What kind of asshole was I that I had desires for my best friend’s woman? My best friend’s fiancée?
That made me a piece of shit, is what it made me.
I curled my lip as much as I could in disgust, righted the toothbrush holder, then yanked the drawer open to get to my toothpaste.
After putting way too much on it—something I apparently couldn’t stop myself from doing—I viciously yanked the brush across my teeth.
Then I spit, washed my face and the toothbrush, and tossed it against the counter.
It slid off and fell to the floor.
I rolled my eyes, bent down, and picked it up.
When I straightened up, I once again caught sight of myself in the mirror.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten, all the while trying hard to remember just a single, small fact.
But nothing came.
Not a single thing.
Not a one.
Which pissed me off all over again.
Fuck everything about this life.
Fuck it all.
Chapter 5
4 out of 3 people struggle with math.
-T-shirt
Frankie
I should’ve turned around.
Instead, I went ahead and entered through the front door, hoping that they wouldn’t see me.
But, I should’ve guessed that they would.
There was an entire table full of alpha males. There was no way in hell that I would’ve gone unnoticed with all of them facing my way.
Jonah was the first one to spot me.
Mala…Riel, the second.
His eyes snapped up and completely focused on me.
“What would you like to order, ma’am?” the woman behind the podium asked.
I opened my mouth to tell her what I wanted when I found a massive, warm body quite close to me.
I reflexively took a step back and swallowed hard.
Like always, it was a punch to the gut to see Riel.
And not because he was scarred.
Because every time I looked at him, I was reminded of what I no longer had.
And it hurt.
God, did it hurt.
I smiled through the pain.
“Riel,” I whispered softly. “How are you?”
Riel sounded so fucking wrong.
But, I couldn’t fault him for not wanting to be called Malachi when he didn’t remember who Malachi was.
“Hey,” Riel rumbled, his deep, raspy voice that sounded so familiar yet not, sent shivers down my spine.
“H-hey,” I stuttered.
God, his voice.
What was it about it?
His vocal cords had likely been damaged in whatever accident that had scarred him so badly. But still, there was something so familiar about it that it mentally hurt to listen to.
“You want to come eat with us?” he asked, sounding genuine.
I wasn’t interested in eating with them, though.
I wanted to go home, wallow in my own grief.
Today had started out so promising.
I’d woken up, and for once, I hadn’t had nightmares about Luca.
I’d had nightmares about Malachi.
But that was progress, right?
I’d headed to work after that, but then I’d gotten to feeling guilty that my dreams had been about Malachi and not Luca.
And then I moved on to how I couldn’t remember how Luca smelled.
How my favorite t-shirt that used to be his had been accidentally bleached by my housekeeper the week prior.
Then the day from hell had started, beginning and ending with Dr. Cromwell berating both me and a fellow med student—Hunter Crayton.
It’d been over something utterly stupid—helping a nurse when she’d asked for help.
Apparently, we were not their slaves.
Or whatever the fuck he said.
I’d started tuning him out the moment he said that the nurses could handle the shit on their own.
Then I began mentally chanting that I only had one more year left and had nearly missed him say that he wanted me back at work tomorrow bright and early to help cover another med student’s shift so that he could attend a funeral for his ex-girlfriend’s sister.
Which led to now. Me ordering food at nearly nine o’clock at night, only to have to return to work tomorrow morning at six-thirty.
I looked at the table that had seven men total, and five women.
“Umm, you don’t have enough room at your table,” I stalled. “And I’m just getting a to-go order. I had a really long day.”
“That table pulls out farther,” the hostess piped in. “There’s a leaf that’s on the end next to the sexy older man. We can pull a chair from the other table for you. Make it work.”
Riel’s lips tipped up slightly.
It would’ve been a full-blown grin had the muscles in his face not been affected by the scars.
I was fairly sure that even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t smile like he once could.
“We’re not staying long,” he promised. “Just a quick dinner. Monthly thing that we do with the team for ‘team building’ or some bullshit like that. Captain Morgan makes us do it.”
I snickered—nearly—at the Captain Morgan comment.
But I really was piss poor company today.
And in a bad mood to boot.
“I’m just… not in a good mood,” I admitted. “I’d be an asshole to eat with.”
Riel blinked at me as if he didn’t believe me.
“Come on,” he said. “I don’t really want to be here, either.”
He muttered that so quietly that I began to feel bad for him as well.
“How about you use me as an excuse and leave?” I suggested. “Then we can both go home.”
“He can’t leave.”
I looked over Riel’s shoulder to see Captain Morgan staring at me as if I was a bad influence.
“Okay,” I shrugged.
Riel’s eyes narrowed.
“Come on,” Captain Morgan ordered, gesturing to me. “You can come keep ol’ whiner over here company.”
Captain Morgan grabbed my purse that I had sitting on the counter and left, leaving me no choice but to follow.
“Whiner?” I asked quietly.
“Apparently I bitched and moaned too much about coming here,” he muttered darkly as we walked toward the seat.
There was already a chick putting the extra leaf in the table, and another pulling up an extra chair.
I was sat on the end between Riel and a woman that I should know the name of but didn’t.
I sat down and offered her a smile.
“I should know your name,” I admitted as I reluctantly took my seat. “But I can’t remember.”
She smiled sadly. “My name is Piper. I grew up with Luca.”
I nodded once.
That was where I knew her.
Luca had a lot of friends that he’d grown up with, and if I wasn’t mistaken, Piper had a twin and a younger sister that looked exactly like her.
“Nice to see you again,” I lied.
It wasn’t nice to see her.
In fact, it brought up the painful memories of the last time that I had seen her.
Luca had taken me to a party at the ‘compound.’ The place where the men of Free and their families had lived. I’d met a ton of people that day, and Piper, if I wasn’t mistaken, had been a major influencer in Luca deciding to sign on for another four years of service to the Navy.
And look where that got him.
I shut off that vicious thought in my head, knowing that it would take me nowhere good.
Seriously, if there was one thing that I knew I didn’t need to do, it was play the blame game.
Piper didn’t realize that she’d influenced Luca at all.
And even then, Luca was a grown-ass adult when he’d re-upped.
Piper nodded her head soberly.
“It’s good to see you looking well.” She nervously fidgeted with her shirt.
I did snort at that.
“That was a good one,” I snorted. “Well.”
Piper scrunched up her nose.
“It was… I don’t know what to say,” she admitted. “I’m sad. Sad for me. Even sadder for you.”
Her eyes flicked to the man beside me and I saw her shudder.
That didn’t make me happy.
In fact, it made me stiffen my spine and look at Riel with a look of annoyance.
“What are you getting?” I snapped.
Riel shrugged. “I don’t know.”
I tapped the menu. “You should probably look then. I’m ordering when the chick gets here.”
Riel snorted and opened his menu.
And that was when the waitress showed up with a tray of drinks.
My mouth watered at the sight of the sweet tea.
I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in hours.
Twelve of them, as a matter of fact.
I was still waiting on that lunch break that Dr. Cromwell had promised.
But the dick head had taken not one, but three hours for his own, effectively taking Hunter’s and my lunch break.
When he’d gotten back, we’d been swamped due to a seven-car pileup on the interstate.
When it’d finally cleared out, it’d been time for us to go home.
“What can I get you to drink, ma’am?” the waitress asked.
I looked at Riel’s sweet tea and pointed. “Same thing as him.”
Riel was in the process of taking a drink and grimaced.
“You can have mine,” he suggested. “As long as you don’t have a problem with drinking after me. That’s way too sweet.”
I chuckled then.
“Luca used to have to get a quarter sweet, three-quarters unsweet here. I’m fairly sure that they put half a pound of sugar per ounce,” I teased, then tilted my head. “Try that.”
Riel ordered that as I took his sweet tea and gulped half of it down in one swallow, not caring if he’d drunk out of it or not.
Then a thought occurred to me.
Malachi had loved sweet tea. The sweeter the better.
When had that changed?
“And are y’all ready to order?” the waitress asked.
I held up my hand. “I am.”
She moved closer to me, farther away from Riel, and stared at me as she studiously avoided making eye contact with the man at my side.
I rolled my eyes in annoyance.
But gave my order anyway.
“I’ll have a steak smothered in onions and mushrooms, a loaded baked potato, extra butter and sour cream. Go ahead and give me extra cheese, too, just in case.” I took a deep breath and continued my order. “I want a side of macaroni and cheese, a side salad with extra boiled eggs, and a sidekick of grilled shrimp.”
There was a long, silent pause as everyone at the table digested what I’d just ordered for dinner.
“That’s quite a bit of food,” the woman on the opposite end of the table said. “Where do you put it all?”
I shrugged.
“This is my first meal today,” I admitted. “I was at the hospital from about six this morning until just now. I think I might’ve gotten one single candy bar in. And it wasn’t even one I liked.”
“What kind of candy bar?” the man directly across from her asked.
I opened my mouth to say ‘Not a Three Musketeers’ when Riel beat me to it.
“It couldn’t have been a Three Musketeers or a Crunch bar. She hates everything else,” Riel offered up.
Then he frowned ferociously, looking at me with wide eyes.
“You remembered.” I smiled.
I also felt sad.
Because there were a lot of more important things he should be remembering.
Like what had happened to Luca.
Instead, he remembered the one and only time that I was ever around him when he would’ve had the chance to learn something like that. A stray Halloween where I’d sent Luca all my Halloween candy that I hadn’t liked eating. There’d been no fun-sized Crunch bars or Three Musketeers in it, because I had eaten them all.
I swallowed the bile that threatened to move farther up my esophagus.
Then I shoved all those feelings aside, put them into a tiny little box, and duct-taped that bitch closed.
Because thinking like that wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
It wasn’t going to get my Luca back.
It wasn’t going to make me happy again.
It wasn’t going to do anything.
How did I know?
Because I’d allowed myself a lot of hope in the very beginning.
I’d prayed.
I’d pleaded.
I’d begged.
Nothing had brought him back.
Nothing.
I was still here.
And he wasn’t.
And the longer he stayed away, the harder it started to hit me.
Luca wasn’t coming home.
He was gone.
For good.
“And for you?” the waitress asked Riel.
I flicked my eyes over to watch her face and got mad all over again.
She wouldn’t look Riel in the eyes.
She also wouldn’t look at his face.
It was more than obvious that she was looking at a point over his shoulder.
I gritted my teeth and fisted my hands to stop myself from saying or doing anything that might cause her to spit in my food.
“I’ll have a steak. Sixteen ounces.” He paused. “Corn and a salad.”
“Dressing?” she asked.
“Umm, ranch?”
I looked at him. “You getting the ranch? You’re sure?”
He frowned.
I looked at the waitress. “Maybe put the ranch on the side. Also, bring him Italian dressing as well.”
Riel gave the waitress his menu, and she rocketed off as if she’d been burned.
I rolled my eyes.
“I take it you don’t like ranch?” Piper asked Riel.
He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t remember what I like. I’m playing this game right now. Try and see.”
Piper looked at him curiously. “That’s got to be interesting.”
He nodded. “It is.” He sighed. “Last week I bought a whole family-sized box of Lucky Charms before I realized that when the milk hit the marshmallows, they reminded me of snot nuggets.”
Jonah, who’d been in the process of drinking his beer, choked.
I started to laugh, wiping tears from my eyes.
“Oh my God.” I wiped the tears from my cheeks. “You and Luca were in full agreement on that. Y’all both hated Lucky Charms so much. Him, I think, worse than you. But you were right there with him. Y’all fed on each other’s mutual hate for it, that’s for sure.”
Riel’s lips twitched.
“Malachi…” a man on the end said. “What’s…”
“He’d like to be called Riel now,” I said to the man. The man that I still didn’t know who he was. Though he looked quite familiar, too.
The man looked at me with an odd expression on his face.
“He doesn’t like the name Malachi. We decided Riel was what he was going to go by now. His middle name is Gabriel. So, he’s going to go by that until he finds what really seems right as he grows and matures.”
Riel snorted.
“Thanks,” he murmured. “I’m pretty grown and mature, but I get what you meant.”
“Riel then,” the man said. “How did you like your first week of work?”
“Frankie, Pace. Pace, Frankie.” Riel gestured to the man that was speaking. “And to answer your question, Pace, I enjoyed it. Other than that woman getting killed the first day on t
he job.”
“I’m Lock. This is my girl, Saylor. That’s Justice, and his wife, Royal. Pace you met. His girl is Oakley. Then you have Logan on the very end with Captain Morgan, and Logan’s wife, Katy,” Lock said, introducing the rest of us. “I’m sure that Riel would’ve gotten around to introducing you eventually.”
Riel winced.
“Sorry, I meant to do that.” He paused. “But, saying that, I didn’t remember Katy’s or Oakley’s name.”
Katy smiled and waved from her end. “My dad’s the police chief. His name is Luke Roberts.”
My eyes widened. “I think he gave me a ticket when I first moved here.”
Katy’s lips twitched. “That sounds like him. He’s a butthead sometimes.”
“How do you know Mala… Riel?” Logan asked, speaking up a little louder due to his distance away from us.
I looked at Riel, then back at Logan.
Feeling my heart lodge in my throat.
“Riel and Luca were best friends,” I said softly. “They met in bootcamp. Luca is my missing fiancé.”
Logan’s face filled with pity.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.” He paused. “At least, I didn’t know that you were her.”
I shrugged. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it, either.
It was what it was, and that was the way it was going to be until the end of time.
I just needed to learn to live with it.
“You’ve heard about the poor girl whose fiancé went off to war and never came home?” I asked. “I didn’t realize that people knew that much about it.”
That was a lie.
Kilgore was a small town.
Luca was also a big hero. He was an all-star football player. The star quarterback that went to war instead of taking his full scholarship to Texas A&M where he could’ve gone all the way. Everybody who was anybody knew who Luca Maldonado was.
Which, by association, meant they knew who I was, too.
“Uhhh,” Logan said. “Yeah.”
I snickered. “I know. It’s not the best kept secret in the world. I swear when I go to the grocery store, I can feel everybody’s eyes on me. I’m fairly sure the paper did an article on this one last week, too.”
Riel blinked. “They did?”
I nodded. “Cora, Luca’s sister, called me to tell me about it. I didn’t read it or anything, though. I try to stay away from those things.”
“Hmmm,” Riel said. “I’ll have to go look for that one.”
If You Say So (KPD Motorcycle Patrol Book 6) Page 5
