Chapter 4
Chapter Four
AYDA
It was late when we finally got clearance to go back to The Hut.
Rusty and Jan were the ever-graceful hosts and fed us two meals as we waited and talked, all coming to the same gloomy conclusion: no one knew a damn thing.
We’d exhausted every avenue we’d had three times over, and there were so many holes in the stories we did have, we only ended up frustrated beyond belief and more tired than I imagined we’d ever felt before. No one more so than Drew. Not having answers made him grumpy.
He’d already lost so much, been through so much, taken on so much, and none of his questions were being answered. He was also now down three men—Jedd, Eric, and Rubin. No one knew where they were, and that only added to the growing pile of questions we all had.
When the call finally came from the fire chief, we all knew we’d be better regrouping where we felt the most comfortable—our own home. Where alcohol would flow, and frustrations could be voiced without scaring Jan and Sam.
The metal of the training room was still glowing hot when we rode back in, but the fire was out, and the smoke had dissipated. The whole landscaping and horizon looked wrong. Even the stars seemed to stretch out over the midnight blue sky and taunt us.
This had been the longest day of my life.
Longer than the day of my parents’ funeral.
Longer than the day Tate and I had lost our home.
It was a close second to the day I thought I was going to lose Drew in that warehouse.
I just needed a minute to clear my head—a second to regain perspective—a moment when I wasn’t on display.
I finally found it when I had a moment to crawl under the steamy water of the shower in our bathroom.
It took everything in me not to look back on the day and focus on the terrible things we’d done.
I managed, to a certain extent, but avoidance became impossible when I came to undress and found a few specks of blood above my boot—blood I seemed to understand intrinsically wasn’t mine.
Drew and I had washed most of Owen’s blood from ourselves with Owen’s hose, and I had scrubbed Drew’s cut while he’d rubbed the worst of the blood off himself waiting for Eric to show up. Not that it had helped much.
Once in the shower, I scrubbed my body until my skin was pink, and ignored the ache in the areas that were most abused by Owen.
I didn’t want this physical evidence left behind anymore.
I didn’t want to be the reminder of what had happened, and I felt that’s exactly what I would be when they all looked at me.
The damage on my flesh was all I saw when I looked in the mirror.
Now that I was clean, it stood out even more.
This was why I was wearing Drew’s sweats and an oversized hoodie when he found me brushing my hair in our bedroom.
I didn’t worry too much about his reaction—he’d already exorcised his demons on Owen’s flesh. It was the outlaw's credence. Blood for blood. Blood for betrayal. Blood for treason.
But I could see the tension in Drew’s body as he paced the room with a bottle of scotch fisted in his hand.
Agitation rolled from him in waves, while all I found myself capable of doing was falling to the bed on my back and staring at the ceiling as I listened to his boots pound their way across the room again and again.
“Sit with me?” I finally asked, raising my head so I could see him. My hair was in damp tendrils because I hadn’t had the energy to dry it.
Drew stopped in his tracks, taking a moment to tilt his head and look at me.
Of course, there was sadness there as he took in my new bruises and mottled skin, but he wasn’t as angry as I once would have predicted from him.
It took him a moment, but eventually, he moved, dropping the scotch onto the side before he sank down onto the mattress, resting his ass on the edge and leaning over me.
He brushed a hand over my forehead and across my damp hair, his eyes searching mine.
“I mean this in the nicest way possible… but you look exhausted, darlin’.”
I offered him a smile. I wasn’t sure there was a word that could adequately describe my level of fatigue. I was tired down to the very marrow of my bones.
“Long day.”
“Yeah? What you been doing?” he asked with surprise humor lacing his voice.
“Oh, you know, the usual. Mayhem and mystery. Earning my keep.”
“You’ve earned a lifetime of happiness in one day, and then some.” He ran a gentle thumb over the creases around my tired eyes. “Do you think you can stay awake until after I’ve showered?”
“I already told you I’d wait forever for you, pres.”
Gathering his shirt in one of my hands, I fisted the material, pressing against his abs, making sure he felt our connection there as I held his gaze.
I had so much I wanted and needed to say, and yet none of that seemed like it needed to be said now.
I just wanted to be with him, the rest I could deal with later.
I rose up to kiss him, ignoring the bite of pain on my fragile skin as I made the meeting of our lips deeper and more needful.
“Go and wash today off yourself,” I spoke against him.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered with his best southern drawl attached to it, and then he reluctantly made his way to the bathroom.
Dropping his cut into a chair, he didn’t take much care with the rest of his clothes and shed them on his way to the bathroom.
I pushed myself to sit in the middle of the mattress and listened to the shower come on.
The sound of water beating down was hypnotic and almost lulled me to sleep several times before it cut off again.
I listened as Drew made his way through his usual routine and soon appeared at the door of the bathroom, one of the fluffy white towels I’d bought for us wrapped low on his hips as droplets of water clung to his skin, unwilling to give up their only moments with him.
“I really wish I had more energy right now. I’d have climbed in that shower with you.” I sighed dreamily.
Running a palm up the back of his head, Drew shook more water out of his hair with a rough hand, and he made his way to the bed, climbing onto it from the bottom before he crawled up and over my body, landing carefully beside me so he didn’t hurt my already aching body.
His skin was still damp, but the coolness of it was drowned out by the heat of Drew being Drew, and him pressing against me like he wanted to hold me tightly.
Propping himself up on one shoulder to give me the space he knew my body needed, he let his gaze drift from head to toe, taking in the many layers of clothes I didn’t usually wear for bed.
His free hand drifted over them, his nails trailing tenderly over my thigh before he flattened his palm over my waist, across my ribs, and back down to rest on my stomach.
Once there, his eyes fixated on it, and a small scowl took over his handsome face.
“I can’t remember how it was when I had to do this life alone, without you there at the end of the day to make me believe life was different. That it wasn’t always so fucked up.”
I swallowed my irrational emotions brought on by fatigue and tried to remember how to breathe. “I’m not sure I existed before you.”
“Funny how you feel so alive when surrounded by so much death, isn’t it?”
“It’s not death that makes me feel alive. It’s you. You and the love I have for you.” I searched his face for the longest moment. “You do realize I would follow you into Hell, don’t you?”
“You already have… so many times. Some days I have to pinch myself to see that you’re still here.
Thank God you’re still here,” he blew out in a heavy breath.
“But, Ayda, I can’t take seeing you this way ever again.
I can’t. The bruises, the pain you’re trying to hide…
seeing some guy holding a gun to your head, mistreating you and marking your body.
” Drew shook his head softly. “I can’t do it anymore, darlin’.
This is the last time. It has to be. It’s killing me.
Holding it together right now is killing me. Seeing you this way kills me.”
I ran my palms over the stubble on his jaw, never breaking the eye contact.
“It will all go away. The pain I can handle. The bruises will fade, and everything will go back to the way it was. I’m not made of glass, Drew.
” I felt him tense beneath my touch, and I continued before he could argue.
“But this was also a really unique situation that no one could have predicted. No one will get that close again. You won’t allow it, and neither will our family.
We’ve cut the disease out. The rot is gone. ”
“Everything will go back to the way it was, huh?” His thumb pressed down on my stomach, and his gaze drifted there, eyes thoughtful and his soft sigh somewhat dreamy. “Maybe not everything.”
“A few minor changes along the way are inevitable.”
I glanced down to my stomach and felt the flutter of emotion rising. I still wasn’t sure whether or not there was a baby growing inside of me. Not for sure, but whether right or wrong, I was beginning to realize that I was hoping there was.
“What are your thoughts on all of this?”
“I think I’m scared,” he answered without hesitation in the most un-Drew-like fashion while he stared at his hand.
“I think I’m excited, too, but mainly scared.
It feels like… fuck, I don’t know. Like I’m still a child myself, barely keeping my head above water and with not enough arms to keep everyone I love afloat.
” Drew’s head slowly rolled my way, his eyes finding mine.
“And I’m scared to love something else the way I love you. ”
I think I stopped breathing.
Lost in the intricate blue-green of his eyes, I floated somewhere between reality and fantasy as the words slowly seeped below the surface of my brain and settled over me.
He was hoping, too.
Even after all the shit that had gone down, and all the hell that we were about to face together, I felt happy. I felt loved.
I couldn’t form the words, though. Not the ones filled with hope and promises of a future that was so uncertain at that moment.
Instead, I kissed him, pouring all of the things I couldn’t say into the passion that was always present between us.
My hands fisted his thick, damp hair, pleading with him via touch to understand what I wanted to say.
No one would know as much love as our baby would—not another living soul.
“I feel so much more than love for you,” I whispered against his mouth.
“Open your eyes.”
I did as he asked, allowing a tear to escape.
Drew lifted his hand and wiped away the tear with his thumb, brushing it away on the towel still wrapped around him before he placed his hand back on my stomach.
“I’m going to say something now, Ayda, and I need to say it while I’m feeling this way, and I’m going to need to you to listen to me.
I’m going to need you to let the words sink in without telling me I’m being stupid. Is that okay?”
I searched his eyes, but nodded anyway, despite there being no hint of what he was trying to say.
“Babylon is our home. I belong here, so do you, but this isn’t just a place for us to live anymore.
It holds a lot of… history.” He exhaled through his flared nostrils, looking away like he was nervous before clearing his throat and scowling, a pain deeper than physical creasing the beautiful features of his face.
“If you are pregnant. If by some miracle I’ve been graced with a boy or a girl, a son or a daughter, twins, triplets, whatever…
I need you to make me a promise that you’ll see through to your dying day. ”
More tears fell from the corners of my eyes as the weight of his words hung between us.
I hated it when he asked me to make a promise before he told me what it was.
I would give him anything he wanted, he already knew that, but some promises? Some were impossible to keep, and I hoped this wasn’t one of them.
“Tell me,” I whispered.
“If anything happens to me, and I don’t get to see them grow… get my baby the hell out of Babylon for me. Don’t let them live a life like mine.”
Biting my lip, I forced the sob back in my throat. This baby—if he or she was in there—meant that I wouldn’t be able to follow him anywhere anymore. Not the way I’d always intended to anyway. There would be another life to think about. One more valuable than each of ours.
Closing my eyes for a second, I blew all the breath from my lungs out before opening them again and locking my gaze with his.
“I promise.” Even this, I would give him.
His shoulders relaxed, his body somehow moving closer as he scanned mine one more time and nodded softly. His thoughts had drifted, as though he was agreeing with something inside his own mind that only he could hear.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “And I’ll do my best to make sure I stick around.”
“You better.” I touched his bottom lip with my thumb and stroked gently. “I don’t want to do this without you.”
I didn’t mean just the baby or the pregnancy. I meant everything. Living. Breathing. Hurting. My life had really only started the day I met him.
A soft smile graced his lips. “You know what’s funny?
I always thought I’d be okay with dying young.
I expected it most of the time. In prison, I longed for it.
I had nothing to keep me from sacrificing my life for the sake of the club…
not until you. And now I have these crazy visions of us sitting out there on the porch, watching the world go by, our hair gray, our children old, all our mistakes behind us and our good times and memories outweighing the bad.
I’ve never wanted to grow old like I do now,” he whispered, leaning closer until his lips were only an inch away from mine.
“So, don’t you worry, darlin’. I’ll cling onto life with dirty, oil-filled fingers for you—you and all the lives we can create together. ”
I closed the distance between us, my lips attacking his like the kiss was the only thing that would keep me alive.
It didn’t escape me that I was the only person who would ever hear anything close to words like this coming from this formidable man’s mouth, and I cherished every last syllable.
If I weren’t pregnant, if for some reason my intuition was wrong and I’d lost my mind, I knew that it was what I wanted.
I could see this future between us now, and I was craving that.
Suddenly, Drew as a father was a huge turn on.
“I wanna grow old and gray with you, too.”
“Let’s make it happen. You and me.”