CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Layla
Fuck. I look up at the ceiling. When I peek around the corner, Sean looks freshly showered, his hair is buzzed even closer than yesterday, and he’s wearing his standard black t-shirt with his dog tags tucked in, black jeans and he’s got AirPods in.
He looks like he’s in his cooking element.
There’s fresh fruit, orange juice and coffee set out on the counter, and he’s scrambling eggs in a skillet on the stove.
I’ve never seen anything so beautiful so early in the morning.
He turns to look at me and pulls the AirPods out while I take a seat at the island.
He says nothing to me about me listening in on his phone call as he slides a glass of orange juice and a freshly poured coffee toward me, turning the handle of the mug to face me, and then follows it up with a bottle of Tylenol.
“Thanks. I think I need that this morning,” I groan, twisting open the Tylenol.
“You have to pace yourself when you come to the club,” he says as I pop the pills in my mouth and use the orange juice to swallow them down. “But I don’t hate the sound of you begging me to fuck you.” His voice is full of teasing.
I pause mid-sip, broken memories flashing behind my eyes. Me, pulling my shirt off in front of him when we got back here. Climbing into his lap on my sofa, telling him how badly I wanted him.
I threw myself at him. And he turned me down. Visions of him pushing me back flash into my mind and I cringe. “When I take this pussy for the first time, you’re going to be stone-cold sober, little dove.”
Another of him tucking me into bed. “Be a good girl, Layla, and get some sleep.”
Another of me asking him to stay. “I don’t want to be alone.”
Oh God. I begged him, alright. Begged him to stay with me.
“All coming back to you?” He smirks as he plates my breakfast, passes it to me and sets a fork and knife above it.
“Did you leave?” I ask on account of his new clothes.
“No. I had Boyd bring my bike and some clothes from my room at the club.”
“Where did you sleep?” I ask.
“Next to you,” he says, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “You snore.” He smirks. Oh my God.
“Only when I’ve been drinking,” I retort.
“It was cute as fuck,” he adds, which settles me. It’s an odd sensation not to have to worry about being what he wants—that who I am is what he wants.
“Do you all have rooms at the club?” I change the subject from my alcohol-induced sleep habits, ignoring the fact that I was drunk enough to be completely unaware of this beast of a man in my bed.
He looks up. “Just myself, Wolfe and Jake have private rooms there, but I rarely stay. Only if there’s an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?” I ask, taking a bite of bacon. It’s maple bacon. God that’s good.
Sean looks at me as he sits down on a stool with his own plate. “In case of a lockdown, or if someone is hurt and we have to stay with them, things like that.”
“Lockdown?”
Sean takes a big sip of coffee. “Sometimes if we have problems with other clubs, things can get dangerous, and so it makes sense for us to stay at the club. But if that happens, the club is the safest place you can be,” he says reassuringly.
We sit and eat in silence for a beat.
“My mother used to cook us breakfast like this,” I tell him, changing the subject, taking another bite. “It’s weird having someone else cook for me.”
“What do you miss most about her?” he asks, and I look up in surprise at the question.
I just didn’t expect it. The bridge of my nose stings with just the thought of her.
“She was my person. The one person I had who loved me for me. But she kept secrets, and she protected my father. She was just about to break free from him when she died.” I’ve offered way more than he asked for, but it feels good to talk about her without judgment.
“Your dad was a prick, yeah?” Sean asks. “I looked into him a little more. Lots of debt. Gambling is deadly.”
“It wasn’t just that. He had a temper.”
I watch Sean’s fist flex and his jaw harden instantly. “Did he hurt you?” he growls.
I shake my head. “No, but sometimes he’d hurt my mom, and then he’d apologize.
She stayed with him, she supported him. She even went to meetings for spouses of gambling addicts so she could support him better.
She stayed because she was worried what the church would think.
” I smile softly as I break a piece of bacon apart. “We had a plan though.”
Sean doesn’t say anything, just lets me talk, eating his breakfast and watching me.
“The night she died, she went to a last-minute dinner with my dad. She wasn’t supposed to go, and I was here.
We spent months planning, I had a place off-campus I was staying at in Atlanta.
I don’t know what changed—maybe she’d just had enough—but we got her a bank account and she funneled her own savings into it.
Enough to start her off. She had a teaching degree, and a decent résumé.
She just hadn’t worked since Dell and I were young.
She was going to freshen it up and had finally gotten everything sorted out. ”
I shake my head, my eyes filling with tears.
“All she had to do was make it through that dinner with his work colleagues, then when he got home and went to bed early like he always did, we were going to leave together. She already had the divorce papers drawn up, and she had all her favorite things packed.” I lean back in my chair and look at him.
“She was excited to start fresh. She had a new sort of gleam in her eye that I hadn’t seen before.
But that night I just waited and waited.
They never came home. The police said … the man was wearing a cut, but the witness couldn’t see which club, they just saw him taking off on a bike and it was dark.
I wouldn’t be surprised if my dad did something to bring this to them. ”
“With the gambling?” Sean asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know, maybe.”
“He’d have to owe a lot for them to kill him.”
“Three hundred grand?”
“That could do it.” Sean moves his chair closer to me and wipes the tears from my cheek, then places his hand on my face. “Some clubs demand loyalty to earn their rockers, to patch in. Killing innocents is one way.”
I nod. “It makes the most sense. My parents were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, I’m sure.”
“Our club would never do that,” Sean says firmly. Strangely, I believe him.
“They still have no idea who did it. Just a police sketch. I just wish I knew why.” I swipe my tears away and steel myself, looking down at my half-empty plate. The Tylenol has kicked in and my headache is thankfully subsiding.
I glance at the clock and then back at Sean. I have to be at the clinic in an hour.
“This must be worlds away from your life. Your mom said you’ve always been a part of the club, even as a boy,” I say sincerely.
“My father was the previous president’s enforcer for a while, and then his Sergeant at Arms. My grandfather was an enforcer.
” Sean folds his napkin perfectly in half and leans back in his chair.
“My mother stayed even after my dad died. He was hit by some drunk college kid. She kept the club as her purpose because that’s what he would’ve wanted. ”
I breathe out a sigh. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
Sean shrugs. “It was ten years ago. I still miss him and his guidance, but he died the way all of us hope to. On his bike. It was his time.”
“Was he in the military too?” I ask as I sip my juice.
Sean nods. “Both my father and my grandfather served. My grandfather in Vietnam and my father in Desert Storm. I knew it was my future but I didn’t do it the way they did. I didn’t start out as a boot. I joined as a Second Lieutenant.”
“How?”
“I earned a degree.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “From Duke.”
My mouth falls open. Damn. I did not expect that. “Duke?”
He looks up at me. “With honors.”
I shake my head and blow out a breath.
“What?” he asks, setting his mug down.
“I just, I mean, I didn’t …” I feel the blush of my assumption creeping into my cheeks. “You surprise me, is all.”
“Life is all about making smart decisions. Calculated choices. I knew they wanted me, I knew it would be a free ride.” He shrugs. “I remember things.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I know you’re smart, and sometimes it seems like you never stop thinking.” It’s something you notice about him almost right away.
“It’s not about being smart. It’s my memory. I’ve been told it’s photographic. I remember faces, names, text, formulas. School just came easy to me.” He says it like it hasn’t always been a blessing.
“That must have been hard when you came home from overseas?”
I watch his face as he looks down to his plate, and I can tell he doesn’t talk much about that time.
“It’s why I always wanted the next tour. I sought it out, because being there, in the fucking carnage, never having time to think or remember, seemed easier than being here with nothing to distract me. Understand?”
I nod. “Were you worried every time you went that you might not come back? Were you afraid of dying out there?” I ask.
Sean leans back in his chair and folds his thick arms over his chest.
“My bunkmate, Buck, he used to read poetry. Old-world Spanish poetry, and one in particular always stuck with me. Contented, the righteous nest searches for the ominous blackbird to fill it / The darkest of beasts rest soundly in the most hidden dens, / The dead in their shallow grave, and the sad in their oblivion, / Only through this peace will my soul become sand in its desert.”
“That’s beautiful,” I say softly. The look in Sean’s eyes tells me Buck is no longer alive, and I don’t want to pry.
“For me it means that, even at death’s door, from flat on my back in that fucking desert, I knew I couldn’t let the beast win.
The darkest parts in me needed to stay hidden in the beast’s den.
The good I had left in me? I had to choose to let that overcome the bad.
I had to choose which part of me got to take flight.
I chose to use my demons to help others learn how to do the same. ”
I watch him as I take my last bite of toast.
“The government I had ruined myself for mentally was nowhere to be found when I was done with my active service. I didn’t turn to drugs like many of my brothers.
I joined the club and I started a career where I knew I could help.
Is what we do illegal? Yeah, but we do it to help fund the things that matter.
Sometimes you have to do a little bad to do a lot of good.
I made the choice to be involved, to make a difference for anyone else returning home who was feeling lost and ruined, because I knew our government wasn’t going to be there for them either.
I can’t help every soldier, but I can help some. ”
Sean sits up straighter and his brow knots for just a fraction of a second.
“Your back?” I ask him quietly.
“Yep. It’s always a little tight in the morning.”
We sit in silence for a moment before I say, “We’ll work it out with the next massage. It’s a process.”
Sean watches me, then nods toward the end of the hall.
“Go get ready, I’ll clean up and get you something packed for lunch,” he says, setting his fork down. He leans closer and kisses me. “And you’ll be my good girl and eat it, yeah?”
Another wave of emotion hits me square in the chest, but this time it isn’t grief.
It’s the feeling of him looking after me, yet again.
He does it like it’s second nature to him, whether I need him to or not.
I’ve just spent so much time looking after myself that I don’t really know how to respond other than nod and head down the hall like the good girl Sean Hunter wants me to be.
The truth is, even with him living a life outside of what anyone I’ve ever known would deem to be honest or right, even with him having threatening conversations about breaking someone’s bones while he cooks me breakfast, I’m feeling more and more like his good girl every single day.