Thirty-Five
S he could pretend all she liked that my pathetic excuse for a cock wasn’t a problem, but we both knew it was. I’d been blessed with a fair sized dick, but honestly, it was next to useless at the moment. Before my shoulder had started, I’d been tempted to suggest we try the hunting thing again, to see if I could get out of my head enough to just enjoy the moment.
Once I was in a buttload of pain though, that was a guarantee that my dick wouldn’t work at all. She deserved better than me. What good had I been for her so far? What had I done to improve her life? Fuck all. I’d managed to lose her the job she loved, her reputation, her driving licence, and now she couldn’t get a good dicking, because I was incapable of it. What fucking use was I?
While I gave nothing in return, she’d helped me so much. She’d helped me by getting me to talk about shit I’d held back for way too fucking long. Having someone who knew about the pain I suffered, especially when I did stupid things like punching walls, or trying to punch my brothers. Knowing that I could just tell her I was in pain, rather than having to hide it, and hide every flinch, and every reaction to the waves of agony, was a relief that I didn’t know I could experience.
She’d made me tell her about my life growing up, and in doing so, she’d helped me find the fucking root of my hatred for Has-Been, and what the fuck. How the hell had I not realised what that was? And why the hell was I blaming a grown man, who’d mostly just been mildly disapproving of me as a person, for something that he never did, not even as a kid. It wasn’t his fault that I’d somehow mentally linked his presence with evil, and abuse, and suffering.
I wasn’t really sure what to do about that now, either. Should I tell him? Did he need to know? Or could I just stop acting like an asshole around him? What if I wasn’t even capable of that? What if five minutes in his presence switched my dickhead button back on?
And Reacher, the poor bastard; the guy was in hell, and trying to shoulder that shit alone, well, maybe with Ryder’s help, since he seemed to rely on him a lot more than I think even he realised. Stitch, my missing brother. Why the hell was he hiding from us, when we could be supporting him through whatever the hell he was going through?
I got up and dug out those expired pain pills, staring at them for a moment. Could I take them with what the doc gave me? He hadn’t given me anything for the pain because I’d taken paracetamol at Lissa’s house. I mentally shrugged, because it wasn’t possibly physically, and washed two down with a glass of water. It wasn’t like they really helped, but for some reason it felt like the only control I had over the situation. I winced as another spasm tore across my shoulder and arm. Fucking hell.
I sat down to wait for Lissa to return, but half an hour later, with my spasms finally subsiding, she still hadn’t returned. What the hell was going on down there? I shouldn’t go looking for her, but if I did, maybe I could do something to make her proud on my way through. I could bury the hatchet with Has-Been, who’d been a fucking rock for me these last few days. I might be a fucking joke in the sack, but I was going to fucking make something right.
I dressed carefully, and left my room, heading down the hallway to knock on Has’s door. He took a moment to open it, and when he did he frowned, and adjusted the angle of the door, like he had something to hide.
“Hey, man. ‘Sup?”
This was so much harder now that we were face to face, but I couldn’t back out now.
“I uh… Jesus. I just wanted to say I’m sorry, for, well, yeah, being a dick to you for, fuck me, for years. It was my shit, not yours, and thank fuck for Lissa, because she made me see what was behind it, and it was never your fault, man. I’m sorry.”
His eyebrows were practically up in his hairline by the time I’d finished, but they quickly dropped down to join the scowl on his face.
“Well, that’s really special and all, but you can go fuck yourself, yeah? And while you’re doing that, you can stay the fuck away from me. I don’t need assholes like you in my life, and-”
“Wait, stop it, both of you!” Lissa’s voice came from behind him. In his fucking bedroom. While I sat in my room and waited for her, she was in here with him. That son of a fucking bitch! I lunged at him, and we both crashed back into his room.
Lissa
I thought things were fine with us, and I thought I understood what we had. He’d told me he loved me, didn’t he? Didn’t he tell me that he wanted me? I’d even been allowed back in the clubhouse by the bastard who’d banned me, because I had one more chance. One more chance to make Ice happy, but what about me? Didn’t I deserve that too?
I’d placed our order at the bar, and then I’d been perusing the rows of pictures on the far wall of random collections of bikers at various events, and some of them were pretty old. I could see that the club had changed a lot from image to image.
The pictures had gone from groups of gruff, angry looking men in black waistcoats that had a strange logo on them, to a younger generation of men who looked happier in the pictures. They bore the logo I was used to seeing on Ice’s and the other members’ clothes. It was like two different clubs, with a chillingly familiar face in some of the oldest images.
Before I could really even consider what I was seeing, I saw a beautiful woman walking in through the door. She made me feel old and plain in an instant. She must have been in her early twenties, and she could have been a model. Perfect figure, perfect glossy blonde hair, perfect everything.
She walked confidently over to me.
“Hi! I’m Jessica, and I’m looking for my man. His name’s Ice.”
My blood chilled as if actual ice flowed through my veins in that moment.
“Sorry, did you say Ice?”
She giggled, and even that was fucking beautiful. How could she be Ice’s, and if she was, or even had been, then what the hell was he doing messing around with me? I was nothing like her. I wasn’t good enough at all. Maybe I was just a way for him to keep busy until she turned up, or even some kind of dependence, or transference because of his addiction, and me being his therapist.
“Ice is his road name, but trust me, he’s anything but cold. If you know what I mean.” She actually nudged me with her elbow, like we were girls in a bar chatting about a guy we weren’t both apparently fucking. How could he do this to me? He’d mentioned another woman, but made it sound like that was in the past, and clearly it wasn’t.
When I didn’t answer, she looked me up and down.
“Sorry, babe, guessing you’re new here, and probably uh… been preoccupied. I’ll go ask at the bar.”
As soon as she walked away, I ran for the stairs, because I should at least confront him, shouldn’t I? I made it as far as the middle of the corridor, and froze. I’d lost everything for him, and suddenly he didn’t feel like he was even mine. He suddenly felt like someone else’s boyfriend, and I’d been helping him cheat on her.
“Lissa? You okay, darlin’?” Has-Been had opened his door, and was standing just inside, with leather jeans on, but no shirt. I dimly noticed a lot of tattoos, but I couldn’t even focus, because my eyes were blurring with tears.
My breathing was wrong, and it sounded more like gasping. More and more like sobbing every second.
“Oh hell, come here, girl.” Has-Been dragged me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me, and then he stepped back into his room, closing the door.
“What’s he done?”
As soon as I pushed against his chest, wanting distance from his warm skin, skin that wasn’t Ice’s, he released me, and guided me to a leather chair across the room.
He crouched in front of me.
“Want a drink?” At my nod, he poured a glass of something that looked amber coloured, but I really didn’t care what it was. I downed it in several gulps, and whined softly when it burned my throat. Has-Been chuckled, and lifted the glass away.
“Okay, talk to me. Has he done something to you? Did he hurt you?”
I could feel the tears rolling down my cheeks as I shook my head, then nodded. Had he? Or had I built up an idea of what we were, without knowing him hardly at all? Was it really his fault, or was it mine? Had I built everything up in my head, and none of it was real to him? Was I really just a distraction, or random pussy to fuck for now?
He stayed crouched in front of me, with one hand on the arm of the chair, which I appreciated because I didn’t want him touching me too much. He was more tactile than he probably should have been, and I knew it’d piss off Ice. And then I remembered, Ice maybe had a girlfriend, and I was just, what… a way of killing time?
“He lied to me.”
“About what?”
“Jessica.” Has-Been frowned back at me.
“Who the fuck is Jessica?”
And as more tears flowed, someone knocked on his door, and all hell broke loose, and I ran out of chances to be with Ice anyway.