long time. I roused myself just in time to get down to the ‘Y’ and meet Ashton for yoga, my thoughts turning over and over everything that had happened since my failure of a wedding.
“Hayden you all right?” She asked as we were laying out our mats side by side.
“How’s Shelly?” I asked quietly, trying to get the subject off of me. Ashton looked at me dubiously. She’d been there when Shelly had unloaded on me.
“She’s not dealing with things, she’s resolutely pretending they didn’t happen. When she’s ready, I’m going to try and get her to go to therapy.” Ashton gave me a shrug and cast her eyes to the floor and my heart ached a little for her, she was caught in the middle and I tried so hard not to put her in that position but... I sighed.
Shelly had resolutely made things my fault. I’d run into her once since the lake run and tried to say hello and she’d rounded on me and said some pretty horrible things, repeating what she’d said at the lake, about how if Reaver hadn’t been so wrapped up in me that he’d have had her back and that she was glad he was rid of me. That she was glad he saw me for what I really was, in her words, a pansy-ass selfish bitch. I swallowed hard against the threatening tears that tightened my throat and we took our positions on our mats. The class greeted our instructor who wasted no time in launching us into our first pose. I breathed deep the warm and humid air touched with the chemical tang of chlorine and let the familiarity and relaxation that practicing yoga brought me take hold. I thought about Andy, my mother and the wedding, and meditated on the entire sordid mess.
You didn’t trust me, Doll…
Reaver’s accusation rang in my mind, echoing over and over again as I breathed through yet another pose, another stretch. He was right, I’d listened to him, in my mind I had believed him, but in
my heart, where it mattered the most, I’d failed him. I had listened, but I hadn’t heard him and the moment it was thrust in my face, stark and horrifying and undeniable, I had panicked and run. I’d left him, probably at the point where he needed me to be as strong for him, as he’d been for me so many times in the last year and more. As he had been strong for me at my wedding, in Florida, and beyond. I had failed when he’d needed me the most and that was on me and no one else. Shelly was right in that regard. I was a pansy and I had been selfish to a certain degree as well and I wanted so badly to be able to wrap my head around it, to be able to accept it but I wasn’t sure I knew how.
Next pose, arch, breath, stretch and hold.
I missed him. Every night when I went to bed I’d stare at the picture of us in the light house. I would say a prayer that Reaver was healing, that he would be all right and every night I would cry myself to sleep and wish I could rewind and be what he needed me to be in that moment in the dark at the Lake Eversong cabin. But I couldn’t take it back. I could forgive him, but I was too afraid that he would never be able to forgive me… Reaver wasn’t the kind of man that was into forgiving.
Time to change pose, God, yoga was doing nothing for me today! My mind was suffering from too much unrest and I couldn’t focus like I was supposed to. I suffered through the rest of the class and sat through the fifteen minute meditation when the instructor’s silky, soothing voice interrupted my thoughts with her closing bit of wisdom…
“Today I leave you with a quote from Marianne Williamson, she said: ‘Until we have seen someone’s darkness we don’t really know who they are. Until we have forgiven someone’s darkness, we don’t really know what love is.’” My eyes snapped open. Holy shit! Ashton was looking at me speculatively and I somehow just knew she had something to do with this but…
“Namaste.” Our instructor placed her palms together and bowed her head and the class did the same.
“Namaste,” we chorused and I leapt to my feet and pulled on my sneakers.
“Hayden?” Ashton asked but I scooped up my cellphone, wallet and keys leaving my towel and yoga mat behind and ran for the exit.
I had to find Reaver. Had to. I couldn’t stand it anymore! I needed to see him, to know for sure that that I had done everything in my power, to know for absolute certain that we were lost, completely lost to one another. I didn’t want it to be so, I didn’t want this to be the ending to us or to our story because I’d seen his darkness up close and personal, in living color and still, knew what kind of man Reaver was, a good one.
One who would do anything to protect his family and the ones that he loved and seeing Shelly that night, if it had been Ashton or even myself… I would have wanted him dead too. I did want him dead for what he’d done to Shelly, and so I could forgive Reaver’s darkness. I had to, or I would have to face a life without him in it and after the last month… The last month of barely being able to concentrate, of being so lost and bereft I barely ate or drank, of nightmare filled sleeps I had only been able to achieve through sleep aids and exhausting myself…
I didn’t want a life without Reaver in it. I wasn’t sure my sanity would take it and I missed him. With every fiber of my being crying out in despair and emotional agony. I was tired of being torn in two I needed to see if I could be made whole again and for that, I needed to see him.
“Hayden!?” Ashton cried from the door to the pool area but I didn’t turn but rather broke into a run… but where there was Ashton, Ethan was sure to follow and I was suddenly stopped up short by crashing into a solid wall of muscle. Trigger’s hands closed around my upper arms.
“Woah, Hayden, where’s the fire at!?” he demanded and the desperation of my expression must have said it all because his face softened.
“Where is he?” I begged and the plea sounded pitiful even to me. Trigger opened his mouth and closed it, opened it again and sighed and closed it resolutely.
“Are you sure?” he asked sympathetically.
“I need to know…” I said and he nodded.
“He’s working days over at that new office building going in on Grant Street. He’s probably there, hey! Woah! Hayden!” but it was too late I had already jerked out of his grip and was halfway to the door.
I crashed down the front steps and dashed for the parking lot. I got up into my brand new Escalade and turned it on. My phone started buzzing, Ashton’s face on the screen but I threw it onto the passenger seat, ignoring it, and threw the SUV into reverse. I drove quickly, but carefully and pulled into the lot on Grant Street. Reaver’s bike was in the lot and my heart squeezed painfully in my chest. Moment of truth. No backing down, no going back. I got out of the SUV and went for the doors.
“Hey! You’re not supposed to be in here! Hey! Hey Sweetheart!” I ignored the man and jogged from room to room looking for Reaver’s familiar build. I was out of breath, the dusty air sawing in and out of my lungs until my chest burned when I skidded to a halt outside the door to a large room that looked like it was going to be a board room of some kind. I coughed from the dusty air and he turned around, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“I…” tears tracked down my face and his expression hardened. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know… I closed my eyes and swallowed hard and opened my mouth.
“I’m so sorry. I failed you when you needed me the most and I… I can’t stand this. I can’t do this anymore!” I sobbed and his expression softened marginally. “I miss you so much, and it’s like I can’t get any air and I can’t breathe anymore without you and I feel so lost inside!” I put my hands over my heart and he dropped the tools that were in his hands with a loud clatter and rushed me. I jumped not knowing what to expect but held my ground because this was Reaver and the Reaver of before, I knew, would never hurt me but I’d hurt him, badly, I saw that now and I wasn’t sure what that meant but I had to trust him, I just had to and… Reaver grabbed me and pulled me tight against his chest his arms crushing me to his lean hard body and I sobbed, wilting in against him in total relief.
He didn’t hate me.
“Shhhhh, I gotcha Doll,” he murmured into my hair and I felt him shudder against me.
“Yo, there she is! Reaver’s got her,” I heard someone say but I didn’t care. I held onto Reaver and wouldn’t let go and wept a month’s worth of pain, fear and apologies into his neon yellow construction tee shirt.
“Baby, Baby, Baby, come on, you can’t be in here,” he pulled back and I nodded and he walked me back out through the maze of corridors and to the parking lot, all the while keeping me in a death grip to his side. He walked me to my Escalade and took the keys gently from my hands, popping the locks. He opened up the driver’s side door and lifted me into the seat, and planted his hands on my knees. His cold blue eyes the warmest I’d ever seen them locking with my own. I took several deep breaths and clutched his hands where they rested on my knees with my own.
“I missed you too, Baby,” was all he said and he rested his forehead against mine. I closed my eyes and relished the contact, breathed deep his smell and let it calm me. He wasn’t pushing me away, he said he missed me… but I didn’t dare get my hopes up. He was being just so unreadable, cautious I think, I didn’t know where I stood and while it bothered me… he wasn’t pushing me away. He wasn’t deriding me or telling me off or any of those things.
“We can’t talk about this here,” he whispered and I nodded against his forehead. I understood that. Believe me I did.
“Come by the house,” I said, “Please?”
“I can’t tonight,” he replied, jaw clenched in displeasure, “Tomorrow? Six o’clock?” he asked.
“Okay,” I sniffed and he took his hands from mine and cradled my face in them, thumbing away my tears.
“I’m so sick of crying,” I said with a broken self-deprecating laugh.
“No more tears, at least not for now. We’ll talk,” he promised and I knew it was a promise that fell from his lips, even before he kissed my forehead
.
“I’m sorry for coming at you like this.”
“Don’t be, Babe. Just, I got to get back in there. Tomorrow night. Six o’clock,” he intoned and I nodded.
“Okay,” I whispered and he let me go reluctantly. I turned my legs into the truck and he shut the door. He stood and watched as I pulled out, more than a few curious faces at the door to the office complex.
I went home, there was no way I would be able to finish work, get anything accomplished, today…
Chapter 29
Reaver…
I watched Hayden drive away and thought to myself, yeah, no fucking way this was going to wait until tomorrow, but I needed her to believe it would. I finished my shift and when I checked my phone I had about a million missed calls from Trigger and Ashton. I called my best friend back first.
“Reave?” He asked by way of greeting.
“What’s up Trig?” I asked.
“Hayden find you?” he asked. Ah ha. Kind of figured that’s how she knew where I’d been.
“Yeah,” I said, carefully neutral.
“Dude I didn’t know what was up but she had this look like the devil’s own was riding her tail. She didn’t even bother picking up her yoga shit, just took off like a bat out of Hell. Wouldn’t even answer Sunshine, just popped smoke and that was it,” he sounded worried and I frowned.
“She’s okay,” I said quietly and Trigger held his breath.
“Yeah? Are you okay?” he asked and I straddled my bike in the darkened parking lot and felt the first smile I’d had in over a month grace my lips.
“Getting there I think,” I replied and he was quiet for a heartbeat too long.
“Going to test your limits?” he asked.
“Have to. You know I have to,” I bowed my head smoothing my hair down in front. I sighed.
“You weren’t there Brother, you didn’t see her in that bathroom. She was crushed, it scared the Hell out of Sunshine and me both. I’m not sure how much more pressure she can take,” I smiled a little wider.
