Chapter 37 – Kendall
“I want you safe,” he reiterated.
She bit down on her lower lip, trying to hide her shock. Not too many people concerned themselves with her safety and no one saw beneath the surface of the career woman she showed the world to her inner vulnerability.
Before she processed it all and told him she’d return inside with him, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her, kissing her temple. “Thank you, gorgeous,” he whispered, caressing her cheek. “I had a wonderful time with you.”
She nodded, not missing the dismissal in his tone. “Same here.”
Using her keyless entry, she unlocked her door. As if they’d been on a date, he opened the door and held it until she got in. She smiled at him, not knowing what else to do.
He gave her a two-fingered salute and Kendall drove away, saying a silent goodbye to that beautiful man.
Kendall shuddered as the memory of her first goodbye to Johnnie swirled in her aching head. But that wasn’t her only memory from her early days at the club. They converged on her, one of top of the other, blending and melding, then splitting apart.
His gaze flickered over her hair, her eyes, her nose.
Her mouth. The silver in his beautiful eyes swallowed up the gray, leaving behind a burning intensity that melted Kendall’s insides.
Looking at him, smelling his cologne, hardened her nipples and wet her panties.
Because he was her illusion. The man she hadn’t expected to see again but whose memories she clung to.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he greeted with a heart-stopping smile. “What brings you back to my club?”
Thoughts of Johnnie had sustained her while Logan and Spoon held her captive. She hadn’t known how much Johnnie would come to mean to her, even when she’d returned, pregnant with their Baby Biker.
One of the first people she saw was Mortician.
Mortician rubbed his chin, leaning against the shelf containing the alcohol and situated into the recessed wall. “Kendall, huh?”
She nodded, meeting his gaze a task. She might’ve been quiet and she might’ve had food issues, but she’d always liked to laugh.
And…and do other things. She just had to remember what they were.
Forgetting the blood and the pain was more important, though.
Escaping the horrible realities of her life.
“Kendall,” he repeated. “That’s a cool name.”
Unable to form too many coherent thoughts, she faked a smile, intrigued at how his long dreads framed his face.
He’d been suspicious of her, but even then he’d been a gentleman.
“Don’t fucking point out what you think your flaws, baby. See me? I’m one simple motherfucker. Give me pussy. Make me laugh and you solid in my book. If you don’t point out your flaws, I won’t ever see them.”
“You do. All men do.”
“Worry about shit that matter. You gorgeous, okay? I’m not a bullshitting motherfucker.
If you was some ratchet, hot mess, I’d tell your ass.
You have legs that go on for fucking days.
Make a man have wet dreams. All that flame-colored hair.
Not to mention your beautiful face, Red.
” He stood and peered down at her. “Stop fishing for fucking compliments, girl. By the way, you ever tell John Boy I noticed anything about you, I’m denying that shit. ”
“It wouldn’t matter to him,” she said, almost giddy at the thought that it would.
Mortician had known Johnnie wanted her, so he’d stepped aside.
Tears slid down Kendall’s cheeks, and she curled deeper under the covers.
She knew she was at Roxy’s. She’d been in and out all day, checking on her and fussing over her.
She’d even walked to Kendall’s house and got her pajamas to put on.
She’d coaxed food and juice into Kendall, made her take pain meds, and insisted she drink water.
But nothing could take away Kendall’s shame or her despair.
For all her determination to endure her marriage, she couldn’t.
Cheating was a hard no for her. Yet, she’d done it to her husband.
She’d drank herself into oblivion and slept with one of the few men who’d always protected her no matter what.
How could she?
Her marriage was over. Johnnie deserved better than her cheating. As angry as she was with Bailey, she deserved better, too.
At the knock on the door, Kendall swiped her cheeks. “Come in,” she said hoarsely.
Mortician walked into the room and closed the door behind him, locking the knob. “Don’t need motherfuckers walking in and overhearing our conversation.”
She blushed and nodded, then turned her back on him, unable to meet his gaze.
His sigh sent more tears rushing to her eyes. “Two drunk, hurt, emotional motherfuckers not a good combination, baby.”
She shrank further under the covers.
“You hate me?”
“I could never, but I am the reason you betrayed Bailey.”
“No, Kendall. That’s on me. I shouldn’t have touched you. Not only because of Bailey, but because of you. You deserve better than what I gave you. What I can give you.”
“I know you love Bailey.”
Another sigh. “And you love that motherfucker. You pleaded for his fucking life—”
Right now, she felt nothing for Johnnie. Not the anger she’d carried for days or the shame that she allowed him to force himself on her.
“I can’t love him that much. He’s never cheated on me. He respects our vows enough to have gotten rid of all his pictures of Meggie. He’d never cross that line no matter how he threatens to do so. How could I betray him?”
Mortician was silent for a moment. “That’s on me, too, Red. I’m nothing but a motherfucking cheat. He my club brother. I fucked his woman. I seduced you.”
That wasn’t how she remembered it. “You aren’t a cheat and you didn’t—”
“I just remember bits and pieces,” he interrupted. “At first, I thought it was a dream. You was more fucked up than me, so you beating yourself up over shit you convinced yourself happened. I don’t remember most of it.”
Kendall turned onto her back and met Mortician’s vulnerable gaze.
“I swear I s-seduced you,” she whispered.
“I don’t think you did, but who knows, baby?”
She let that sink in, then curled up again. “Do you know what I wish?”
He snickered. “With you, anything possible,” he said, still her Mort, her friend.
Her heart eased a little. “That Johnnie hadn’t broken me. That I hadn’t allowed myself to be broken. I admire Meggie so much. I wish I could be as strong as her.”
“You two different women, Kendall,” Mortician reminded her.
“Meggie got a lot of her daddy in her. That motherfucker was tough, strong-willed. Then she got Prez holding her down as much as she hold him down. You lost your daddy when you was so fucking young and Johnnie your man. I’d fucking cave, too. ”
“I admire her,” she whispered. “I wish I could confess. She’d tell me what to do.”
“What you want to do and what you should do two different things. You want to stay with Johnnie but you know you should kick that fuckhead to the curb.”
“I’m the adulterer,” she said, sobbing softly. “How can I stay with him?”
“Because you love him,” Mortician told her. “We did wrong but we can’t undo it. You beating yourself up only adding to your heartache.”
“I just want somebody to love me. Johnnie,” she admitted. “But I’ve always searched for love and acceptance. First from my mother, but she didn’t consider me at all. At least, I’m second in Johnnie’s life.”
“You deserve to be first.”
“It never mattered before and I wish his behavior didn’t hurt me so deeply. I wish we hadn’t been so vulnerable and lonely that we just needed comfort.”
“Kendall—”
“How can I stay with him after he hurt you so bad? What kind of a friend does that make me? No! What kind of a stupid bitch am I to even want Johnnie to be the man I married when he’s done so much?”
“You not stupid, Kendall. You a good woman. And you strong yourself. You got a way of compartmentalizing. Tucking away shit better left buried and focusing on what you need to do.”
“Should I do that now?”
“You tell me. If guilt’s going to bring you down, then tell Johnnie and I’ll tell Bailey. It has to be both of us confessing or neither one of us. We fucked up enough. We can’t tell one and then let the other one find out by accident. They deserve better than that.”
She wouldn’t open her mouth, if only to save Mort’s marriage. If it was salvageable.
Mort sat on the edge of the bed and rested his elbows on his knees.
“Two things can be true. I regret betraying Bailey but I don’t regret it was with you.
I regret the position that I put you in but I don’t regret our friendship.
Not before and not after. Even though I’m probably headed for fucking divorce too, that’s no fucking excuse, because I still got a wife.
But you right. I was so fucking hurt and angry.
Alone.”. He looked back at her. “We always been able to talk about anything. That has to change for now. I can’t talk about Bailey to you and you can’t complain about Johnnie to me.
We lost that right to share that information with each other. Until…until…” He shrugged. “One day.”
“I understand,” she said softly.
“Now I got a question for you.”
“What?”
“Why the fuck you left my goddamn house and thought it was a good idea to walk the fuck home?”
She opened her mouth to explain, tried to conjure her thought process when she awakened, but she didn’t remember leaving, walking through the forest, or laying under a tree.
As Mortician said, their lovemaking went in and out of her consciousness, until she didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t.
She was still a horrible liar and dirty cheat, but not remembering helped ease her turmoil.
It allowed her to not look at Mortician any differently.
She sat up and reached her hand out. Straightening, Mortician gave her a sad smile, then grabbed her hand, squeezed it, and kissed the back of it.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He kissed her forehead. “You got it, baby,” he said, and then he was gone.