38. Rory
Chapter 38
Rory
I come awake, sweat, cold and clammy, on my skin. It’s pitch black and memories of the dream are still right there, making my breathing uneven and my pulse beat erratically.
“Rory?”
My head jerks hard toward the voice and slowly it dawns on me that Noah, not Ryan, is with me tonight. I wake up with the nightmare often, but I don’t bother containing it, because Ryan sleeps soundly. I thought having Noah close would keep the demons at bay. I was wrong and now he’s seen me weak.
“I… I’m fine,” I whisper, embarrassed.
“You don’t look fine. You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Noah argues.
He moves up on the bed, using the headboard to rest his back. Then, he pulls me into his body. At first, I try to resist, but I don’t really want to, and it’s token resistance at best.
“It’s dark, Noah. You can’t tell what I look like,” I mutter, just to argue.
“I can see from the moon shining in the window,” he says kissing the top of my head. Something shifts in my chest at that innocent kiss, or maybe it’s having his arms around me and being curled into his body. Maybe that’s what lets my defenses ease. I’m not sure, but I do know being here like this… I feel warm, whereas before I’ve felt nothing but coldness inside of me forever.
I’ve been cold since the day I thought Noah died. I didn’t get better with time. I just became… frozen.
“I should worry about how good this feels,” I tell him softly. His body stiffens at my words, his hand stops rubbing on my arm—just for mere seconds, but I notice it.
“You don’t have reason to believe me, sweetheart, I know that. But, I swear to you, I won’t hurt you again.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready to believe that, Noah,” I tell him honestly.
“That’s okay. I’ll prove it to you. It will just take time.”
I swallow down the fear his words conjure deep inside.
“Why, Noah? Why put in the effort?” I ask him, not understanding.
He’s silent after my question and I think maybe he’s not planning on answering. I decide to let it go. Maybe he’ll realize that I’m not worth the effort. I’m not. I couldn’t even protect my own child…
“I spent my life looking for a place I belonged. I never had that, Rory, not once, except with my grandfather. I left everything behind when I went into service. I was lucky enough to fight beside some men who felt like I did, but they had forged their own kind of family. Dragon, Crusher, Bull… all of them, really. They came together as brothers. They left all of the other bullshit behind and they forged a family together. They didn’t care about society rules or judgments. They didn’t care about the color of their skin, or where they came from. It was all about the brotherhood and I wanted that. But, even with them, there was a part of me that felt I didn’t fit in. So, when I got out of the service, I talked to Dragon and I got another chapter of Savage Brothers started. I wanted to create a legacy that my children could grow surrounded by, and one that my woman could rely on. I wanted them surrounded by family and good men they could count on—even if something happened to me.”
“They are good men,” I whisper, my heart barely beating. Noah has never opened himself up and told me things like this. I’m afraid I’ll do something to make him stop, and I’m afraid he’ll keep going, too. If he lets me all the way in, what does that mean? Can I trust him again? Do I want to?
“They are, but I was jealous of them,” he responds. I gasp in surprise, because I never would have guessed that in a million years and I’m really shocked that Noah would admit that to me. “I know that’s fucked-up,” he chuckles, letting me know he heard my astonishment. “It’s the truth, though. They had everything I wanted, and couldn’t seem to grasp. They had the brotherhood, they had a family. They had women they adored and they were good women. The likes that I have never met in my life.”
His words hurt me, and I’m sure they aren’t designed to—but they do. Still, I don’t react. I close my eyes and just listen.
“I never planned on having Ryan like I did. I wanted children, but I wanted them with a woman that I knew would be there forever. I wanted my child to always have the influence of a good woman’s touch, because I had never known that and I knew it was important.”
“I’m not sure, Noah. My mother was a good woman, at least that was who she became when she met my stepfather and married him. Before that, it hurts to talk about. But even while she was good… it didn’t help my brother at all.”
“I don’t know that story, Gorgeous. I hope someday you will give it to me, but I can tell you that you are everything fucking good there is in this world and if your mother struck out on helping her son, she gave everything she had to you—because you’re everything.”
His compliment takes my breath. I could write them off as just words, but they don’t feel like words. They feel… real. I want to believe them. I don’t… I don’t trust Noah. But I want to.
Noah seems to understand my struggle because he squeezes me and kisses the top of my head again, pulling my face even deeper on his chest where I’m resting. The small move brings my ear against his heart and I can hear it beating… strong and steady.
“I planned on never having children until I found the woman I thought I could lay it all down for. I was determined that I wouldn’t settle and I took precautions. I was always careful. You’ve been here long enough that you’ve seen the boys party. I might have tried that once or twice, but that was never who I was. I didn’t want that part of the life. I had this dream and I wanted exactly that… the dream.
“Then how did, I mean… Vicki…” I start to ask my question, but stop. I don’t know why Noah is sharing, but it’s really not my place to pry.
“Ask, Rory. I want you to ask me anything. I want you to trust me and I’m going to be an open book for you.”
“It may not change anything, Noah. I can’t… I’m not the person I was in Montana. I’ll never be that person again. I’ve lost too much.” I feel compelled to warn him of that.
He kisses my head again, and he squeezes me so tight that it’s almost painful.
“I have to try, Rory. I have to believe all hope is not lost and that you might give me another shot. If I lost that hope, I think I would die.”
“That’s crazy. You have Ryan,” I remind him. He kisses me again, and I can feel his breath stir against my hair. I wait for him to respond, to agree that he has Ryan, but he doesn’t. He comes back to my question.
“Vicki was… she hid her addiction from me at first. It wasn’t hard to do. Maybe it wasn’t as bad back then, or I just never noticed because I didn’t spend that much time around her. I never realized her habit until it was too late. But, whatever the reason, she wasn’t with a lot of the other brothers in the club and I liked that. I’m not a man to share, even if what I’m getting isn’t what I plan on keeping. I like knowing that what I get, she’s not giving the others when she leaves my room,” he says, his voice matter of fact, and my lips curl in distaste.
I mean, I know how the world works, and this kind of sums up people’s attitude with sex today, but it’s not who I am. I’ve always given a piece of myself and with Noah… I gave him everything.
“So, even back then, with Vicki, I was careful—very fucking careful, but condoms aren’t a hundred percent. Things happen,” he sighs and I know he’s talking about something else completely. I shouldn’t take his words and hurt over them… but I do.
“Maybe you shouldn’t tell me this story,” I whisper, pain thick in my voice.
“Jesus,” Noah growls.
He moves quickly, jarring me—but he does it so fast that I barely have time to blink and he’s moved so I’m lying on a pillow and he’s over me. He turns on a lamp that’s by the bedside and then his hands are on each side of my face. He doesn’t allow me to look away from him. He keeps me right where he wants me. His intense gaze holding me as much a prisoner as his hands.
“Don’t get this twisted up, Rory. This is why I’m telling you. I held others at bay because I was waiting for the one. You, I met after I had given up hope. You, I tried to keep at a distance because I knew—as fucked up as I was, I knew.”
“Knew what?” I ask him, my lips dry, my heart pounding.
“I knew that I gave up too soon. I let the past change me and I gave up my dream.”
“Noah…”
“Do you know how much that hurt, Rory? How much it burned, that I gave up on what I wanted most, took steps to make sure I never gave another woman my babies and then you showed up?”
“Noah… please, don’t…”
“I fucking gave up and I made sure I’d never have the one thing I always wanted and then I have you in my bed and you in my life and there I was Rory. Falling in love, even when I knew I shouldn’t, even when I knew what a fucker fate was and that I’d never be able to keep you. But I couldn’t stay away and then you hit me with the big one. The one thing I honestly believed wasn’t physically possible. You told me you were pregnant.”
“Noah,” I cry, not wanting to relive the past, not wanting to remember anything about the pain and as bad as it is to acknowledge… Right now, I don’t want to remember anything to do with my child that I lost… The piece of Noah that I will never get back and the piece of myself that I will mourn until the day that I die.
“I’m not saying this to hurt you, Rory. Swear to God, I’m not. But you need to know why I was the way I was. I gave up. I did the one thing I could to protect myself. I had a vasectomy and in doing that, I brought death to my dream. I never planned on you. I was sure you were just a dream I’d never hold. I didn’t think you truly existed, not after everything I had been through.”
My hands come up to hold his, to pull them away from my face. I need to leave. I need to get away. I don’t want to hear this. I just… can’t.
“I don’t want to hear this, Noah. Let me go,” I plead.
He doesn’t listen. Instead, he lays his forehead against mine.
“I was dealing with the fact that I had this woman in my bed, in my life, a woman who was even better than the old dreams I had… I was dealing with the fact that even though I had you, I could never give you my child. That I had killed my dream, that I had given up too fucking soon.”
“God, please stop,” I whisper brokenly, tears falling from my eyes, even though I try to stop them.
“And you tell me that I was wrong, that you are giving me everything. You were giving me my dreams, Rory, when I had just come to terms with the fact that I killed any chance of the life I wanted. When I was just coming to terms that I should just be grateful that Ryan was going to know your love. I had convinced myself that it was enough and you… blew it all to hell.”
“ I didn’t lie. I’ve never lied to you! I loved you!” I scream the words at him and they feel like they’re torn from my soul. “I loved you,” I cry, the words so broken they sound tortured. Broken, because that’s what I am now… broken .
“And I love you, Rory. God, I’m a fucking asshole, but I love you and that love terrified me.”
“Are you done now?” I ask, taking gulping breaths in between sobs. I need to run away. I just need to run the fuck away.
“No, baby. When it comes to you, I’ll never be done. I’ll always keep trying, I don’t have a choice. Without you, nothing else matters, Rory.”
“Fine. I understand. I know why you treated me the way you did. I know why you rejected me. You’re forgiven. You can move on with a clear conscious,” I tell him.
“You don’t get it, Gorgeous.”
“Don’t get what?” I ask, suddenly so tired that I just want to close my eyes and sleep for a hundred years.
“You’re not a fence I’m trying to mend, Rory. You’re the reason I’m still breathing. You’re everything, Gorgeous. Every. Fucking. Thing. ”