Dark As Coal

Chapter 8

Adeline

I couldn’t freaking believe it.

Not this.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

I had been putting the work in.

Slowly, at his pace.

I shook my head, no, this wasn’t going to happen.

He told me I was his woman this morning. Laid it out for me. He wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t meant it. Because Coal Matthew Adams doesn’t say shit, he doesn’t mean.

Using a move Coal had taught me, I twisted my arm out of his, spun around him, and then marched back into the main room of the clubhouse.

Seeing Coal going toe to toe with Asher should have stopped me from doing what I was about to do, but there is no greater pain than a woman with a broken heart.

When I reached him, just like all the other times when he felt me near, his head moved and then his eyes landed on mine.

I noticed Asher let go of him, my arm was coming back, and then my hand was slapping him across the face.

I watched as his nostrils flared but I didn’t move, I waited until he righted his head, and locked those steel-gray eyes with mine.

“You’re a fucking coward. I tell you that I love you, and then not even, not fucking even twelve hours later you’re okay with some other man getting their hands on me. I heard you this morning, you know. I heard you. So, what if you have blood on your hands? I do, one week each month when my period is heavy, and I have to change out my tampons. Big fucking whoop.”

“Hell, I sleep easier at night knowing about the men you go after and take down. I know that you’re ridding the world of that kind of evil.”

“Sou…” I held up my hand.

“No, you just lost the right to call me Soulshine. And what the fuck us up for someone being too good for another person? That’s my decision. I’m a grown-ass woman. I choose who is good enough for me, and you were, you always have been, until the thought crossed your mind to let someone else put their hands on me.”

Then I stepped back, looked at Asher then looked at Charlie because he would be the one to know, and asked, “How many months ago was my time as a club girl over?”

Charlie looked at me with a sad smile, and muttered, “Seven.”

I watched as Coal took in that news.

And then I watched as his eyes flared.

But I kept going, “Yeah, I didn’t have to sleep with anyone. I could have walked away seven months ago. But I didn’t. For you. I never thought it was possible. But god damn, Coal. You would never lay your hands on me. And never, not once has a woman texted or called your phone. Not once have you come back from a run with the scent of another woman on you.”

“And I know because when your cologne is two days old, it’s faint. But it’s there.” I didn’t realize I had tears trailing down my cheeks.

“After everything that happened this morning. What was that? Some kind of fucking game?” I asked him.

And when he still didn”t answer me, when he stood there still as a statue, I knew, I knew. I knew what I had to do. It was time I stopped.

Fucking high time, I did.

And that was holding onto something and trying to be patient.

Fuck. That.

Then I looked over at Piney, and asked, “That marker you owe me? Calling it in.”

He stood up, and immediately asked, “Whatcha need, baby girl?”

“You don’t let him get near me while I pack my things, and then load them up in your truck and you take me home.”

Piney nodded, “Done.”

“I’ll help, honey,” Gabby said as she came to my side and wrapped her arm around my shoulders.

Stella stepped up, “Same.

Chloe got on my other side, wrapped her arm around my waist, and said, “You got me too.”

“Come on, darling.” Sutton grabbed my hand and then led me from the main room, down the hallway, to the right, and then down to the end of the hall where my room was.

And with their help, we got all my things packed up.

None of us paid mind to the crashing and breaking of things that were going on in the clubhouse.

I was so over it.

So. Fucking. Done.

Once we were finished, Sutton opened my door and then looked at the prospects that were standing there. “We’ve got her stuff. Piney’s ready.”

And with that, they grabbed my things and then circled me so no matter what Coal couldn’t get to me.

I walked with them, my eyes forward, my chin jetted out. I wouldn’t show him how much he broke me.

He got those tears earlier.

He wasn’t going to get any more of them.

***

Once Piney set the last bag of my things on my couch, he walked over to me, and chucked me on my chin, “You gonna be alright?”

I smiled up at him and nodded, “You know me, Piney. I’m always alright. No matter what.”

“Alright. Dinner next Friday?” he asked with a mischievous grin.

I nodded, “You know it.”

Then I stood on my front porch as I watched Piney’s taillights disappear down my drive.

Then I ignored the man on the bike at the end of my drive, turned on my heel, walked into the house, and flipped the locks, making a mental note that tomorrow, I was going to the hardware store and getting new locks. Ones that Coal couldn’t break into.

I didn’t cry as I took a shower that night.

I didn’t cry as I combed my long black hair.

I didn’t even shed a tear as I braided it.

I wasn’t going to cry over him.

Fuck. That.

Well…. Someone should have told that to my dreaming state.

***

Two weeks. Three days. Fourteen hours. Seventeen minutes.

That’s how long it’s been since I’ve seen or talked to Coal.

Two weeks. Three days. Fourteen hours. Eighteen minutes.

That’s how long it’s been since I haven’t cried myself to sleep at night.

And my girls were tired of seeing me being this upset.

The words were simple. “Fuck him and the bike he rode in on.”

Only two days later as I sat at a corner bistro with my girls and saw the love in Pipe’s eyes as he sat at a different table, keeping an eye on the situation, and making sure she stayed safe, I found myself wanting to take that statement and obliterate it from my brain.

Because I missed him.

I missed every part of him.

I missed the way his eyes would crinkle first thing in the morning.

I missed the way I could be washing dishes, and he would wrap his arms around me from behind, take the dishrag from my hand, and tell me to go sit my ass down.

Or how the way he would walk into the house while I was making dinner and dancing, and just stand there, leaning up against the wall, and watch me.

The moment I felt tears hitting my eyes, I shook my head and then started listening to Sutton talking about this dress she found when someone caught my attention.

“Miss Adeline!” I heard and then looked to where I heard that voice and found a smile hit my face.

Standing, I opened my arms just in time to hug her to my legs, “Hey there, superstar.”

“Hey, guess what?”

I quirked a brow at her, “What?”

“Tomorrow is my birthday and Daddy is letting me get my nails did,” her happy nature was just so infectious.

“Really? That’s awesome!” And since we weren’t in school, I wasn’t going to correct her wording.

“Miss Adeline,” I heard Mr. Grant say.

I looked up from Olivia’s smiling face and smiled, “How are you, Mr. Grant.”

The man was gorgeous in that rugged lumberjack kind of way, but he didn’t make my heart go pitter-patter, “Call me Hank, please. Mr. Grant is my father.”

I nodded, “Okay, but just know that on school grounds, you’ll always be, Mr. Grant.”

“Introduce us?” I looked over my head at the girls and nodded.

“Olivia, Hank, these are my friends, Sutton, Gabby, Lizette, Stella, and Chloe.”

I looked at my girls, then gestured at Olivia and Hank, “Girls, this is one of my students and her dad.”

Once the girls fully met him, he stepped closer to me and asked, “So, gotta know. That complication you were speaking about. Is it still a complication?”

Before I could open my mouth, I felt someone wrap their arm around my waist, and when I inhaled, I knew it was Gabby, “Why are you asking her that?”

“Because I would love to ask a beautiful woman out to dinner. The first beautiful woman my eyes have landed on in more than a fucking decade.”

“Umm… I’m not sure,” I said.

But it was Gabby who smiled, “You let us know and we will help her get ready.”

I looked at her and narrowed my eyes, she leaned into me and whispered words that caused my heart to drop, “That man needs a wake-up call.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, “And what if that wake-up call ends with this girl losing her daddy?”

“It won’t. He won’t. Because it will hurt you. I know he hurt you, honey, but that man is head over fucking boots for you.” Gabby said.

Adeline hadn’t seen the state of Coal. She didn’t know that Pipe had trailed Coal for the past two weeks, three days, and fifteen hours. And wherever Adeline went, so did Coal.

And his bed roll on her front porch was the place he called home once he made sure Adeline was tucked safely in her house each night.