37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Tucker
E vie was safe. That was all that mattered.
That thought had kept me sane when we went back to the clubhouse, and when Jenna had informed us that Evie would be staying with her and Isabel until the wedding.
Sane, however, wasn’t happy.
That first night, I assumed that Evie just needed to be someplace a little more normal than an MC clubhouse where she’d be moving between three bedrooms, shared with three men…
I did my best to scrub that video, but the damage had been done. Maybe, one day, people would forget about it, the same way the public had forgotten about Hugh Grant and the prostitute, or Kristen Stewart and the married director. Except those scandals only got forgotten because Grant and Stewart moved on. If Grant had decided to date the escort, or if Stewart and the director had gotten married, it would have haunted them.
If Evie had stayed at the clubhouse that night, it would’ve fed into the story. I accepted that. I accepted that she might not come back here for a while, but I didn’t expect to just not hear from her, not see her. Whenever one of us guys went over to Jenna’s or our mom’s, Evie wouldn’t be there, and the only thing either of them ever said was that she was working on things for the wedding.
Not that we spent much time trying to reach out to Evie. As much as I wanted to believe there was a logical reason for Evie going to stay with Jenna and Isabel, a part of me couldn’t help wondering if Evie just didn’t need us anymore. And since she didn’t need us, she didn’t want to be with us anymore.
After all, despite the shitstorm about the video, she had a career to get back to in Nashville. She could hire another publicist, someone who’d put a spin on everything and make her look great again.
“This is bullshit.”
My brothers looked over at me, as surprised by my outburst as I was.
“Something you want to share?” Mason asked as he went back to the gun he was cleaning.
We’d tried not talking about it and that hadn’t done any good. It was time to try something new.
“Evie,” I said. “The wedding is this weekend, and we have no idea what’s gonna happen after that.”
“Way I see it,” Levi said, “she’s made it pretty clear she’s gotten what she wanted out of us.”
“Has she?” I argued. “Did either of you talk to her after we took out the Cobras? Besides asking her if she was okay, did any of us tell her how worried we were? How we felt about her?”
Levi scowled and looked away. Mason’s silence was just as loud.
“Did any of us ask her to stay?”
I let my question hang there, because I knew I was just as guilty as they were. And I knew why.
“Jenna’s the only one of us to ever date seriously,” I said. “I never understood how she could do that, not after seeing what Dad’s death did to Mom. But with Evie…when I saw those assholes shooting into Rocky’s, and then after we knew Clayton took her…I was terrified.”
“She’s the one who left,” Levi said. “Left and never came back.”
I shook my head. “Because we didn’t give her any reason to think we saw her as more than a way to pass time when the four of us wanted to fuck.”
“She’s never been that,” Mason snapped. “But it doesn’t mean we’d fit what she wants.”
I made my decision.
“I want her,” I declared. “And not just for a night. I don’t care what you two decide, but I’m going after her. And if she feels even a little bit of what I do, I’ll do whatever I have to.”
With that, I took out my phone and headed to my room. I considered calling Evie and just telling her everything I’d told my brothers, but the three of us weren’t the only ones with baggage. Evie never knew her dad, and her mom had never chosen her over alcohol or anything else. Staying away for this long had probably just made her doubt everything I’d ever said to her.
I needed help.
“Tucker.” Jenna’s tone was sharp. “I’m kinda in the middle of something. What do you want?”
“Evie.”
Jenna was silent for a minute, and then I heard the sound of a door closing. “You have my attention.”
“I love her, Jenna. And I know I fucked up. I need your help to get her back.”
“I’ll be at the clubhouse in fifteen minutes.”
True to her word, Jenna walked through the door a quarter of an hour later. She followed me to my room without a word, but as soon as I closed the door behind her, she turned on me.
“You better not be fucking around with this,” she said. “Because if you hurt Evie again—”
“Again?”
“Come on, Tucker, you can’t really be that stupid, can you?” She shook her head. “Evie’s not the type to agree to something so…controversial if she didn’t have feelings for you three. You ghosting her after what happened, it was a real dick move.”
“I know,” I admitted. “And I want to fix it.”
There was a knock on the door, and I opened it. Mason and Levi stood on the other side, their expressions serious, but different than they had been. As if they’d shifted something about themselves.
“We want Evie too,” Levi said. His eyes moved to Jenna. “Will you help us?”
Jenna grinned. “I have just the thing.”