11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Griffin's Beach Ky
A couple of days have passed since everything happened at the clubhouse with Felicity, and Ky stands outside the house, just staring. The house. He supposes it's her house for the time being since he's not allowed to come back home yet. It's the house he worked his ass off with the club to pay for. To give her and their children a roof over their heads while also putting food on the table. No matter how tight money got, he always found a way to make sure they had everything they needed.
He's not without flaws. He knows he's a very flawed man, but she can't stay mad at him for something that happened almost twenty years ago, can she?
Of course, she can stay mad at me. God, I'm an idiot. I slept with her sister. Not only that, I lied. Well, lied by omission. No matter what state I was in, or that we weren't together, it's a line a man should never cross. Ever.
The last way Ky ever expected Felicity to find out was from a diary that Victoria kept. Why the hell would she even write about it? Anyone could steal it. He used to steal Ashley's diary to read with Colt, so there was always a chance Felicity would read Vicky's. What makes him even more upset is that sick part of him that wants to know how she rated him. Considering it ranks up on the worst things he's ever done in his life, he hopes she says he was the worst fuck she's ever had. That he has a lot to learn.
She came, fucking moron. She's not going to say I was terrible because she's the one who taught me what it felt like to have a pussy squeezing my cock. No matter how much I wish she'd say I was lacking in bed.
Why the fuck would she write about it? I thought we were on the same page. Writing about it is just as bad as saying it aloud! Except when writing about it, it can be found by anyone. Fuck!
I threw up afterwards, and she looked as horrified as I felt. I know I wasn't the only one feeling that way. Besides, if she planned to tell Felicity, she would have found the time to tell her when it would’ve really hurt her. Like when she told everyone I'd knocked her up.
Ky hopes the time he's given Felicity has calmed her down, and he hopes they can talk rationally He knows without a doubt he fucked up, but the way she handled everything pisses him off. No matter what, though, he still loves her. Would do anything for her.
Stepping up onto the porch, he pauses before hitting the front door with his fist.
This is my fucking house. Why am I knocking? This is so stupid.
No matter how stupid he feels, he knows better than to try and walk inside without announcing himself. That might even earn him a bullet in the chest, and he sighs as he hits the metal door three times. Knock, knock, knock.
"What are you doing here?" Felicity asks after the door swings open.
The anger in her gaze takes him aback. Apparently, time has only made this worse. "I have a right to see my daughter. She still lives here, right?"
"It's the middle of the morning, and she's in school. Gracie's not here, Ky."
"We need to talk, Felicity."
Shaking her head, she steps onto the porch rather than letting him inside. "There's nothing to talk about. You had your chance for almost two decades, and you didn't. Why start now?"
"There is a lot for us to talk about. Do you really want to do this out here for the neighbors to see? You know how Mr. Green stands with his binoculars waiting for something juicy to happen."
The old man across the street lives for gossip. He got a lot of it in their early years together. First, because of the fights Felicity and Victoria had in the front yard before Victoria died. Then, there were a few times when Ky wasn't sure his marriage would survive the strain of being married so young with a kid. Mr. Green has seen many shouting matches outside, one of which involved Felicity throwing most of his clothes out the window.
The one good thing about Mr. Green being a busy body is that things rarely get by him. As long as he's home, which is pretty much always, he keeps an eye on things. It gives Ky a small bit of comfort knowing he'd call the cops if he sees something out of the ordinary when Ky's on a run. His family had someone still watching them, even if it was for mostly entertainment purposes.
"I'll never forgive you for this, Ky. Or anyone else who knew and said nothing," Felicity says. "Do you realize how humiliating it is to know everyone else knew?"
"First of all, not everyone knew. Colt knew because I felt like shit. Same with Lex. Ashley found out from Vicky, for some reason, but I made her swear never to say a word. Second, this is my fault and mine alone. They all told me to tell you, but I was afraid you'd react like this. I didn't want to risk it because I love you."
She snorts and looks towards the yard. "You love me? You love me so much that you not only fucked my sister, but you lost your virginity to her then lied and told me we lost ours together. That feels a hell of a lot like anything except love."
"You don't understand the state of mind I was in when it happened."
"That makes lying to me for almost twenty years okay? That just excuses it? You were in a bad way?"
"My mom was just murdered! You'd dumped my ass a week before that happened, and you never once checked in on me to see how I was doing. You weren't speaking to me, and you were the only one I wanted to talk to. My dad fell apart, my sister started self-medicating, and I didn't know up from down. Yeah, I was in a bad fucking way. I went to the clubhouse and drank, and I was in such a bad place that no one even blinked an eye at the sixteen-year-old drinking whiskey straight from the bottle at the bar."
Sniffling, she shakes her head and refuses to look at him. "Oh, so this is my fault, and you were drunk. I guess I should just forgive and forget."
"When your sister offered me the chance to feel something besides the black hole slowly sucking me in, I took it. I regretted it as soon as it was over, but I was willing to do anything to drown out the pain threatening to kill me, Felicity."
She shakes her head. "That—"
"I regret it happened, but I can't take it back no matter how much I want to. I've been pretending it didn't happen pretty much ever since it did. It was wrong, and the reasons behind it don't make it okay. I just hope you can step back and understand why it happened. How bad off I
had to be in order to do something like that, especially to you. Because I knew it would hurt you the moment I came to my senses, but it was too late."
Tears fill her eyes, and Ky hates how much this hurts her. It's part of the reason he never wanted her to know. "You can't take it back, but you went and told others what happened. Then you kept it a secret for our entire marriage. Hell, it would still be a secret if Mom hadn't sent me Vicky's diaries. You lied to me, Ky."
"Why would I want to tell you the truth and hurt you? Huh? It would have destroyed you. It would have destroyed you and us. Of course, I didn't want to tell you!"
"You knew doing that would hurt me. Some part of you, drunk or not, had to have thought, even for a second, that fucking my sister would gut me. And that’s the underlying reason you chose to go off with her. You could have fucked any bunny in there, but you were pissed I didn't reach out, and you chose my sister to get back at me."
"No!" he says, his palms slapping the sides of his thighs in frustration. "I never want to hurt you. Don't you get that?"
"No, I don't. I can't see that."
Sighing, Ky tries to calm himself. Yelling at her won't do him any good, but he can't understand how she can't take a step back and see the rest of what was going on that led up to this bad decision. "I didn't do it to hurt you. It wasn't about you. For just a little while, I needed something to feel other than devastation and abandonment. The alcohol barely numbed the pain, and I know it was a bad decision. I knew that, but I was also sixteen and in more pain than I've ever been in my entire life. Until now. Can't you see where I'm coming from? Even a little bit?"
Nodding, Felicity looks at her feet, her hair falling and sticking to her wet cheeks. "You don't have a brother, but what if I told you that I'd lost my virginity to Colt? That for almost twenty years, I lied to you about it. Told you I gave it to you, and we shared such an experience of love together. You had such a harsh reaction to him hooking up with your sister, so imagine how you'd feel in my position right now."
"I'd be pissed."
"Exactly."
"But if you'd just lost your mother because she was brutally murdered, and I stayed away for weeks afterwards without checking on you, I could see why. Why you'd need to find some type of comfort. It wouldn't make it right, but at least I could understand your frame of mind at the time. And if you didn't tell me because you didn't want to hurt me, I'd also understand that."
"So, this is my fault?" she asks, her voice barely a whisper. "I didn't think you'd want to see your ex-girlfriend right after your mom died, so that makes it okay for you fuck my sister?"
Sighing, he looks up at the sky. "You are so damned determined to be pissed off that you refuse to see anything outside the scope of your own perspective. I get you’re mad, and you have more than every right to be. I'm just asking you to try and see where I'm coming from. What happened. And I want you to understand that I didn't want to hurt you, which is why I didn't tell you. I see it was the wrong decision now, and I think I've always known it was, but I never want to cause you pain, baby. Never."
"I do see where you're coming from, but you're overlooking what hurts me the most—lying to my face about something you knew was so important to me. I gave you everything. My heart, my body, and my soul. And it was all just a lie."
"What do you need from me to get past this? We need to get past this, baby. Our daughter needs the both of us, and our son is in the club. I'll do whatever you want me to, short of building a time machine and undoing what I've done. Mostly because I'm not even a fraction smart enough to be able to figure out how to fucking do that."
"It's not funny, Ky."
His tongue slides along his lips, and his hands tremble as she still refuses to look at him. Her eyes stay cast down at the ground, and her tears continue to hit the deck by her feet. The same deck he's been promising to re-stain for two years now. "I'm sorry."
"I don't know that we can get past this."
His breath hitches. "Excuse me?"
"I can't forgive you, Ky. I can't... There's no getting past this. I didn't just find out that you lied to me. It became very clear that our relationship, the one that brought us here, was based on a lie. A lie you told others. I wasn't just betrayed by the man I trusted more than anything else in the entire world, I was betrayed by people I thought were my friends. I don't just lose you, I lose them, and the thought of what we all had."
"That's not true."
"Lex was always your friend, not mine. It's very obvious now."
He wants to reach out and hold her. Touch her. Tell her it's a nightmare right now, but they're going to get through this. But he knows his wife well enough to know that it would end nothing short of poorly, so he keeps his hands at his sides.
"She is your friend. She's been telling me since I told her about this that I needed to tell you."
"She could have told me, but she didn't. Because she's your friend."
"You two had beef before any of this came to light that has nothing to do with my stupid decision with your sister. But don't think I've forgotten what Lex said about keeping secrets for you, too. Let's get it all out on the table to see whose is worse."
"She'll be lucky if I don't knock her ass out the next time I see her. No matter what secrets I have, they won't touch this."
He laughs. "She'll break your face before you have the chance, and we both know it. Your reaction tells me you know exactly what she can share, and it's bad. What are you hiding, hmm? Must be pretty bad that if you think you could hurt Lex rather than tell me."
"Fuck you."
"Or are you worried sharing those secrets means you won't have a leg to stand on to continue to be so damn angry? Is that why you won't say anything? Because you can't keep this indignant act up once I know what you're hiding?"
He knows he's pushing her buttons, but he also knows whatever she’s hiding is as bad, if not worse, than what he did. Felicity gets defensive when she's in the wrong, and she now glaring without tears in her eyes.
"Go to hell," she shouts. "You should go check on your good friend, Lex. The last time I saw her, she looked like shit. You can go to hell together."
"Already there," Ky shouts back as Felicity stomps inside and slams the door behind her.
He walks to his bike and sighs as he sits. That didn't go as planned, but maybe she'll come around when rational thought catches up to her. This isn't the end of them. It can't be. He just has to know what her secrets are and forgive her. Show her that they can move past anything as long as they're together.