Chapter 3
Gunnar
Christ, if I survive this night without doing something I’ll regret tomorrow, it’ll be a fucking miracle.
I might be done with Chelsea, but my dick seems to have missed the memo.
What I’ve just told her is the absolute fucking truth.
I wouldn’t be able to resist her even though she’s the last woman I should ever want.
She licks her lips while continuing to watch me with those eyes that tell me her thoughts would lead us down a path straight to hell. When she speaks again, she changes the subject. Something I’m fucking grateful for. “Alexa told me you don’t speak to your parents much these days.”
It’s a statement, but I know it’s also a question.
And because I’d rather talk about our families than about us, I answer it.
“Trying to make them happy became something I wasn’t interested in anymore a few years back, so I stopped trying.
They didn’t much like my new approach to life, so not talking is where we ended up. ”
“Do you miss them?”
Chelsea used to be a talker, and I’m getting the sense we’re in for a long night of conversation, so I slide down the door and sit my ass on the floor to settle in for it. “It’s hard to miss something you never really had.”
She takes that in and slowly nods. “Yeah, I understand that. People look at my family and think we have it all. What they don’t understand is all we really have are some pretty photos of the three of us; we don’t really have a family.”
“Why do you continue being the dutiful daughter?”
“I guess we all need an anchor in life, and they’re the only anchor I have. I don’t have brothers and sisters like you do for that.”
“What about friends?” I’ve seen photos of her online with more people than I would care to ever know. Surely she has friends to lean on.
She lifts her hands from the table and places them in her lap. Her shoulders sag and her eyes lose some of the light they held a moment ago. “I have many acquaintances, Mason, but if you told me to call my one lifeline right now to come get me, I’d be stuck here forever.”
That wasn’t the answer I expected, and it reveals something about Chelsea I never imagined would ever be true.
She was the popular girl in school. I assumed she’d never be short of a friend.
I should have known, though, that her family was much the same as mine in that we were always surrounded by people wanting to be close for reasons other than friendship.
It gave off the illusion of having people by our side when that was as far from the truth as you could get.
I’m lost in my thoughts when she says, “Why did you join Storm?”
“There are a lot of answers to that question.”
She smiles. “I have all night.”
I scrub my hand over my face as I think back to the time three years ago when the club first came into my life.
Shit had been rough, even with my siblings then.
I’d met J through a friend at the pub and after we’d been friends for a few months, he’d introduced me to the club.
For the first time in my life, I’d felt like I belonged.
I no longer felt like the fucking outsider trying to figure out my place.
Meeting her gaze again, I share my truth. “They accepted me in the way I’d only ever felt accepted once in my life.” She has no way of knowing I’m referring to her. Except, she does, because fuck it, she seems able to read me in the same way she always did.
Understanding washes over her and she slides off the table.
Moving to where I am, she sits facing me, those beautiful eyes of hers searching mine.
“I’m sorry for what I did to you, Mason.
” Her apology breathes out of her like it’s been trapped inside for years.
“I wanted to be with you, too. You have no idea how much I wanted that.”
I stare at her in confusion. Her words make no sense. But even if they did, it’s too fucking late for them to mean anything. Chelsea is from another lifetime as far as I’m concerned. One I’ve well and fucking truly left behind.