Chapter Five
MOST NIGHTS, THE clubhouse was abuzz with activity. Someone was always hanging around drinking, chilling, partying, or conducting business. Tonight, the stars had aligned in a very specific way, and somehow, everyone had plans away from the clubhouse.
Except Ty.
As much as he loved his brothers and their women, what he had planned for tonight required solitude. He’d finally kicked his own ass hard enough to convince himself to open the damn safe. The unveiling would end in one of two ways. Either the contents would be a bunch of nothing, and he’d feel like the biggest fool, or his gut would be correct, and whatever that box held would fuck with his head.
Either way, he didn’t want or need an audience.
He started a fire in the huge pit behind the clubhouse that was used almost nightly. Once satisfied with the roaring flames, he returned inside, retrieved the safe, grabbed a bottle of tequila, and headed to the new Adirondack chairs Curly purchased last week. They had a sweet outdoor setup, and with Florida’s weather, the space saw plenty of action year-round.
Before sitting, he removed the pistol from the small of his back, setting it on the ground next to his chair. He’d stuck it in the back of his pants before making a fire. The clubhouse property was as secure as could be, and he didn’t expect any rogue gators to wander onto their property, but he liked to be prepared for any shit that might come his way. The club had enemies who’d surprised them in the past. Tonight wouldn’t be one of those times.
He settled down, took a swig of the tequila straight from the bottle, and then stared at the safe on the ground in front of him. “All right, you motherfucker, let’s see what secrets you’re hiding.”
He hefted the safe onto his lap with a grunt. Though small, it had some significant weight to it. The latch opened easily since Lock cracked the thing a few months ago, and Ty had made sure not to lock it up again. He peeked inside with a deep breath and a tremble in his hand he’d never admit to.
And frowned.
“Huh.”
One manila envelope folded in half sat in the center of the small safe. Excellent, more things for him to open. He snatched it out and then set the heavy safe back on the ground. His stomach twisted. Whatever that envelope contained, it wasn’t good for him. His gut rarely led him astray, and it was screaming at him now. If only he’d listened to it all those years ago on his wedding day when it shouted then too. But no, he’d been too young, too stupid, and too led by his dick to trust his instincts and instead married a woman who made his life a living hell.
“Why am I doing this to myself?” he mumbled as he pulled a stack of papers from the envelope. “What are you?” He laid the stack on his lap and smoothed it flat. “Lithia Women’s Care,” he read aloud from the top of the first page. “What the hell.”
Within seconds, it became apparent that the paperwork was a medical procedure report. “This patient is a twenty-eight-year-old female who presents with—”
His mouth soured.
“No fucking way.”
Ty sat straighter, reading with greater speed. His grip on the papers tightened, crinkling them in his fist.
When he finished reading, he sagged in the chair, staring at the dancing flames before him. The papers read like a horror novel, describing the story of his twenty-eight-year-old wife’s betrayal. The wife who’d spoken about wanting a baby more than she wanted anything in her life. The woman who’d dreamed and planned with him of starting a family and buying a little bungalow near the beach. The woman who’d cried with him when each year went by, and she never conceived. The woman who’d lied their whole goddamned marriage and had secretly taken oral contraceptives since before they’d wed.
Why?
And according to these papers, she’d gotten pregnant once, despite being on the pill. And at eleven weeks, she’d terminated the pregnancy.
The pregnancy with his baby.
She’d never told him. Never even tried. Not one whisper or breath with a hint of what was happening.
Why?
Why the lies? When they’d married, he’d been the one uncertain if he wanted children. Trina’s obvious excitement over becoming a mother eventually became contagious, and he got on board. By the time they were actively trying, he’d been equally eager to start a family. His shock and intense feelings of betrayal weren’t even about the abortion but the lies. He fully supported a woman’s right to govern her own body. But the years of lies and deceit? Pretending one thing when actively working against it? That cut deep.
Why?
The papers slipped through his fingers, scattering on the ground. The wind caught a few and whisked them toward the fire, where they burned up in seconds.
Good riddance.
Even as his stomach threatened to upend, he grabbed the bottle of tequila and chugged. It burned like the fires of hell, but he didn’t give a single fuck. It could burn a hole through his esophagus for all he cared.
One hour later, he sat in the same place, sprawled in the chair, staring at the fire. He’d only gotten up once when he stumbled inside for another bottle of tequila. He was a lot drunker than he had been when he read the medical documents, and now he had his phone in his hand and his ex’s number called up from his contact list.
Calling her would be about as stupid as it got, but clear thinking left the party ages ago.
He pushed send and lifted the phone to his ear. After the third ring, a rougher version of a voice he used to love greeted him. A pack of cigarettes a day would do that to a person. “Hello, lover, you must have some damn good instincts. I was thinking about you today and planning to call in the morning.”
“Oh yeah?” he said with a grunt. “Lucky me.”
“Yes.” Either she ignored the droll tone, or it sailed over her head.
“What for?” Usually, she contacted him for one reason and one reason only.
He could practically see the manipulative smirk transform her face as she hummed an amused little sound.
“Just to say hello.”
Rolling his eyes, he mouthed, “Bullshit,” without a sound. She always had an agenda.
“My birthday is coming up in a few days.”
There it was. She wanted a gift. Cash, no doubt.
“Right,” he responded, biting back all the insulting words he’d love to sling her way. “October twenty-third.”
“You remembered.”
For fuck’s sake, they’d been together nearly fifteen years. He wasn’t an idiot.
“I was thinking about you, too,” he said instead of what he really wanted to say. Thinking of the mountain of regret marrying her produced.
“Oh really?” she said with the same sultry dip in her voice that used to drive him wild.
Now, all he felt was the burn of stomach acid mixed with a gallon of tequila, unpleasant and sickening.
“Like I said, it’s almost my birthday.”
Big fucking whoop.
“Yeah.”
“Mm-hmm, and I was thinking of taking a little trip to celebrate. Maybe to a few hours south. Forty-six is a special one, after all.”
And here it came, the inevitable attempt at getting back with him. Why she bothered, he’d never understand. They were disastrous together. Even being in the same city was too close for him. Trina had moved to Pensacola some odd years ago, and she could keep her crazy ass right there.
“So whaddya say? Wanna show a girl a fun birthday for old-time’s sake?”
“No.” He wasn’t going to soften that blow with false hemming and hawing or fluffy words. “I don’t want you within two hundred miles of me.”
“Ty,” she whined. “Why are you being mean?”
“Why did you take birth control on the down-low while telling me you wanted to get pregnant?”
“What?” she whispered, barely audible.
Tyler grunted. “Why did you pretend to want a baby for our entire fucking marriage? Why did you put on a big fake show every month when it didn’t happen?”
He sucked back another giant mouthful of tequila. The burn didn’t hit as much anymore. Maybe he’d destroyed all the receptors in his esophagus with the past hour of intense boozing.
“Ty, baby—”
“Don’t you fucking dare.” She was damn lucky he couldn’t reach through the phone and strangle her. Never once, even on their worst days, even during screaming matches where she berated him for not making enough money, for cheating on her—which he never fucking did—or for not making her happy, he never once, not one single time, thought of laying a hand on her.
But now, he wasn’t certain he could keep from throttling her if she appeared in front of him.
“Tyler,” she said, keeping the whine in her voice. “I can explain.”
“You can explain.”
“Yes, ba… Ty. I can. We were young. It was a crazy time. You were a new business owner, and we were fighting all the time. I—”
“All great fucking reasons to say, ‘Hey, Ty, I don’t think this is a good time to try for a baby.’ But is that what you said? Fuck no. You told me you wanted one. More than anything. You fucking begged for a kid. We tried for fucking years. All the way up until the end. Do you have any idea how shitty I felt all the fucking time when each month passed, and you weren’t pregnant?”
Old and bad memories resurfaced. Trina crying when she got her period. Trina throwing her heels at him as she screamed that it had to be his fault. He wasn’t man enough to knock her up.
All fucking lies.
“Turns out the joke was on me, huh? Turns out I did get you pregnant, and you got rid of it without a fucking word. Damn you, Trina.”
“I changed my mind,” she said in a small, vulnerable voice that would have tugged at his heartstrings once upon a time.
Not anymore.
“We were still young, Ty. Do you know what having a baby does to a woman’s body? I was beautiful back then. I wasn’t ready to—”
“You have got to be kidding me. You’re justifying years of lies and bullshit all because you didn’t want your tits to sag and your snatch to stretch?”
“Hey!” she shrieked, no longer pulling the wounded act. “Don’t fucking talk to me like that.” Her voice dropped to a seductive octave. “I did it for you too. We wouldn’t have been happy with a baby. Remember how it was with us? How much fun we had? We were so hot and spontaneous. A baby would have ruined that.”
Ty pinched the bridge of his nose. Sure, for the first few years, they’d been as she described. But that had long faded into resentment and apathy before they ever decided to have a baby. Looking back on it now, he could see they’d have been a disaster trying to parent together.
But it didn’t excuse her behavior.
Nothing would.
“This isn’t about the abortion, Trina. It’s your body. This is about the thousands of lies. Even now, when you’re caught, you’re still lying. We kept trying, even after you got pregnant once. That would have been the perfect time to clue me in on your change of heart, don’t you think? But no, you kept on lying.”
“Come on, Ty. Don’t be mad. You didn’t even want a kid at first. You know I’m right. How about we meet up this weekend? We can talk about it more. There’s a cute little BB about halfway—”
“Fuck off, Trina,” he said before ending the call. “God-fucking-dammit.” He chucked his phone to the ground and took another swig of tequila before hurling the bottle over the fire. It slammed into a tree with a satisfying pop and shatter.
No one knew how to rile him up like Trina, and not in the way she’d been hoping for.
“I shouldn’ta opened the damn safe,” he grumbled. “Shouldn’ta tossed the booze either. Fuck.” He rubbed his forehead with a sigh.
If only he’d left well enough alone and thrown the safe out. He could have remained blissfully unaware of his wife’s—ex-wife’s betrayal.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, listening to the crackle of the fire and the chirp of the cicadas in the trees. His alcohol-soaked brain began to go offline, exactly what he needed—the peaceful oblivion of a good blackout.
As he floated on the edge of consciousness, the hairs on the back of his neck rose to attention.
Crack.
He bolted up and then grabbed the gun as the snapping of a twig echoed like gunfire in the quiet night.
Gone was his buzz, and in its place, a readiness to act and fight if necessary.
Stillness reigned all around him, but someone was out there. He could feel it.
“Show your face, motherfucker!” he shouted.
Silence.
He cocked the gun. “I’m counting to five, then I’ll just start shooting. One… two…”
His head whipped toward crunching leaves as a person emerged from the wooded area behind the clubhouse. His eyes bugged and jaw dropped as his visitor came into full view. Maybe he was drunker than he thought because he had to be hallucinating.
“Hey.” The vision spoke.
“Well, fuck me sideways.”