Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Skylar
Walker leans back, running his hands through his hair as he looks away and blows out an audible breath. The devastation I see written all over him is the reason I didn’t want to say it. I hoped I wouldn’t have to, but that was wishful thinking, wasn’t it?
Fate doesn’t make it easy when it gives you a path to happiness, and instead of following it, you veer off course. Now I’m on a path of destruction, and even though Walker is just an innocent bystander, he landed in the blast zone.
“Wow.” He clears his throat and stands. “Congratulations. Excuse me a minute.”
More tears fall down my cheeks, but I can’t be bothered to wipe them away. I knew this would be hard; it’s why I’ve put it off until the very last minute. I’m getting married in just days, and not only does next to no one know it’ll be my second marriage, but the only person I told I was coming here was my best friend. My future couldn’t look any bleaker than it does right now.
Walker slams a door from down the hall, making me jump. I draw my knees to my chest and have myself a good old-fashioned cry. I didn’t want to hurt Walker more than I knew I already had, but I had no other choice. I couldn’t just mail him the papers and hope he signed them because I’d be waiting forever for them to be returned. My only option was to do this in person and rip the scab off the wound.
I should go after him and make him understand, though I doubt there’s anything I could say to make this better. I just need to give him some time to process, and when he comes out, we can sit down and talk about this like adults. First thing I need to do is stop my blubbering. I don’t want him to think I’m throwing down the sympathy card because that’s not why I’m here. I made mistakes, and I’m finally owning up to them.
Standing, I pace to shake the excess nerves from my hands. I didn’t get much of a chance to look around when I first got here, given the almost hyperthermia I was suffering from, so I take that time now.
In one corner opposite the kitchen is a hearth made from the same stone as outside, with an antique-looking wood stove atop it. Shelves are built-in on either side. Each bottom half is stacked with wood, but the top halves store books, little trinkets, and photos of Walker with his three extremely good-looking friends. In one picture, they’re standing around a dead buck, all smiling. I wince and think about how different his life is out here in the mountains. The Walker I knew didn’t even own a handgun and got his meat from an In-N-Out drive-thru.
In another photo, the four men are covered in mud from head to toe, race numbers attached to their shirts. I wonder if the point of the race was who could get the dirtiest because then it was a four-way tie. The common theme amongst all the pictures is that Walker looks happy, and it’s so different from how I’ve spent the last fifteen years. Sure, there were happy moments with friends and with Dad, but those moments were few and far between.
Glancing around the family room and kitchen, I can tell he’s doing well for himself. The appliances aren’t new, but they’re not old either. The furniture isn’t luxury, but it doesn’t look like it was picked up for free on the corner—except for the leather chair I just vacated, which looks used beyond its years.
The floors are wood, and he has put down a few rugs to make it cozy. He also clearly found an artist he likes, because he has hung similar paintings on a few of the walls. Of course, there’s a monster TV on the wall opposite the oversized sectional that seems to be a staple with all men. At least the ones in my life.
Not that Walker’s in my life. It’s the opposite, actually. I haven’t seen or heard from him since I left him in Vegas, and I didn’t expect to either. What I did was unforgivable. And judging by the reception Walker has given me, he feels the same way.
I wrap my arms around myself and glance out one of the many windows where sheets of snow are falling. It looks so peaceful and serene, but it’s making me feel the exact opposite inside. All this glittery magic is ruining my life.
My cell alerts me to an incoming call, so I dash over to the kitchen counter where I left it. Bile rises up my throat with the possibility of it being Klutch. I have no idea what I’d tell him about where I am. Most of my friends are closely linked to the club, and any lie I’d tell about being with them would quickly be found out.
I breathe a sigh of relief when I see it’s my closest friend, Dee. She’s the only one who knows the whole story about why I’m here. She’s also my only friend outside the club, so she’s safe.
“Dee,” I say, my voice hitching.
“Oh, no, sweetie. What happened?”
“You mean, what’s currently happening?” I wipe my snotty nose on the back of my hand.
“You’re still in Culver Springs? Girl, we had a plan!”
“Yeah, well, that plan went to shit when Mother Nature decided it was a good time for a blizzard.”
“No.” She gasps. “Shit. Did you find somewhere safe to stay?”
I look at the cozy house around me and think about how perfect life would be if I was still with Walker and if this was our house. Living off the land, or whatever the hell he’s doing up here, wasn’t ever our plan, but looking around, I can picture it.
“Yeah, I found a place.”
Anyone else would move on, but Dee knows my every tone. “Sky, where are you?”
“A mountain home with lots of windows and rustic furnishings. You’d love it.”
“Liar. Rustic and I don’t know each other.” She giggles for a second, then sobers. “You’re at his house, aren’t you?”
“How’d you know?”
“I’m a genius. Just kidding; we share our locations with each other, dumb ass.”
“Oh, right. Duh.”
“You turned location services off with Klutch and your dad, right?”
“Of course.”
“Good. So, is it awful?”
“Beyond. I don’t want to be here, Dee, and I really don’t want to do this. As dumb as it sounds, I felt as long as we were married, at least a part of him was still mine. But after he signs those papers, he’ll be lost to me forever.” I barely choke out the last word. Saying it out loud makes it feel all the more real.
“That’s because I will be,” Walker says from behind me, and I whirl around. He took off the canvas onesie thing he put on to go outside when he declared he had to do chores, leaving him in a worn pair of jeans and a Counting Crows T-shirt. I smile because I was with him when he got it. We camped outside of a winery in Oregon where the band was playing. It was such a fun trip.
I’m still revisiting that memory until I process his words and realize I’ll never again feel as happy as I did in that moment. “Dee? I gotta go, but I’ll call you later.”
“Okay. Good luck.”
I tuck my phone in the pocket of Walker’s sweats. “I didn’t mean for you to hear any of that.”
His eyes are red, as if maybe he was crying or close to it, and it makes me feel like trash. I’ve only seen Walker cry once, and that was when his mom basically told him to move out. But back then, he was practically still a child, whereas now, seeing red-rimmed eyes on this mountain of a man with a bushy beard—and possibly a closet full of axes—feels much worse.
“Yeah, well, you’re in my house, so. . .” His dog whimpers at his side until he bends down to ruffle the fur on his head.
“Right.” I absorb his venom without reaction. “Do you think we could sit down and talk?”
“Actually, I wasn’t lying when I said I had chores to do. I have to make sure everyone’s okay to wait out the storm, and I thought you could go with me.”
“Isn’t that what you were just doing?” I ask, but then I remember the red-rimmed eyes and wonder if he just needed a moment of privacy. Respecting that, I point outside. “You want me to go out there?”
“Yeah. I know my stuff will be too big, but I think I have some old gear that’s smaller.”
I squeeze his bicep. “Back when you were a baby lumberjack?”
His lip twitches, but he quickly schools his features. “Something like that. Gimme a minute.”
“Okay.” The last thing I want to do is leave his warm house, but Walker could ask me to do anything right now and I’d agree.
Twenty minutes and about a dozen clothing modifications later, we walk outside, and I’m immediately smacked in the face with cold wind and wet ice. It takes everything in me not to turn around and go back to snuggle on his couch.
“First, we gotta get the snow off the roof of the coop and make sure the bitches have enough power to keep them warm all night,” Walker says, pulling a weird-looking brush from a small shed. I can’t help but notice how his dog follows him everywhere he goes. He’s so attuned to his master, and it’s honestly impressive.
“The bitches?” I ask.
“Yeah, my ladies.” He opens the door to the biggest chicken coop I’ve ever seen, though that doesn’t say much, since I haven’t seen many. But it’s tall enough for him to walk inside, so that makes the thing huge in my books.
The first little room is like a chicken playground. There’s a swing, a teeter-totter, some fruit and veggies hanging from nets, hollowed-out logs for tunnels, and even a xylophone—one of those multi-colored ones every toddler has—attached to the chicken wire walls.
“This is for your chickens?” I ask. I didn’t think chickens needed all this stuff.
“Yeah. I feel bad they can’t roam free because of the predators, so I do what I can to keep them entertained when they’re locked up. Then when I’m home, I put them under that big old dome over there and move them around the yard so they can peck and shit.”
I smile so hard, my nose stings. Walker has chickens, and it makes me love him even more. “That’s cute.”
He leads me further into the coup, where the chickens are all sitting on their perches. “Because of the cold, there are only a few breeds I can own. So, those two right there that look like they have stained glass on their bellies? They’re a breed called Wyandotte, and their names are Chicky Minaj and Flocker Dre.”
“Of course they are,” I say, as if naming your chickens after rap superstars is normal.
“Those two white and black ones are Brahmas, and their names are Eggy Azalea and Egginem.”
“They look exactly how I’d picture an Eggy Azalea and Egginem.”
“Right?” His tone makes me wonder if he knows I’m kidding, but either way, this is the most wholesome conversation I’ve ever had. “The mostly black ones are Ameraucanas, and they lay pretty blue and green eggs. Their names are Salt-N-Pecka and Lay-oncé. The last two are Orpingtons—Hen Stefani and Stevie Chicks.”
“I love how you spread your musical wings when coming up with names.”
He lowers his head in a bow. “Thank you.”
I watch as he cleans up a little and fills their water and food, all while talking to them as if they’re people. It’s fascinating to see the man he has become. He’s rougher around the edges, a little quicker to react and respond, and wilder, if that makes sense. But then there’s this chicken dad side of him that more closely matches the boy I married.
It reminds me that fifteen years is a long time, and I don’t really know him anymore. I sit with that while we go back out into the blizzard, over to a tiny home up high and only accessible by a ramp.
“This is where Goat Malone and Selena Goatmez live, but we can’t really fit in there, so you’ll have to peek.”
“You really stuck with the naming theme, huh?”
“Yeah, wait until you meet Moodonna out there.” He gestures to the small barn in the pasture.
“Moodonna? You’re ridiculous.”
He flashes me a goofy grin I’ve seen so many times before, and it mixes me up inside. I might not know the outer layers made of experiences I wasn’t a part of, but at his core, the part of him that will never change, is where I can still see the Walker I knew and loved.
I turn away, mentally face-palming because, for fuck’s sake, why am I trying so hard to make myself part of his story? What am I trying to prove, and to who? I used to know him and we used to be in love, but so what? I’m sure there are now plenty of other women who can say the same. It doesn’t make me special.
Only the woman who claims his future will matter.