Chapter Thirty-Two
Gigi
“Who’s that?”
Gears nodded at someone sat in a plain black truck parked just outside the security gate that brought back a lot of memories of when I used to live here.
“He’s a brother, just lookin’ out.”
“Looking out for what?”
“You and Ella. Until I know everything is okay, they’re going to be hanging around.”
Hearing that he’d arranged protection was about the only thing that stopped my brain stressing that any moment now we’d be pulling up to his mom’s place, a place I’d run out on.
“You sure this is going to be okay?”
“Look at these houses, Gigi!” Ella was hanging out of the car’s rear window like a dog on a hot day. “Do you have a pool?”
“Nah, Ma’s is one of the smaller houses out here.”
My hands became clammy the closer we got. I was running out of time to stop this. Hell, it was already too late because Gears pulled into the driveway and my heart rushed upwards and lodged itself in my throat.
Then she appeared—Momma Geary, the kindest woman on the planet.
If I could have taken three hundred years getting out of the truck to avoid whatever she was about to say, I would have done. I’d let her down badly last time, but Ella was out and rushing up to her like they’d known each other forever. Mom Geary placed her arm around Ella’s shoulder and walked her into the house.
“There a problem?” Gears appeared at my door, looking confused.
“I let her down. I let you down, her son. Up until I met your momma, I always let everyone down. She was the last person I wanted to hurt.”
He pulled at my hand until my feet had no choice but to comply and climbed out of the truck. “She understands why you did what you did. She bears no grudge. If I thought you’d be unwelcome, I’d have taken you to my place.”
He had a place?
“Why are we here if you have your own place?”
Gears had succeeded. He’d distracted me enough to pull me towards the house. “It’s more of a crash pad, and Ma would kill me if I tried to keep you locked away from her.”
Before he could drag me through the door, I pulled on his hands until he stopped. “We don’t know anything about each other anymore. Maybe this is all too soon.” This beautifully handsome man had lived a life I knew nothing about while I was surviving from day to day, just trying to make it back to him.
“Stop. I need you to listen to me.” Gears’ face turned serious. “Sometimes your life crosses with someone else’s and it’s obvious that you belong together. Everything clicks and you feel that connection. It makes you feel alive and want to keep on living. I’m going to sound like a pussy, but it’s never coincidence. It’s fate, something determined by a greater being, and we’d be fucking crazy to ignore it.”
“But—”
“It worked last time and we were good together, so fucking good.”
My heart beat so fast. What he said was one of the biggest reasons why I couldn’t hide anymore. Being away from him was killing something inside me slowly every day. I’d never felt more together, more whole than when I was with him, and to know he understood that did something to me deep inside. “Gears,” I whispered.
“Griffin, Gigi, oh my, have I… Yes… I have interrupted something, sorry.”
His mom stood by the door, having caught us in a moment. There was no running and hiding from facing her again. She was right there. I swallowed my nerves. “Gears, could I have a moment with your mom please?”
He nodded, kissed me on the cheek like we’d not been apart ten years, and walked away. It was something he used to do and watching him fall in step so easily with ‘us’ again made me panic and I didn’t know why. I’d trusted nobody in the last ten years, apart from Ella. This woman who was opening her home to us, and the only man I’d ever loved, were the last people I’d trusted with everything.
“Mrs. Gears,” I began,
“Geraldine,” she corrected, bringing back memories of when she’d asked me to call her that in the past.
“Are you sure this is okay? After everything? You were so kind to me and I ran out on you. I can only imagine how much worry it caused you.”
Gears’ mom placed both her hands on my shoulders before playing with my hair, another blast from the past. “Gigi, it’s in the past. You’re right. I was worried, so very worried, but now I’ve met Ella, I understand your reasons. Do I wish you had trusted me, confided in me? Yes. But I’ve realized in the last week or so that you can’t enjoy the present and look forward to the future if you’re focused on the past.”
There was something so profound about what she said that I had a feeling it meant more to her than just me returning.
“I really did miss you. You became the momma I never really had.”
“And you were the daughter God never blessed me with. Now you’ve returned with another precious thing that needs love, and I’m okay with that, but I need you to be honest with me about Gears. When you left, a piece of him shriveled up and died. I couldn’t help him. He was unreachable and someday, when you’re blessed with kids of your own, you’ll understand why I never want to see my boy like that again.”
Her words were like swallowing a hot poker, and it instantly got harder to breathe.
“If you’re not in this for the long haul, you need to take Ella and go. If you break him again, I’m not sure he’ll survive. I’m not telling you this to upset you. I’m telling you because you need to do the right thing this time and only you can decide whether that’s staying here and rebuilding or walking away before it’s too late.”
I gulped back tears that were threatening to fall. “Love is a choice, Geraldine. I’ve learned that so much these past years. And I chose not to love again because doing it once and walking away hurt too much the first time. I don’t think I could physically do that again. Your son never once stopped being my whole world, even when I had to make room for Ella. I just put the love I felt for him on hold and hoped like hell I’d be able to win him back. Just so you know, I’ll never stop trying.”
She smiled at me—a big, deep smile that told me she was on my side.
We ate with Gears’ mom. I still had problems calling her Geraldine. It sounded too formal and was just another reminder that we’d all grown up and changed over the time we’d been apart. When she announced it was time for us to go out on our ‘date’, I promptly choked on the sponge cake she’d made to welcome us back home. I looked at Gears who just smiled because he knew what she was on about. Ella was also grinning like a Cheshire cat. Whatever they had planned, she was in on it, too.
“Date?”
“Kinda.” Gears grinned. “Bit of a welcome home party at the club.”
I was floored. I’d caused them so much trouble in the past already; there was no way they were pleased to see me back. “What about Ella?” I threw my first excuse down.
“Ma’s gonna watch her.”
“That’s not fair. We only just got here. We can’t go out.”
“You can. I want a chance to get to know this pretty girl,” Geraldine countered, smashing my second excuse out of the park.
I knew I was grasping at straws. My nervousness about seeing the club brothers in their own setting was getting to me. I’d been clear when I took the job with Angel that I didn’t want to be involved in that side. I was happy to have a job and her kids were the main focus. I didn’t want to go back on my word. “I promised Angel I wouldn’t let the brothers get in my way of looking after her kids.”
“It was her idea to throw the fucking party.”
“Gears, that mouth needs washing out. You can’t swear like that around Ella.”
Ella laughed at his mom taking him to task over his foul language.
“Sorry, Els,” he mumbled, embarrassed. “I’ll try to rein it, but no promises. These women drive me to it.”
Gears was laughing and joking, lik
e we’d never been apart. You could have rewound time and we’d have been in exactly the same place, laughing while his mom ticked him off over his cussing.
“I guess there’s no getting out of it, is there?”
“Nope, go have fun, Gigi.”
Ella’s word stopped me short.
Fun.
I could count on one hand the amount of fun I’d had, and if it ever did happen it was with her. Unless she was in school, we were together. I’d never really dated apart from a few guys buying me lunch a handful of times. I’d not been intimate with a guy since I’d let one of those dates become something a little more. We’d managed to grab a few quick and dirty sessions one lunchtime, choosing sex over a salad, and it was… just sex. It didn’t set my world on fire like I remembered my experiences with Gears, and I wasn’t bothered when it ended. In the end, the guy became frustrated with lunchtime liaisons and put pressure on me to spend the night. Doing that in the place where Ella and I lived was out of the question. It was a one-bedroomed apartment and leaving her at night just so I could get my rocks off was definitely not happening.
When I walked out of the house, after at least three checks to make sure that both Gears’ mom and Ella were fine together, I was surprised to see Gears stood by his bike.
I remembered his bike.
It was the sexiest thing ever to get on the back of it.
My mind flitted back to heading up into the mountains and the fun that always came when he pulled over. The sex was amazing after we’d been on his bike. I was so nervous the first time, but got over that quickly. I only had to hear the rumble of the engine and my lady parts were quivering in anticipation of what was coming next.
Usually him and definitely me. Amazing sex and multiple orgasms.
I understood the significance of what he was offering me. His bike was part of who he was. It was part of what made the Black Sentinels who they were as a brotherhood, I knew it was special. I knew that taking a woman on the back of your bike was akin to saying vows.
“No one but you has been on the back of my bike, Gigi. You know what that means to me.” I nodded, the world around me going blurry with emotion. In all this time I was still the only girl he’d ever seen as his old lady.
Knowing the kind of guy Gears was came with the understanding that he wouldn’t have been celibate during our time apart. It was foolish of me to wish that, so I took the path of least resistance and blocked it out. But realizing that he’d never replaced me in that way, the way that truly mattered to him as the love of his life, his old lady, was so special. I thanked God for all the times I’d prayed for us to be reunited. All those times I’d prayed for God to help me end my life when I was younger, and he was right. God did have a bigger, better plan for me. He wanted me to survive and love Ella. He wanted me to be right here at this moment, and I thanked him for finally granting me the one thing I so desperately yearned for.
Climbing on the back, I was both excited and terrified.
Feeling the rumble of the tail pipes roll through my whole body caused a shiver of excitement like I'd only ever felt when Gears was inside me.
Of all the people I’d been when I was younger—the scared girl, the girl who learned to fight back, the loving daughter and dutiful sister, Gears’ girlfriend, lover and best friend—I knew that who I was now was who I was meant to be. I’d grown into a woman that he could be proud of, that I could be proud of. I was worldly wise and mature now, someone who deserved to be on the arms of Griffin Geary.
The club gates swung open as we approached, and I was once again surprised at the change in the place. It wasn’t the small backwater place I remembered from ten years earlier. It was bright and shiny, and looking at the cars lined up in and around the autoshop garages, it was profitable. The minute I removed my helmet, I could hear the music from the field to the side. I used to love coming here with Gears as a young girl. We’d sit on the grass by fire barrels, smooching and having fun with the rest of the Sentinels until we couldn’t bear it any longer and we had to be alone. He’d drag me back to his room in the compound and neither of us would sleep until exhaustion forced us. I’d wake up feeling sore in the best possible way with a smile a mile wide. I felt safe and surrounded by love. People who knew the hardship I’d been dealt had accepted me. They loved me because of what I’d endured and survived, not in spite of it.
“You ready?”
I’d done my best to avoid the autoshop since returning. I knew that working for its owners, I’d eventually have to go, but I’d never expected to face them for the first time on Gears’ arm, as his old lady. “Kind of. Let’s do it.”
He slung his arm around my shoulder, and on instinct, I pushed my hand up behind him until my fingers were clasped around the waist of his pants, shielded by the leather cut. I needed his strength to infuse me and become my own. When we walked around the corner, Angel was there directing two brothers, like a mom boss, who were failing at hanging a banner that said, ‘Welcome home!”
“Angel,” Gears called.
“Damn it! You’re early.” She spun around and speared the two guys with a glare. “I told you pair you didn’t have time for that extra beer.”
Two brutes in leather cuts looked at each other, shrugged and mumbled, “Sorry, Angel,” before dropping the banner and leaving it where it was, only half pinned up. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so nervous.
Everyone was staring. I’d never felt so on show in all my life and because no one moved or said anything, I wondered whether they were truly on board with me being back in Gears’ life. I knew how this all worked. They’d tolerate me for his sake, but if they didn’t want to accept me, I’d still be on the outside.
As I was about to tug on his pants and suggest we leave, a whole crowd of them stopped what they were doing and headed our way. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, baby,” Gears replied.
Declan was the first to take me in his arms. “Welcome back, officially, Gigi.” He hugged me and kissed the top of my head. After that, one by one the brothers either hugged me and ruffled my hair or introduced themselves and then moved to Gears, who they slapped on the back and showed respect to him as a friend and a brother.
“Where’s Wave?” I hadn’t seen him since the night Gears had discovered I was back, and I missed him.
Gears, too, looked to Wolf. They were so close back in the day and to see him also waiting for the answer was strange. “He had some business to attend to back home. He’ll be back soon.” That wasn’t really an answer and from the look on Gears’ face, it didn’t satisfy him, either.
Then I heard it, a deep rumbling voice. “Step aside. Let me see my girl.” I gasped. I’d been doing my best to avoid JP since I’d returned and wasn’t sure how I’d managed it since I was looking after his grandbabies. “Look at you.” He smiled and this time, I moved and went willingly to hug someone. I left the safety of Gears and threw my arms around his middle.
This time, the tears fell freely.
Knowing that JP didn’t hate me was one of the last pieces in the puzzle to restarting my old life. “Prez,” I muttered, clinging onto him and sobbing.
“Nope. Just JP now, Gigi. Wolf took the burden of the gavel.”
“I’m… I’m… After everything you did for me. Forgive me?”
JP’s frame was still big and burly. No matter how much he’d aged, he was still the same lovable bear. “Nothing to forgive,” he whispered into my hair. “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Just warms an old man’s bones knowing this was the place you called home and where you headed back to.”
My reunion was complete.
A few minutes later, Declan asked Gears for a quick word. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”
“She’ll be fine with me,” Angel announced.
“Christ, I definitely won’t be long.”
“I’d take offence at that, Gears.” She laughed. “But if I wanted to lead her astray you couldn’t stop me.”
Shaking his head, he wandered off while we grabbed fresh beers from an old steel bath tub full of cold water, rammed with bottles.
After thirty minutes he still wasn’t back. “Just going to head to the bathroom.”
Angel nodded. “In the clubhouse, you know the way.” Her smile was infectious. It felt great to be back.
Heading across the field, I rounded the first corner towards the compound where most of the brothers had rooms and, under the intense glare of the spotlights, I saw Gears with a woman—a very pretty woman in a short skirt and bikini top having a very heated conversation.
I took a few more steps and as I got closer, I could hear her voice. “You said you didn’t do serious, Gears. Yet, she’s on the back of your bike.”
“Marnie…” He sounded frustrated, but his voice was still gentle. “I said—”
I recognized this girl as the one I’d caught him with last time I’d stumbled into the Black Sentinels territory when Angel thought I didn’t know my way around here and she was showing me around.
“All those times we’ve been together, here and at my house. I wanted you. You wanted me, and I still lose out. I fucking loved you. Fuck that, I still love you, Gears.”
It was like someone was taking a scalpel to my heart. All the times I’d had to switch my brain off from thinking about what he’d been doing while I was gone, and this visual in front of me was living evidence. She was sexy, stunningly so, and dressed like the kind of girl I could really see him with. She was a biker babe and they looked like they would fit together in every imaginable way.
I couldn’t take that away from him.
He was with me out of duty; I understood that now.
I didn’t want him to give her up for me. It wasn’t fair on either of them. I knew when I came back that I risked him being with someone else. He was old enough to be married and have kids. I always knew I faced the possibility of Gears being settled with another woman.
Standing there, I knew I’d hate having to accept it, but that was my reality. This was the consequence of the choice I made when I chose Ella over him. The repercussions had to be perfectly acceptable because I had earned them.
Gigi: A Black Sentinels MC Novel Page 26
