Abraham
Iwas hoping that Polly would be more impressed with the dates I had planned—I had sweated over them for hours, typing out ideas with two fingers on the new computer like I was strategizing a raid.
Would she like them? Were they romantic enough?
Did they express properly that I was sorry for being an asshole and a bastard?
Would they make her forget what I’d said about fucking holes?
I couldn’t even remember my words without cringing.
But my ol lady had zero intention of forgiving me. That was fine. I was stubborn as a mule and I was going to wait my sweet girl out. . .
That first date had been a Sip ‘n’ Paint, something I thought Polly would enjoy because of her love for art.
She went docilely enough with me, but it was like her entire spark was gone. There was no sparkle in her eyes, no joy in her face.
I felt desperate to bring it back.
“Polly, please,” I hissed at her, as I attempted to mix colors to match the pomegranates in the bowl.
She didn’t even turn her head.
“What?”
Her voice was so colorless, like it was dulled by pain, and there was an unfamiliar lump in my throat. “Please forget what I said. I didn’t mean it. I hate that I hurt you.”
“It’s not the kind of thing you can forget,” she said.
Fuck, and of course she was right. There was nothing I could do or say to erase that memory. All I could do was try to drown it out with better ones.
Her curls were shining and I wanted to touch them so badly, bury my hand in her hair. A month ago I could’ve pointed to the supply room and she would have sucked my cock in it.
Now I had fucked that up.
“It’s fine, Abraham. Don’t worry about it.”
But it was not fine.
My failure was all I could think about it. My words had done this. My words had made her withdrawn and distrustful. And I’d broken our agreement that I would respect her.
Even though it went against all my instincts as MC Prez, I never pushed, never used my power to pressure her. Polly slept on the bed and I slept out on the couch, and each morning I asked if she was up for a date that night.
Sometimes she’d say yes, sometimes she’d say no.
But I took the answer I was given and tried the next day.
There were so many times I almost automatically whistled to her for a quick fuck, or slapped that nice juicy ass, and then I had to remember with a sick feeling of nausea that I’d fucked up the best thing that had ever happened to me.
The next date was to a fancy restaurant.
Then I tried the art museum.
Polly was still here. She hadn’t run away. That meant I still had a chance. Hopefully.
When we went for a picnic dinner on top of a mountain, to watch the sunset, Polly only sighed in irritation.
My skin was buzzing from her proximity, my cock pressing against the seam of my pants.
It was sheer torture being this close and unable to touch her.
“This is all completely unnecessary,” Polly said in a disinterested voice, putting down one of the sandwiches I’d painstakingly made that afternoon.
“You didn’t even put that job ad in the paper or know about it.
You were very clear that this was just a physical thing.
So why are you dragging it out? Just let me go. I’ve got Hinge matches to check.”
“What the hell?” I barked out, clutching at the picnic blanket so hard that all the dirty dishes smashed together. “You aren’t going on any damn Hinge! You don’t need another man. You have one right here.”
Polly turned and met my eyes full on.
“I want someone who really loves me.”
“That’s me,” I growled, bending onto my knees in front of her. “What can I do to make you believe me?”
But no matter what I said, she wouldn’t believe me.
“And you don’t need to keep sending me ridiculous amounts of money,” she added severely as we got to our feet. “I no longer work for Legends MC.”
“The money is just for you to have,” I said, my heart pounding. “There is no obligation behind it at all.”
“I don’t want money I didn’t earn,” she said dismissively. “I’m not going to touch one penny of that.”
And then I realized one thing I could do for Polly. A wrong I could fix.
The next day I persuaded her for a ride out on my motorcycle.
“I want you to be my ol lady,” I attempted to whisper romantically in her ear.
But she ignored me, sitting like a frozen little statute between my thighs as I tried unsuccessfully to keep my boner down.
But Polly acted like she didn’t even feel it. Like she didn’t care at all, and was only humoring me for a ride.
“Wait, where are we going?” she finally asked.
“You’ll see,” I roared, glancing behind me to make sure the old Toyota Corolla was still following us.
Yep. Everything was going according to plan.
Damn, Polly just felt right between my thighs. If only I’d seen it earlier.
I revved my hog as I pulled up into her ex-husband’s driveway.
Oh, it looked like he was having a nice little garden party, all these fuckers practicing their putts in the backyard.
Good.
I gunned it through a mud puddle, splattering filthy water all over Peregrine’s little BMW.
“Oh my god, he loves that car,” Polly said, and for the first time I heard the tiniest sliver of amusement in her voice.
Hopefully she would like what I was about to do next.
“Excuse me? Excuse me?” Perry huffed, stalking over with his hair flopping.
He pulled up for a moment when he saw me.
“Abraham. I wish I could say this was a pleasure, but unfortunately I cannot. Why are you here? May I remind you that I have a high-tech security system and any footage of you punching me would be sent directly to the police.”
My fingers itched to pop him in the mouth again, but I restrained myself with an effort.
“That was fun but this time it’s about the little agreement Polly signed when you got divorced. You know, the one that left her without any money after you encouraged her to stay at home with Laurie? That was a pretty shitty thing to do to the mother of your child.”
Peregrine’s cheeks had two spots of color high on them, and I felt Polly convulsively grip the handlebars.
“If she had a problem with it, she should have said something,” he retorted defensively.
“You’re a little pussy bitch,” I said. “You’re a little taintstain bitch,” I amended, because I was trying to undo my toxic masculinity.
I put the kickstand down and got off, lifting Polly carefully after me.
It looked like her ex’s new bitch’s eyes were going to pop out of her head in jealousy.
“You may slap me in front of all these witnesses,” Perry said as Bridget drifted closer, “but I think even you would have a hard time getting out of that. The agreement is signed and done, no matter what you may have to say about it. You can’t do shit.”
“She didn’t have a lawyer then, though, did she? Or a personal accountant?” I gritted out, wishing I could beat the shit out of him.
“No—why—why would she need those things?”
“She does now.”
I stepped aside so Peregrine could get a good look at all five feet six inches of Asparagus walking up the driveway.
The new recruit’s eyes were gleaming behind his spectacles as he straightened his squeaky-clean new cut, and I barely stepped aside before he had licked the tip of his pencil and began.
“There seems to be a few discrepancies in the reporting of your income,” Asparagus said bloodthirstily, and I could tell by the way the blood drained from Perry’s face that it was a hit.
And the longer Asparagus spoke, the paler and more frantic Peregrine looked.
“What do you mean discrepancies?” Polly asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Insufficiently imputed income,” Asparagus began, then spat out a bunch of other jargon I didn’t recognize but seemed to make Perry turn gray.
“You were holding out insufficiently imputed income on me?” Polly asked. “Wow.”
“They could take his license for that,” Asparagus agreed. “This is a serious offense.”
“How much for this to go away?” Perry hissed hysterically at me, tearing wildly at his hair.
I shrugged. “As much as Polly wants. It’s her choice. This is shit you couldn’t have built without her, and she didn’t get her piece of it.”
His jaw dropped.
“You’re doing all this for Polly?”
“Yeah, bitch, I am. Want to say something else about her?”
Perry back away anxiously.
“Nope. Not at all. She’s a wonderful woman. Whatever happened was merely an oversight. An accounting error. I’m as surprised as you that she didn’t end up with the proper amount of money.”
“This is really embarrassing for you,” Polly retorted, rolling her eyes.
“Send her your proposal and you better make it a good one,” I called over my shoulder as I put an arm around Polly’s waist and drew her away.
“Abraham,” she breathed, and I couldn’t interpret the tone in her voice. Was she going to forgive me?
But when I drew her closer, letting out a ragged breath to feel those delicious curves, she pushed away.
“Don’t think Perry is going to recover his standing after that,” she said. “Bridget looked like she could feel her dreams of a beach house slipping away.”
“You deserve everything. What can I get for you? A bigger house than you had? Nicer car than his?”
“How about a man who would actually stand up for me?”
It felt like a punch to the gut, but here was the time to play my ace.
“I might fuck up, but I will never make that mistake again. I’m not that man anymore, and here’s what I’m going to do, baby. Asparagus found a lead and I’m going to follow it. I’m going to go unprotected into a rival MC’s territory and see if I can find my mother.”