Chapter 22 Bryce #2
“Nope. Which means whoever has an old cut has been a Warrior for a while. And that confirms it wasn’t one of the former Kings who joined them this past year.”
So a Warrior was trying to restart an old war. “Can we get a list of names?”
“Not from Tucker. He’ll never give up his men. But Dad is going to start putting names on paper. He’s with Emmett and Leo at the garage, doing it now. Told them I’d be over soon. Thought you might want to come along.”
“No, thanks.” I wasn’t feeling up to a trip to the garage. And I had a feeling after I told Dash I was pregnant, he wouldn’t want me along either.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“And, um . . . Genevieve?” He struggled to say her name. Dash hadn’t thawed to the notion of his sister.
“Her flight gets in late tonight. She’s staying in Bozeman and will drive over tomorrow. She thinks she’ll be in town midmorning. She promised to call and I’ll go meet her at the cemetery.”
“Call me when she leaves. Tell me how she takes it.”
“I will.”
I didn’t have a clue how I was going to tell Genevieve that she was Draven’s daughter. And as if that weren’t hard enough, I was also going to try and convince her that he hadn’t killed her mother. That fledgling friendship we’d forged over chocolate chip cookies was guaranteed a crushing.
Dash stood and went to the cupboards for a glass, filling it with water from the fridge. He was itching to get to the garage.
“So, before you go . . .” God, how did I say this? I busied my hands by folding up the photo and reaching for his wallet to put it away. I opened the bifold, ready to stuff it inside, but another folded page caught my attention.
I lifted it out, recognizing a black and white photo. The trophy case behind the kids was familiar. It had been the backdrop for numerous pictures in the Clifton Forge High yearbooks.
“What is this?”
Dash lowered the water glass from his lips and closed his eyes. “I, uh . . . shit.”
Unfolding the page, I scanned the photos, only seeing school photos with no one recognizable. But I turned it over and spotted Amina’s youthful face. She stood smiling with another girl.
It was the younger version of a face I’d seen in an obituary.
Chrissy Slater.
“Dash. What’s this?”
He had the decency to look guilty. “A page I found at the high school when we were looking at yearbooks.”
“You found this and never showed me.” I fought the urge to crumple the photo into a ball and throw it at his face.
“I was going to. Swear. But then it didn’t seem that important after you learned Mom and Amina were friends.”
“It didn’t seem important?” I gaped at him, sliding off my stool. “You promised that you’d tell me everything. You pretended not to know your mom and Amina were friends. I asked you, straight up, if you knew and you lied to me. What else have you lied about?”
“Nothing.”
“I trusted you. How could you do this to me? After everything? I trusted you.” Against my better judgment, I’d believed Dash. I’d believed in him.
“Bryce, come on.” Dash took a step toward me. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“No. It is a big deal.” I backed away. “Is this why you called the cops that day? So I wouldn’t find out you tore the page from the yearbook?”
“Yes. And I’m sorry. But we were in a different place then. We weren’t together.”
“No, we were only fucking, right? I was just another woman to use until you had your fill. Do you still feel like that?”
His jaw clenched as it tightened. “You know I don’t.”
I closed my eyes, fighting the urge to cry. How could I trust him? After all our time together, he could have told me, but he’d kept the secret.
It was a nothing secret too. Nothing. Something so small that, by keeping it from me, he’d actually made it worse. Bigger than it had to be.
Or maybe I was blowing this out of proportion. Maybe this pregnancy was making me overthink everything. How were we ever going to be together if he didn’t confide in me? How were we going to have a child?
He crossed the distance between us. “Baby, you’re overreacting.”
“Maybe I am,” I whispered. “But something about this feels . . . off. Like we have a fundamental problem here.”
“A fundamental problem? It’s a goddamn picture. Yeah, I should have told you, but it stopped being important.”
“You promised no secrets. You wouldn’t hide anything from me. Otherwise I’d write it all.”
“Wait.” His eyes narrowed. “Is that what this is about? Your story?”
My story? What was he talking about? “Huh?”
“It is, isn’t it? Fuck. I’m so fucking stupid. I actually thought we had something here. But you’ve just been playing me from the start. Waiting until I did something that would justify you writing the tell-all you’ve been dying to write.”
“That’s not true.”
“You’ve already got it written, haven’t you?” He pointed to my laptop still in the tote on the counter. “It’s all done, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I wrote it,” I admitted. “In case you betrayed me. But it was only for backup. I’m not going to print it.”
“How do I know that?”
I threw up my hands. “Because I’m telling you this isn’t about the story. And I haven’t made it a habit of lying to you.”
“It’s always been the story. From the beginning. And I was stupid enough to think you didn’t want it anymore because you wanted me instead.”
“I do want—wait. How am I now the villain? You’re the one who held something back. You’re the one who lied about that stupid picture.” Why did I feel guilty?
“That picture means nothing. We both know that. You have a story written that could ruin the lives of people I love. Not an apples-to-apples deal here, babe.”
I opened my mouth to argue but closed it shut. My shoulders fell, weighed down by a hopelessness that might topple me to the floor.
“It’s not about the photo or the story,” I whispered. “We don’t trust each other. How can this work if we don’t trust each other?”
Dash’s anger evaporated and he shook his head. “Hell if I know. When you figure it out, do me a favor and clue me in. Because right now, it’s looking to me like this is over before it really got started. I’m gonna take off.”
He swiped up his wallet, shoving it into his jeans. And then without another word, he stalked out of the kitchen.
“Wait.” While we were dealing with the heavy stuff, I had to add on one more thing. He deserved to know before he walked out the door. “I have to tell you something.”
Dash turned, putting his hands on his hips. “Can it wait?”
“No.” I swallowed the burn in my throat. Tell him. “I’m pregnant.”
A terrifying silence filled the room. Seconds ticked by like hours. A minute felt like a day. Dash stood so still, it looked like he wasn’t even breathing.
It was how I knew he’d heard me.
My heart thudded, painfully so, as I waited and waited and waited. Until finally, he blinked, shaking his head just slightly. “Not possible. I always use a condom.”
His precious condoms.
“One of them didn’t work.”
It was hard to tell when, but the timing suggested it was soon after we got together. Maybe on the Mustang. But guessing was futile. Other than our two-week hiatus after Draven had threatened me, Dash and I had been having sex constantly.
The silence returned. Tears welled in my eyes and no amount of blinking could keep my vision from turning glassy.
I’d had a friend at the TV station in Seattle who’d made a big deal out of telling her husband she was pregnant by staging baby foods at home next to a onesie with Daddy stamped on the front. The morning after her announcement, she’d come to work and reported that he’d been overjoyed.
And I’d been jealous. I wanted the laughter. The excitement. The kiss after my husband learned we were making a family.
“Say something,” I whispered. The silence was breaking my heart. At this point, I’d take yelling if that meant he’d speak.
His eyes drifted up from the floor, and it was then that I saw true fear.
Dash spun on his boot. He ripped open the door, not bothering to close it behind him as he rushed to his bike. The sound of his motorcycle engine didn’t linger because he was gone in a flash.
“Goddamn it.” I walked to the door, blinking away the tears as I closed it and flipped the lock. If he did come back, he’d have to ring the doorbell.
Eventually, he had to come back. Didn’t he? He wouldn’t leave me forever. Right? The idea of doing this alone, of not having Dash to lean on, made my entire body ache. Would we get through this? Together?
We had to. We were better together. Didn’t he see that? Sure, I could do this alone. But I didn’t want to. I wanted Dash.
He couldn’t avoid me forever. Us forever. We lived in the same town. We were having this baby whether he was ready for it or not. Because maybe he’d pegged himself as the fun uncle, but I’d be damned if I let my kid grow up not knowing his or her father.
I wouldn’t let Dash turn into Draven, missing out on his child’s life until it was too late.
Walking to the counter, I pounded a fist on the granite. “Damn him.”
We’d have words. And soon. Before this baby came, Dash was going to man up.
I’d make sure of it.
Determined not to sit here and wallow, I picked up my phone and sent Mom a text, telling her I’d be over for dinner after all; I was feeling better. She replied with a string of happy-face emojis and confetti.
I shut off the lights in my house, taking my purse and a bottle of wine for Mom—I wouldn’t need it for a solid year. Then I went to my parents’ house, enjoying some time with them alone and doing my best not to think about Dash and the baby.
When I got home, I was exhausted and ready to collapse. I was so tired, I barely had my eyes open as I shuffled inside.
The house was dark, but I didn’t need the lights on to find my way to the bedroom. I liked the dark because it hid the basket of laundry on the couch. It hid the glass Dash had left by the sink.
It also hid the figure, cloaked in black, who’d been waiting for me to get home.