Sunshine & Sinful (Sacred Sinners MC: Nomad #2)

Chapter 1

ONE

With my phone propped against a tin of tea on my kitchen island, I separate and crumble various dried leaves and flowers and place them into bowls. Despite the annoyance with his mother, the handsome face scowling on the screen through FaceTime is a sight for sore eyes.

“Mom, can’t you… ya know.” He waves his hand. “Call him?” Tarek asks for the literal tenth time, referring to his father.

Pressing my lips into a thin line, I shake my head. It’s not my job to call anyone. It’s also not my job to forgive or forget. It’s been four months since I’ve spoken to my ex-husband or his father. On the bathroom floor of the hotel, when I broke, truly broke, I meant what I said—that I never want to speak to or see them ever again. It hasn’t been easy. When we left the hotel the following morning, I rented a car and drove home after I slept on a thin towel on the dingy, too-small-to-spread-out bathroom floor. It took me four days driving alone and sleeping at rest stops along the way. Oh, they tried to stop me. They begged, but broken things can’t listen. They can’t smile, forgive, or function like they should. They’re pieces, a collection of once was, never to be the same.

As far back as I can remember, my mother collected broken things. I always found it charming when she acted like it was her purpose to give life to something no longer loved—an orange cardigan at a thrift shop with a hole in the back. Her favorite mug found outside of a run-down gas station in the middle of nowhere. It looked like someone had tossed it out the window into a pile of weeds as they drove away. But she picked it up, washed it, and kept it, despite the chips and small crack down its side that somehow never leaked.

She always said it was her version of Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pieces of pottery with gold. Though she didn’t need to fix the items to love them. They mattered to her all the same.

I wonder what she’d think of me now—her only child.

Her late-in-life miracle …now a fragment of what I once was.

Nobody understands what I’m feeling or going through, not that I’ve given them a chance to. I haven’t told a soul what I learned, not Till, Sugar, my sons, and definitely not my quasi-boyfriend.

Surprise!

Yes, I have one of those now, too.

He’s a normal man, average in all ways, and I like him. There’s no hot or cold, no love or hate. Everything about our budding relationship is lukewarm, and I like the lukewarm. Lukewarm is safe. It’s comforting. It’s nice. He was a customer at the bar, and for once, I broke my rule of not dating customers to go on a date with him. Because he’s not a biker, a criminal, or a cheater, at least as far as I can tell. He’s sweet in his own way, stutters when he’s nervous, and has a charming smile. Sex is always satisfactory, and he doesn’t complain when Lily stays the night or lose his temper when I call off a date because I’m having another moment.

I have a lot of those now.

Moments.

That happens in grief.

And that’s what this is.

I’m mourning the death of a life I once knew. Of love and friendship, I thought, stupid me, was important.

But it was all a lie—years of lies.

All those runs for the club, Dark was fucking other women, and Sunshine knew. He knew the whole time. He knew everything.

Perhaps that’s why he was nice to me and put in the effort—to quell his guilt and appease me?

I’m no closer to understanding their intentions today than four months ago. Sure, they’ve texted, sent emails, and letters, trying to apologize and explain. I’ve read them all, and it still changes nothing.

Tarek clucks his tongue as if he’s disappointed in me. “Mom. I know Dad’s an asshole, but he’s…”

Unimpressed with his hassling, I glare at my son, shutting him right up. “I love you, but please stay out of your parents’ shit.”

“He hasn’t seen Lily in three months,” he replies, sitting at a bar in what I presume is a Sacred Sinner clubhouse. Tipping his head back, my son drains a bottle of beer. It thuds a moment later when he drops it on the glossy bar top and grumbles as if he’s exhausted with me, his father, and life itself.

“I know, kiddo,” I comment, not knowing what else to say. I already know Dark hasn’t seen his kid. I know this because she tells me. Lily is over at my house more now than ever, and Abby doesn’t seem to care.

Tarek runs his finger around the lip of his empty bottle. “Abby’s texting me every day now.”

I sigh. “Tell your father that. Not me.” It’s not like I can do anything, and I don’t want to.

“I have. He doesn’t care. He’s…” Tarek smashes his lips together and frowns like he’s about to share something he’s not supposed to. While I’m curious, I don’t press because I don’t want to have this conversation to begin with. Do I feel bad my son’s putting himself in the middle of our crap? No. Because he’s grown, and so am I. He doesn’t have to put his nose where it doesn’t belong, and I don’t have to appease him because I’m his loving mother. There are some things even a mother can’t give her child, and forgiving his lying, cheating father is one of them.

“How’s your love life?” I ask, changing the subject as I wipe my hands on a paper towel before opening a glass container to separate dried mint leaves grown from my garden.

Not liking my question, Tarek runs a hand through his dark hair and mutters a string of expletives before he sighs long and hard. “What should I do about Abby?”

“What do you want to do about Abby?” I volley back because it’s not what I want that matters—it’s what he wants .

Tarek stares off in the distance for a beat before he replies. “I want to help. She’s worried. She said Dad won’t return any of her calls or texts. I just want to help.”

My sweet, sweet son, always wanting to do what’s right.

“Do you have control of how your father acts or what he does?” I ask to give him something to think about.

“No.”

“Exactly.” Into a ceramic bowl, I finish crumbling mint leaves between my palms and smell my hands. They smell amazing. I wipe what I can off on a paper towel and cross over to the sink to wash the fragrance off my skin before it gets on everything else or into my eyes. As I do, I holler loud enough my son can hear over the running faucet. “Maybe, if you want to help, listen to Abby, but remind her you can’t fix her problems. That’s not your job, Tarek.”

“Do you know how hard that is, Mom? She’s falling apart, and I’m helpless.”

Drying my hands on a fresh towel I pull from a drawer, I approach the phone to see my son’s face. “Well, women tend to fall apart when…” I trail off, not wishing to speak ill of his dad because Tarek is trying his best in a fucked-up situation. I’m his mom. I’m supposed to be the strong, supportive, can-weather-any-storm woman he can count on no matter what, which is true. I am those things for him. But even I can’t create miracles or fix the past.

As far as I’m concerned, Abby is better off without Dark. He’s been cheating on her for years, anyway. It may hurt now, but losing him will be much better for her in the long run—at least, that’s what I continue to tell myself .

Two women scorned by the same man.

Fuck.

I hate him.

I hate him with every ounce of my being.

Tarek carries on about Lily and Abby as I separate my dried goods into tins for homemade teas. When I’m through, and Tarek has run out of words in the dictionary, he ends the call with a simple love you , and I’m alone once again, standing in my kitchen, in my pajamas, wishing life hurt a little less.

A text bubble flashes on my screen as I refill my orange chamomile tea and scoop the leftovers into three bags to give as gifts—one for Till, the other for my boyfriend, and the last for the sisters’ kitchen. It’s one of the many items I keep in stock there, and since Till lives in an apartment down the street from the bar, I don’t want her to miss out on the yummy goods I make or pilfer from the sisters’ kitchen. She’s as much of a tea fiend as me.

Once I wipe down the counters, I collect my phone and curl into a ball on the couch to see what Sunshine says tonight.

I miss you.

A knot lodges in my throat as I read his text three times. A single tear slides down the edge of my nose and ends on my lips. Swallowing hard, I delete the message as I have done with all the others.

Each morning, he messages.

Each night, he does the same.

Sometimes, it’s little ones like this that remind me he misses me. Others update me on where he is or what he’s been up to. The worst ones are when he tells me stories—stories of us.

Between those are handfuls of messages from Dark, popping up at random times throughout the week.

Dark may not be talking to Abby, but he wants to talk to me.

And while I should be happy about that.

I’m not.

Abby is his woman.

The mother of his daughter.

And I’m his ex-wife.

It’s official.

Signed, sealed, and done.

That’s why he left and hasn’t returned.

I’m now driftwood, lost at sea.

Because I miss them.

Both of them.

There’s a gaping hole missing in my life… and I don’t know how to repair it.

And so, I drift.