Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Drew
The confusion was almost as insufferable as the disappointment.
I’d fucked up with the one thing I knew she could never lose, and Tate was in a place that none of us had ever expected him to be.
I should have handled them the way I once would have.
I should have stormed in there, nailed the little shits to a tree and put the fear of God up their asses, but I was trying to do the right fucking thing for once.
My second shot at life had to go right. I wanted everything to happen the right way.
I was trying to change what I stood for.
Thought before reaction. Words before violence. A new kind of power.
But Ayda had walked away from me.
Moving on instinct, I marched forward to follow her, but her parting words of I need time rang in my ears painfully, forcing me to stop as soon as she left. Time away from me was the one thing I didn’t want her to have.
Just a few weeks before, I’d have made her stop. I’d have grabbed her and pinned her down, thrown her over my shoulder or marched her to where I wanted her to be. Only I found that impossible now. I respected her too much for that.
I fucking loved her too much for that.
I stood in the doorway for far too long, my eyes fixed on the floor as all the negative thoughts in my head began to conjure up that ball of rage in the pit of my stomach. Every muscle along my jaw twitched, every vein in my arms throbbed as I pumped my fists in my pockets over and over again.
Even the sound of heavy boots working their way towards me couldn’t force me to lift my head.
“Slater just filled me in on what happened,” Harry muttered, coming to an abrupt stop in front of me as he blew out a heavy breath and let the silence linger. “Wasn’t your fault, son.”
My nostrils flared, hoping a small nod of feigned acceptance would appease him.
“Drew.”
“I know, Harry. I know.”
“Just the wrong place at the wrong time, brother. It’s happened to us all. We can’t control everything and everyone around here.”
Slowly looking up, I rolled my jaw back and forth and waited to find something to say from the dusty corners in the back of my mind.
The flames of rage were licking at the skin on my legs, up my arms, across my chest, and the most hidden, deepest parts of my being wanted to smash something to pieces, just to regain control.
Harry nodded behind him, his eyes fixed on mine as he turned sideways. “Let’s go get you a drink and wait this out.”
“I need to get out.”
“And go where?” he asked, the last word getting stuck in the back of his throat, forcing his hand to smack down on his chest as he began to cough.
“Anywhere.”
“Running isn’t going to help here, Drew.
First and foremost, that girl of yours is a mother.
She might not have given birth to that boy of hers, but believe me, she is a mother.
Anything she’s said to you in here isn’t what she means.
That’s her instincts kicking in, her need to protect her cub. They’re all the same.”
I exhaled slowly, bringing my hands up to my face and scrubbing roughly. “I don’t give a shit what she said to me. They’re just words. I fuck those things up every single day. It was the look she wore, Harry—the promises I broke and the disappointment in her eyes. I can’t ignore those. I’m…”
“You’re what?”
“I’m not used to that, and I’m not sure I can do this to her. My life ain’t ever gonna change. She’s too fucking good for all of us, and you, me, the club, the entire population of Babylon all know it.”
“Stop,” he commanded, but I ignored him, pushing past his shoulder carefully and making my way over to the desk.
Walking around to the bookcase and pulling a stack of keys out, I flipped through them until I found the one I wanted.
“Don’t go down this road, brother. Ayda is lost without you, even when you’re only a room away from her. She needs you right now.”
“Does she?” I scoffed, not meaning to sound as much of a dick as I did. Throwing my arms out to the side, I gestured around the room and shook my head. “Then why am I here, while she’s chosen to go through Hell without me?”
Harry’s smirk grew. “Because she’s scared that the two of you will say or do something you’ll regret, and the thought of losing you is almost as scary as the thought of her brother going to prison.
I’m guessing she can’t have those two nightmares running side by side tonight and have any hope of surviving. ”
My hand ran down over my mouth slowly before I rubbed my lips together and marched forward towards my only exit, my keys in hand. “I’m no good at this.”
“Do you love her?” he asked, spinning on his feet and forcing me to stop as my boots hit the threshold of my room.
Straightening my shoulders, I kept my back to him and answered without any hesitation. “Yes.”
“And does she know?”
I scowled hard, my head turning over one side to glance his way. “It seems to me you and everyone else in this club know Ayda better than I do, so why don’t you tell me.”
Harry’s head dipped before he walked closer towards me, looked up, and landed a hand on the back of my leather cut. “Have you told her, son? Have you said the words?”
“I’ve said enough.”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
Staring into his eyes, the rumblings of anger began to scream out at me from inside.
I wanted to tell him to fuck off. I wanted to slam him up against a wall and tell him to mind his own goddamn business.
I wanted to wipe that smug, know-it-all grin off the fat, bald bastard’s face.
But I couldn’t, because I loved him too much, too.
That was the thing with love.
It made you weak where you were once strong.
It made decisions that used to be easy, hard.
It made you care.
Pressing my lips into a thin, hard line, I shrugged him off carefully and turned to leave.
There wasn’t anything left to say. When I walked back into the bar, Kenny was standing behind it, capping three bottles before sliding two of them along to Jedd and Slater.
He didn’t look up at me once. Not once. His verbal vomiting in the back of the van had told me he was firmly fixed in Camp Ayda.
Jedd gave me a nod of respect before bringing his bottle to his lips and tipping it up at an awkward angle, and Slater —well, Slater did what he always does. He followed me out into the yard.
“This isn’t on you, Tucker.”
“Save it, Slater. I don’t need the talk down. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
“Stupid comes far too naturally to you for me to believe that.”
“Believe what you like,” I said calmly, lifting my hand up in the air and flashing him the middle finger before giving him his orders. “Get back inside. Man the phones and tell everyone to do whatever the fuck Ayda asks of y’all when she calls.”
“You know the only thing she’ll ask for is you, brother.”
I smirked to myself, thinking about how I would have thought that was true before I saw the look she was wearing when she left. “Then tell her I’m honoring her wishes and giving her the time she needs.”
My boots crunched the stones on the gravel path, my finger spinning the loop of the key around and around as I walked past the bikes and over to the garages.
Pressing the red button on the side of the first one, the screen began to roll up slowly, cranking and causing an almighty noise as it rose to let me in.
Slater didn’t follow me any farther, but I heard the expletives he called me before he turned and headed back into The Hut as he’d been told to.
The perks of being king.
When the wheels I needed came into sight, I was also grateful for being part owner of a repo business, which had towed in a Ram a few days before.
Slipping into the driver’s seat, I pulled that thing out of the garage slowly, the low, throaty growl of the engine crying out across the yard.
Slater didn’t come back out like he once would have.
None of them bothered to stand in front of the truck and beg me not to go out alone.
They were learning about the new me as much as I was.
As I turned the wheel to the left and headed onto the road that led straight into Babylon, I leaned back in the leather of the chair and rested a limp hand on top of the steering wheel for guidance.
Glancing out from left to right, I took in the homes I passed along the way.
I saw the white picket fences, the sprawling green lawns of well-kept gardens, the family Volvos in the driveways and the lights that shone from bedrooms where people’s children slept.
For a few minutes, I allowed myself to imagine what a normal life must feel like.
One where things were simple, and the biggest fuck up you could make was buying the wrong cereal for breakfast. No death, no violence, no tearing bodies apart and burning their remains.
I tried to imagine myself living like that, surviving the mundane existence that the majority of the world seemed to do.
It lasted all of three minutes before I was shuffling up in my seat and smirking, the thought alone turning my blood cold and forcing my head to shake in protest. My fingers curled around the top of the wheel as I felt that fire erupt in my stomach again, and I knew that I was doing the right thing.
Pressing down on the accelerator, I leaned back and blew out all the air in my lungs, knowing exactly where I was going and what I needed to do.
Whether Ayda approved of my actions or not.