Chapter 28 Oak
Oak
“Ishould have told you,” I tell her softly. Palming her ass in my hand I give a gentle squeeze that earns a barely audible moan from her. “And no explanation I give will be a good excuse in not telling you. I’m sorry.”
She stares at me for a moment, eyes stunned. Her fingers tangle in the ends of my hair, pulling slightly to create a sting on my scalp. “You might be the only man I know who has no problem with apologizing.”
“Because a man admits his faults, Grace. He owns them. Hopefully one day he’ll make up for them.
But what they’re accusing me of? I’m not sorry for that, baby.
I killed Chris Townsend,” I tell her, letting the words sink into her like a sponge.
I wait for a reaction and when I see none I continue.
“Brutally. And I would do it again. He deserved far worse.” My voice turns dark as the rage inside of me builds.
“I’m not scared of you, Oak. And I’m not the one to condemn you,” she tells me and in her eyes I see she’s telling the truth. “I knew it had to be for a reason. Whatever that reason may be you don’t have to tell me.”
But I do.
I glance away from her as I swallow roughly. My fingers begin to twitch, a compulsion I can’t control.
Her hand snakes around her back, takes my hand, and rests it between the both of us. My fingers stop twitching with her tender hold.
Raising my hand she gives each knuckle a kiss before resting it against her chest.
“Chris Townsend was a part of a rival MC known as The Nightcrawlers. When Sticks formed his own MC it was much smaller and filled with older men who could hardly ride any more. At the time the only other young ones were Dex and Pax. They were newly patched in members. Had been with the club when they were young and gotten rid of their prospect patches when they turned eighteen.”
“Originally I had come to Stonesville to track down the man who I had caught fucking my girlfriend,” I tell her, my voice dark as fire burns inside my veins. When I close my eyes I can still see the ecstasy on Lana’s face as Crow thrusts inside her.
“Did you find him?” Her innocent question causes me to bark out a laugh that’s filled with dark humor.
“Did I find him?” I snort, not being able to help it. “Yeah I found him. Hate having to work with him, too. Hate having to see his face almost every fucking day.”
Her eyes go wide. “Someone from the club?”
I shake my head. “No. No one inside the club but he works with us from time to time.”
She lets out a little gasp that I can’t help but think is adorable.
Her eyes go comically wide with recognition.
“Sheriff Crow. I always wondered why you hated him,” she says.
“It didn’t really make sense when I saw all the good things he was doing with the club.
Especially how he helped Alice and Snake. ”
“And I’ll always be thankful of him for that,” I say to her, though it’s begrudgingly.
“But I can’t look him in the eyes without wanting to punch him in the face.
In the end I know I’ll never be able to cause him as much pain as he caused me.
Doesn’t stop me from wanting to inflict it, though.
Don’t know what that says about me, baby, but I know it ain’t good. ”
Her lips press another kiss to my knuckles.
Those blue eyes are filled with empathy, compassion.
“They hurt you, Oak. I can understand that. You felt betrayed by Lana, a woman you loved. A woman who you had thought loved you just as much back. And to see her with another man, I’m sure that only added salt to the already gaping wound you had. ”
She understands me.
Fuck, if I couldn’t love this woman more than I already do.
“You want to know what made it worse?” I ask her and she patiently waits for me to continue. “He served, just like me. And I hated the fact that he had his shit together and I was a shattered fucking mess.”
“He’s not better than you, Oak. You can’t compare one trauma to another’s, or how one person has coped compared to someone else. Trauma, sorrow, it all affects us differently.”
My girl is wise beyond her years. Wiser than me at my thirty-five.
“Take my mother for example,” she says sadly. “We lost our dad and the trauma from it caused her to use drugs to cope.”
With my free hand I caress her face softly. She leans into my touch and lets out a little sigh. “Do you think one day she’ll stop?”
“I hope so. I always hope that one day she’ll wake up and realize that not everything important died with dad. She still has me. She still has Connor. There’s so much beautiful things she’s giving up in life because she’s lost in her grief.”
And that’s it isn’t it?
When we’re lost in grief we’re only killing ourselves slowly. We only go through the motions, struggle with every breath and wish for the day to be over to do it all over again.
Grief is killing Vivian Vale.
Grief has been killing me.
And I’m tired of killing myself because of it.
“You have the most beautiful heart.”
Her smile is shy as she closes her eyes. When she opens them they stare tenderly into mine. “And you have the most beautiful soul.” I go to open my mouth to rebuttal but she silences me. “You do, Oak. Believe me.”
“If I’m going to believe anyone it’s going to be you, Grace,” I tell her honestly.
She makes me feel like I’m worth fighting for.
“After Lana cheated on me I felt even more like I wasn’t worth fighting for.
I was battling with the grief of losing my brothers.
Trying to deal with the pain and suffering with tremendous guilt.
When I was discharged it was because I was mentally unfit to return.
And they were right for doing that. I wasn’t mentally fit to return for another tour.
Hell, I’m not mentally fit now,” I let out a bleak laugh that only turns Grace’s eyes sadder.
“You’re just a little bent, Oak, but never broken.”
I press a soft kiss to her lips that she returns just as softly. A whisper of our lips that speaks louder than words ever will.
“I confronted Crow and he told me he had no idea Lana even had a boyfriend. She never said and what they had was new.”
“Do you believe him?”
God, I hate to even fucking admit that the fucker is right but I do believe him. I think part of me, albeit small, believed it almost nine years ago.
“I didn’t at the time but I do now. Crow is a righteous man, Grace. I can find all the faults in him that I want, hate him for what he made me feel that night, but he always does the right thing. It’s who Crow is. So, yeah, I believe him.”
“I understand your pain, Oak, but if he apologized and it was an honest mistake, I think the real person you need closure from is her.”
I shake my head. “I don’t need closure from her, baby. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if she hadn’t done what she did then I would never have come here. I would have never of joined the club and I would never have met you.”
She smiles at that. “And that’s incredibly sweet, romantic even, but if you’re still bleeding from that wound, Oak, then I’ll never be able to heal it.
“What are you suggesting? You want me to talk to her?” I’m baffled and my words come out a bit harsh.
“Not necessarily. I just want you to get closure from that, Oak. In any way,” she explains and I breathe easier. “If that’s from talking to her or talking to someone else. But you can’t expect me to heal that part of you when you already know how I feel and that wound is still there.”
Fuck.
Her words, as true and hard to hear as they are, leave a bitter fucking taste in my mouth.
Because she isn’t wrong.
The whole entire reason why I can’t say those three words and why I can’t hear them back stems from Lana.
“You know how I feel about you, Grace,” I say to her with my eyes pouring the emotion. “You’re mine, I’m yours. There isn’t anyone else for me. There never will be. You were made for me.”
Leaning down she presses an opened mouth kiss to my lips that leaves me wanting more.
“I know,” she whispers against my lips. “You know I feel the exact same way.”
With her lips still pressed against mine we breathe each other in.
And with every breath it feels as if she’s granting me the peace I have always longed for.
But that peace becomes disrupted when she asks me, “How does Chris Townsend play in this?”
I immediately stiffen, my muscles becoming so tense I fear they may snap.
“After I had confronted Crow I knew my life for me back at home wasn’t for me.
People back there hero worshipped me and I couldn’t fucking stand it, not when I lost my brothers, not when I believed it to be my fault.
And I couldn’t stay in a place where Lana was everywhere.
So I found myself at Vipers MC. Sticks, he was welcoming.
Intimidating but welcoming. I think he saw in my eyes that I was lost and had seen some shit.
And like the father figure he was he took me under his wing. ”
“I started out as a prospect, as we all do. When I came to Stonesville I had already been back home for four months. So when I was finally promoted to being a member I had been a prospect for a little over eight months. But that meant I was here, in Stonesville, a prospect to Vipers MC, on the first anniversary of my brother’s deaths.
And I didn’t tell none of them about it which is why they kept their party that night for one of Stick’s childhood friends.
I’m sure if I had told him he would’ve cancelled the whole thing.
But I didn’t because I deserved to feel the pain of losing them, except that night I just wanted to forget. ”
“So what happened?”
My fingers begin to twitch, her touch not able to stop them as the memories come flooding back like a nightmare before my eyes.