Chapter 3
Cilla staredat the ceiling over her bed blankly.
Numb.
But aching. Her chest hollow yet so full of sorrow it was overflowing into the very depths of her soul. Never in her life had she felt such unrelenting pain, such burning yet chilling agony. Was this what heartbreak felt like? How long would she have to endure the affliction until it was as numb as the rest of her?
Why did it have to hurt so much? Why was love like acid poured over vulnerable flesh, quickly eating away at the soft parts until all that was left was a pool of what could have been?
Her head pounded from a night spent crying into her pillow, and her eyes were desert dry. She blinked, trying to get some moisture back into her eyes.
Five minutes ago, her alarm clock screamed into the new morning, telling her it was time to get up and get ready for her early shift at the diner. Thankfully, she’d switched shifts with Dana, because she’d stupidly planned to have a late night the night before, so she wouldn’t want to wake up too early to go to work. Dana would work today, and Cilla would work Dana’s afternoon shift tomorrow. She should have turned the alarm off last night, but she’d been…preoccupied. She slapped it silent, annoyed at the noise, though she’d already been awake when it had gone off. She hadn’t slept well the night before, her slumber restless, her body wanting to move but her mind wanting to shut down. And her heart…it wanted to go back to the Unchained clubhouse and rewind time to the night she first walked through the doors behind Stephie. If she could go back, she’d have turned right around and gone home where her heart was safe.
But she couldn’t go back in time, just like she couldn’t go back to that clubhouse. Ever.
Last night, after sobbing into her hands for what felt like hours, Cilla had finally collected herself enough to slink from the bathroom stall. Not bothering to check her reflection to see if she was okay to face people without looking like a crackhead raccoon, she pushed through the bathroom door, walked down the hallway toward the main room with the bar, and immediately ran into the biker named Clusterfuck. How he got that name, she didn’t know, nor did she care.
“Hey there…” he’d slurred, huffing his whiskey sour breath in her face. She recoiled. “If-if you-you’re lookin’ for Patriot, he’s in his room with Ja-Jaime.”
Now that she knew the truth about Patriot and Jaime, hearing that they were together shouldn’t have been a surprise. But it was. He’d been talking to her right before she’d gone to the bathroom. Yeah, she’d been gone a while, but a smidgeon of her heart had hoped he was waiting for her to get back and make a night of it with her.
But he was with Jaime. In his room. And they were probably celebrating his return with a sex marathon.
Now that she knew they were a thing, it shouldn’t hurt to envision them together in his bed. Naked. Him kissing Jaime and touching her, and pleasuring her in all the ways Cilla had dreamed he would do to her.
But it hadn’t happened. It would never happen.
“…disgusted…annoyed….”The words the women exchanged in the bathroom had been expertly administered poison, a drop here and there to infect her soft tissues, invade her organs, and quickly and efficiently kill her. Murder every bit of confidence, self-worth, happiness, hope, and dreams of a future with the man she’d fallen in love with one conversation, one smile, and one look at a time.
And none of that meant anything to Patriot.
She meant nothing to Patriot.
“Goodnight,” she’d muttered to a glazed-eyed Cluster, and easily maneuvered around him, heading to the exit door leading to the parking lot. And on her way through the partying throng, she’d caught sight of Sasha, Marci, and Kiki standing by a pool table, watching her, smirks and knowing looks on their faces.
Cilla gasped, realization slamming into her like a drunken biker.
They’d known she was in there when they’d started in on her. They’d known she would hear. They’d known they were ripping her apart—flesh and vein—and they hadn’t cared.
Pushing back the burning behind her eyes and the tingling in her nose that told her tears were imminent, she’d raced from the building.
She’d gotten in her car and hadn’t looked back once.
Cilla couldn’t remember how she got home, or how she got that dress off, but she knew she was wearing only her bra and panties.
Her stomach growled, breaking the oppressive silence in her bedroom, and she groaned. She hadn’t eaten yesterday, too nervous about the party and seeing Patriot and him seeing her in her stupid dress to have any appetite at all.
Her body wanted food, but she didn’t know if she could swallow a bite.
She waited, her stomach continuing its unhappy noises, and finally her demanding bladder dragged her from the cocoon of her bed.
After doing her bathroom business, Cilla avoided the mirror and headed into her closet. She stripped off her underwear and bra—two expensive pieces of sexy lingerie she couldn’t really afford but had bought when she was hopeful about her night. God…how freaking dumb was she really, to think a man as beautiful as Patriot would give a crap that she was wearing lingerie? He had Jaime—long-legged, trim, blonde, with firm tits, tight ass, and a blinding smile. No wonder Patriot was intent on claiming her—she’d make the perfect ol’ lady for him. They looked perfect together. His dark features with her golden ones.
They would make beautiful babies.
Something twisted in her chest, making her breath catch. An image—a little girl with Patriot’s dark hair, and eyes with central heterochromia—flashed through her mind. She captured the sob before it escaped.
That wouldn’t be her future. No matter how much her heart wanted it. No matter how her soul hoped for it.
He was with Jaime, the goddess in high-heeled boots. She could admit that Patriot and Jaime, together, were stunning. A couple written in the stars.
Beside him, Cilla looked like an overweight pug, gazing up at him adoringly, begging for any scrap of attention he would give her.
Sighing, Cilla donned her Netflix and Nutterbutter attire—sweatpants and a hoodie—and headed into the kitchen to get the Nutterbutters. She might not have a real appetite, but peanut butter cookies always made things better.
She had to believe that, anyway. Things couldn’t get worse, right?
The universe decided to test that theory because not even an hour later, there was a decisive knock on her door. Stunned, she halted with a cookie, inches from her mouth.
So close to peanut butter oblivion!
She paused the episode of the K-drama, My Demon, she’d been visually devouring, and glanced at the door.
Maybe if she sat quietly, whoever it was would go away.
Another knock dashed that idea.
Grunting, she slowly put the cookie back, then rose to her feet. She shuffled to the door and got up on her tiptoes to gaze through the peephole.
Her whole body locked up at who she saw.
She gasped, her heart racing.
Patriot was on the other side of her door.
Whywas he on the other side of her door? Why was he going out of his way to see her, shouldn’t he be happy that he didn’t have to see her?
Sasha’s voice sneered in her ear, “…he saw her coming, and cringed. Like he wanted to run the fuck the other way and hide.”
The last freaking thing she wanted to do after last night’s revelations and soul-crushing truths was to open the door to him, especially while wearing her cozy clothes, with her hair in a messy bun, and cookie crumbs on her boobs.
Her eye glued to the peephole, she watched as Patriot stuffed his hands into his pockets and gazed at the door, his sharp features enhanced by the shadows of the awning over her tiny porch. His striking green eyes flicked from the door to the peephole, and for a moment she thought he could see her.
That he could see how cowardly and pathetic she was.
He knocked one last time, and she held her breath, praying that he would just leave. That he would think she wasn’t home…and that he would leave her alone.
Yes, he came to the diner often, but she didn’t have to engage with him. She would just go about her job, taking his order, and filling the time he was sitting and eating with busy work. He’d be more than happy to not have to deal with her awkward, disgusting presence anyway. He could eat in peace, and she’d try to ignore him.
She’d have to get used to seeing him around…without feeling like her heart was being ripped out of her chest.
Her front and palms plastered to the door, she watched as Patriot heaved a sigh, cast one last glance at the peephole, then turned and walked down the short flagstone path to the driveway.
When he started his bike, she dropped to her heels and pressed her forehead to the door. Tears gathered in her eyes, and she sniffed them back.
She had no idea why he’d come, but one thing she knew for sure, she couldn’t avoid him forever.
But, hell, I’m going to try!
The first step to healing her devastated heart was putting up high, unscalable walls. The second step was putting space between herself…and the man who unknowingly broke her heart.