23. Lacey
CHAPTER 23
LACEY
Once I stop throwing up, I take a hot shower. I sit in the bathroom in the compound, wrapped in a towel and shaking from head to toe. I don’t want to leave this room. Don’t want to listen to excuses or stories. I definitely don’t want to listen to any lies.
I want to sneak into Eagle’s room, get my clothes and purse, and run. I rinse my mouth for the millionth time under the faucet then pray there is nothing else my body plans to do to reject the situation I’m in. I threw up until I coughed and dry-heaved, so my stomach is empty.
But my heart is overflowing with tears, and soon enough, I’m gonna lose what’s left of my composure. But at least I think I can leave here without puking all over my own shoes.
I think I might be in shock, so I take this moment to tiptoe down the hall. Eagle’s door is open, so I slide inside, lock the door, and try to put my clothes from yesterday back on. But slipping on my skirt makes me feel all the more miserable. Just last night, I was flying high. Drunk on possibilities and maybe a little drunk on cheap pizza and beer. But I didn’t care. I was happy. I had hope for a future. For a future with Eagle. New dreams, new plans.
And now, all I can see is how I’ve fucked up… Again. I trusted a man who, by all means, I should have dug into. It’s not like Dylan didn’t just happen. He did. And yet, here I am again.
As I frantically gather everything I’ve left over the past month in Eagle’s room—my toiletries, my clothes, extra chargers for my devices—my mind races. If I were still employed at the Lantana, I could look back at his employment paperwork. I could see who his emergency contact is, see what he put on his tax forms for his deductions.
But none of that is accessible to me anymore. And it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. I let Eagle into my bed, my heart, my home, and he lied to me. Just like all the others.
I realize, if Linda is talking to Eagle in the parking lot, I have to walk right past them to get to my car. The thought sends a new wave of nausea rocketing through my stomach, but I take a deep breath. I haven’t done anything wrong. I, again, was simply too na?ve and stupid, blindly trusting the man I was seeing.
I, again, fucked up. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hold my head high as I walk past Eagle…and his wife.
Now, the tears are falling, burning the backs of my eyes and nose, but I can’t stop them. And I won’t try. I don’t care.
I hold my heels in my hands, and all my other shit is gathered in my arms. I unlock Eagle’s room and pad through the compound in my bare feet. When I get to the main door, I slip into my shoes and lift my chin, only to hear a throat clear behind me.
“That one’s a piece a work.”
I turn to see Tiny sitting at the kitchen counter, a giant insulated glass with a reusable straw in front of him. It’s early, only nine in the morning by my watch, but I’ve seen Tiny put down a half gallon of soda first thing in the morning like some people drink water.
“Tiny, I need to go,” I tell him.
He nods, waving at the door. “I ain’t stopping ya,” he says simply. “But it’d be a shame if you didn’t give Eagle the benefit of the doubt. Not a lot of people have. And he’s pretty fucked up, in case you didn’t notice.”
That catches my attention. My stomach is empty, and my mouth still feels sour, but I juggle all my shit and walk toward the kitchen.
“What do you mean, he’s fucked up?” I ask.
Tiny shrugs. “We all get put through the wringer by life. But Eagle? It’s like rinse and repeat with that guy.”
Tiny takes a huge sip of his drink, then belches loudly. “Excuse me,” he says. “It’s fucking early, and my system doesn’t like waking up this early for anything other than my grandkid.”
He pats the stool next to him. “Sit a minute. I’m not going to stop you, though. You want to go, you know the way out.”
I swallow hard and set down my things on the counter, but I don’t sit. “He lied, Tiny. He’s married. He lied to me over and over and over.”
Tiny snorts. “Did he? I mean, maybe leaving out the shitty chapter of his life that was Linda wasn’t a smart move, but she ain’t no wife.”
I start to protest, but Tiny holds up a hand. “Lemme tell you a story. It’ll take five minutes of your time. Then you wanna leave, you think Eagle’s a lying loser, I’ll hold the fucking door for you. Even carry your shit to your car.”
I nod, and then I wait. “Okay. I’ll listen.”
I can’t imagine what Tiny could tell me that could ease this pain. That could take away the dishonesty, the hiding, the lies that Eagle has told—maybe not directly, but has he lied by omission? By leaving out critical information? Yeah. Yes, he has. He’s lied. And I don’t know how to rebuild trust once it’s been broken.
Tiny takes a deep breath, then sighs. “Once upon a time, this club was a very different place.” He grins as he says it, like he’s talking about an old friend. “The Disciples were feared, Lacey. And you know why we were feared? We did bad, bad shit. Guns, drugs, women—you name it, we dabbled.
“But a skinny young prospect has to prove himself, has to earn his way into the brotherhood. I’m not saying we’re angels by any means. But we do have a code. When Eagle started fucking Linda, they were stupid kids. He was fucking three or four other bitches. I don’t even remember now who they were. But Linda, she comes running into the club crying that she’s late, she’s late.
“Now, I tell Eagle what I would do, and this is what I did plenty of times with women who tried to land a Disciple the shady way. I said, you wait till she’s showing. Then, when the kid arrives, you get a paternity test. Then, and only then, do you decide if you’re gonna be a father.”
The similarities between Tiny’s approach and what my dad did make the room nearly spin. I clutch the counter and hope he’s almost done. “But not Eagle. That’s not what he did. Linda comes bellyaching in one day, claiming she’s late, and this guy panics. Decides he’s got to do the right thing. So, he hasn’t got a pot to piss in or even a full patch yet, and the asshole marries her. And guess what? Six weeks later, no baby. Was there ever a baby? Who knows. Anybody’s guess. But Eagle had a bigger problem on his hands than a kid. He had himself an old lady.”
I hear the front door open, and I hope it’s not Eagle coming back, but it is. I can tell from the way his boots hit the floor that he’s rushing.
Tiny turns on his stool and meets my eyes. “You know what’s real hard to do?” he asks. “Divorce a woman who tried to use you. And when you’ve got no legitimate income on the books for most of your adult life…” He makes a tsking sound and shakes his head. “It’s real hard to find a claim for no alimony when you have a five-figure bike, a truck, and all kinds of shiny devices, but no legal, verifiable source of income.”
He climbs down from his stool and gives me a nod. “See you around, Lacey.” Then he walks away, leaving me and all my shit in the kitchen.
Eagle comes into the kitchen, his face red and flushed, his eyes wide and concerned. “Lacey,” he says. “Can we talk, please?”
I don’t really want to talk about anything else, not here, not like this. I need time alone. I need time to think.
But Eagle’s looking at me with such pain in his eyes. He looks on the verge of tears.
“I just want to ask a few questions,” I say. “Is that all right?”
He nods. “Anything, yes. I’ll answer anything. Do you want to go to my room? We can?—”
I shake my head. “Here, please. If we go to your room, I’ll just want to hug you, and…” My voice breaks. “I can’t do that right now.”
Eagle swipes a fist at his eye and nods. “Ask anything. Anything you want to know.”
I don’t even know where to start, but I start with the obvious. “How long have you been married?”
“Since I was twenty,” he says, his voice flat. “So, twenty-four years.”
I almost topple off the kitchen stool. Eagle has been married for almost as long as I’ve been alive. “How long has it been since you were intimate with your wife?” It kills me to ask. My voice cracks on the word “intimate,” but I need to know it. I absolutely need the truth.
“Twenty years,” he says, his voice a low rasp. “She’s hooked up with Tiny more recently than she has me, and she’s been banned from the club for years. But to answer your question, twenty years.”
I’m not sure if that answer makes me feel better or worse, but I go on. “Are you ever going to get divorced?”
He nods, his bright-blue eyes never leaving mine. “Yes.”
I have so many questions burning through my mind right now, I can’t think of what to ask next. Why hasn’t he already, when will he, why didn’t he already, but then I just feel stupid. Childish. Maybe Tiny is right. Maybe it’s hard to do things by the book when you don’t live by the book. But I can’t believe, even if all of this is true, if he plans to divorce Linda someday, why he wouldn’t at least tell me? Give me the option of understanding his story and making decisions based on truth. He deprived me of that. Whether he meant to or not. I don’t know if I care if Eagle was a criminal. If he did bad things in his past.
I’m his present, and I thought he was my future.
He should have told me.
“What else?” he asks, his voice tight.
I look away from him. I don’t know what to do now, what to say. I thought I was falling for Eagle—I was. I was falling for Eagle. But I can’t build new dreams with old behaviors. I can’t. I just can’t.
“Thank you for explaining,” I say, then I climb off the stool and start to gather my things.
“Lacey.” The way he says my name sends my heart into overdrive. He sounds like he’s breaking. Like he’s as broken inside as I am. “If you’re going to leave, will you at least let me say a few things that you didn’t ask about?”
I look down at my clothes, my toothbrush, my charging cables. All the small things that blend together when you want to make a life with someone. If only it was as easy as picking up our stuff and moving on.
I shouldn’t listen. Shouldn’t give him the chance to tell me any more lies, but I have to. If all he has to give me are more lies, I’d rather know it now and shut that door forever.
“What is it?” I ask, trying to hold my voice steady.
Eagle doesn’t touch me, but he comes close. “You know how I feel about you, Lacey,” he starts. “And if you don’t, I’ll tell you. I’m fucking crazy about you. Use whatever fancy term you want. You’re mine, and all I want is to be yours.”
I break then, a sob slipping past my lips, but he continues.
“I didn’t tell you about Linda because, and I know this sounds fucking stupid, she means nothing to me. Not in the way fucking Acosta says his wife doesn’t mean anything to him. I mean that Linda and I are married on paper. But now, she wants a divorce. That’s what she’s been hounding me for. I know that means a lawyer and dredging up my financial records, dividing our property. And I don’t want that woman digging into anything that I’ve built in my life. Not one goddamned thing. That woman tore me down every way she possibly could. Fucked anything at the club that moved. Tiny, Morris, strangers, rival clubs—it didn’t matter. If it had a dick and that dick was even halfway hard, Linda got on it.”
He shakes his head. “And I wouldn’t care if that bitch let every cock in the state of Florida inside. What mattered is that when we were young—when I still believed that she married me because she wanted me, not because she had to or she thought she had to—she hurt me in ways I can’t describe.
“She made me believe I was worthless. That I was the reason she fucked around. That I was the reason she didn’t want me. That I was the reason she lost the baby we sure as hell didn’t mean to make, but it was ours. And all of it was my fault because I was not good enough. And maybe I heard enough of that from my old man or from teachers or from fucking life, but I believed her.”
Eagle is moving away from me now. As if now that he’s shared so much, he can’t bear the thought of me seeing him.
I let him go. I have to.
He doesn’t say anything more, his breaths coming hard and fast. Once it’s clear he’s calm, he says one more thing.
“You, Lacey. You were the first thing in twenty years that made me believe in myself. That made me believe I was more than the worthless trash I’ve been all this time. You, Lacey. You talk about your dreams and your fantasy life, your dream job and your future. I never even let myself hope for any of that shit. Not until you.”
He’s backing away now, walking toward the door to the compound.
“And I’m sorry if I was too chickenshit to tell you the one thing I knew would prove beyond a doubt that I’m not good enough for you. Yeah, I have a wife. But you, Lacey, you’re the love of my life.”
I swallow back my sobs, thick, hot tears coating my cheeks. I sniffle and wipe the back of my hand against my nose. “I have to go,” I tell him. I gather up my things and stumble on my heels toward the door. I try to get past him, but he stops me with a hand.
“Lacey,” he whispers, his voice a ragged, broken plea. “Please don’t leave me.”
I almost scream, the sound I make so animalistic and raw, I can’t believe it comes from my throat.
Then I kick off my shoes, yank open the door, and run.