Devin
Holy truth bomb, Batman.
It was there in the hope written across his face. Hope for what, she wasn’t sure she could hazard a guess, or that she even wanted to.
Fuck, she was messed up too, just a different flavor of trauma.
Sure, she hadn’t exactly hit the Powerball in the parent lotto, but he’d had it bad too. Of course, he’d had an Aunt Phoebe which made a difference for sure, but being unwanted by a parent never really goes away.
People just find more creative ways to manage it.
Lost in her head, she hadn’t noticed him start to shut down. Did he think she wouldn’t share?
Shit, just five minutes prior she wouldn’t have even considered it, but the truth was perched on her tongue.
He placed his hand on top of hers resting on his cheek, pulling it away, but she didn’t want him to release her, so she placed her other hand on top of his other and held it tight.
She watched his lips move, he was preparing to say something, probably to tell her she didn’t have to, but she rushed ahead.
“It wasn’t what everyone thinks. I’ve heard the whispers.”
He snapped his mouth closed and rubbed his thumb along her hand.
How could she tell him the truth without revealing everything. She wanted to talk, she really did, but the words failed her, so she did the best she could and just let her heart guide her tongue, because if her head was in charge she wouldn’t say shit.
“There was a guy who came into my work once or twice, then I ran into him at the grocery store. When I ran into him at the same gaming store I played at, he asked me out. I thought why not, we obviously have a lot in common. We’d only gone out on a few dates, but I got a weird vibe from him, so I decided to move on. It wasn’t a big deal.”
She left off the part where her mom thought she was making a big mistake and encouraged her to go out with him again, when she’d found out that she was no longer going out with Thom.
“Anyway, sometime after that, he came by the store during the longest and hardest shift of my life.”
Her job wasn’t glamorous or insanely stressful as a rule, but it gave her money to pay the bills her mom couldn’t and let her indulge in her hobbies.
“These assholes were being a nuisance, tearing up the store and trying to get in my pants, and Thom showed up. He defused the situation without violence and sent the assholes packing. He apologized and helped me clean up the mess. When he didn’t push for another date, I kinda saw him in a different light, you know. Like maybe I overlooked a good guy.”
She shrugged it off, but it was that bad decision that unlocked that personality flaw in her and bad decisions became her specialty.
“Anyway, I decided he was worth another chance, so we started dating again. Things were fine at first, but he got… clingy. But in a weird way. I can’t explain it, but it was just off.”
Devin was stalling by peeling the label from her bottle. Being the patient man he was, Squatch was paying attention and listening to her, but not pushing. She looked up to see nothing but concern in his melted chocolate gaze.
Jasper raised a hand, and Scott took the hint and brought another round of drinks.
“Y’all gonna grab a room next door?” he asked, and when Squatch nodded, he set the drinks down.
He patted Devin on the shoulder before he trudged back to the bar.
It was a small place, and he’d definitely heard what they were talking about.
Scott knew where the story was heading. Hook now knew most of the story, but Scott knew it all.
“You look like you can use another. Lick.”
Squatch stuck out his hand that he’d salted. She complied and threw back the shot. When she slammed it on the table, he presented her a lime wedge.
As soon as the burn cooled, she blurted the rest out, well, some of the rest.
“After a few weeks of dating, I finally went to his place. We had sex, consensually, and then while I was sleeping, he chained me up. I felt like such an idiot. I tried like hell to get away whenever he left to no avail. That’s how I got all the cuts and bruises.
He didn’t do that. Never hit me or anything.
Just refused to let me leave. I looked like shit.
When he got back one day…” This part was going to be harder.
“He felt bad, so I played on that, and he started trusting me. He stopped chaining me all the time when he was home. Let me move around the house freely. Cook, clean, you know, regular stuff.” She left off what consisted of regular stuff.
“After a while, he left me unchained when he left, testing me. At first, he’d sneak right back to see if I was staying.
After a while he stopped sneaking right back and actually went to work I guess.
I never knew when he’d come back so I didn’t try anything.
And well, that’s how the Bastards found me. ”
There, she felt proud of herself, she’d told the truth, with only eliminating a singular, albeit important, detail. The detail that would see her back in Nebraska as soon as possible.
The detail that would probably cost her the respect of everyone she cared about.
“Devin?” Squatch said her name with a strangled quality that reeked of pity.
She dashed away the few tears she’d allowed to escape. “Don’t. Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. I wasn’t some innocent victim. It wasn’t like I was beaten and raped. It wasn’t like with Nova.”
“But you were.” His voice was barely a whisper.
“No, I wasn’t. The bruising was of my own making, pulling against the chain and running until I ran out of length.
” She slammed a shot, then two. Foregoing the lemon and salt.
“Plus,” she said with a bit more snark than intended.
“Did you miss the consensual part? So no, what I dealt with was of my own making for the most part.”
When she dared to look up into his whiskey brown eyes, they were softening in a way she couldn’t stand.
It was as if his thoughts were written there plain as day.
Maybe it was her own doubts about what had happened.
She’d questioned her own recollection and perception of events repeatedly for the first few weeks after her rescue. Was it rape by extortion and omission?
She’d had to shut that line of thinking down. It had been slowly eating away at her.
Even her therapist had made her explore it. Yeah, she started seeing one, just not one associated with the club or any of the members.
“But.”
“Jasper.” She reached across the table and took his hand in hers.
“I appreciate your fierce defense of me and the feminist energy you project through all that masculine wow that you ooze but believe it or not. I’ve already come to terms with that, for the most part.
My therapist worked with my perception of events for more hours than I care to count.
” She released his hand, needing to break the connection.
“For me, it comes down to belief. I didn’t see it that way, still don’t, therefore…” She trailed off as she uncapped a bottle of water and drained it.
Staring into his eyes, there was no change at her words. “No. I say what happened to me. Not you, not my brother, not any other Bastard who thinks he knows. You do not get to put that on—”
“Devin. Why haven’t you told your brother any of this?”
She threw up her hands at her name on his lips again.
“That, that right there.” She pointed to his eyes.
“That pity. That need to label it for me. Lucas used to look at me like I was precious and strong, now he only looks at me like a victim. I love him something fierce. So much so it hurts sometimes. If he knew… that. He’d never see me as strong again.
” She made to stand. The need to run away was pressing down on her.
Squatch caught her wrist.
“Please. You’re right, sweetness. No one gets to say what you went through but you. I’m sorry. I’m letting some past experiences color my perception and you don’t deserve that.”
She allowed him to pull her around the table to stand between his knees. Both their hands interlaced. “Thank you for sharing. It means a lot that you trust me and I won’t let you down.”
Something in his tone and his expression said he spoke of so much more than what she’d told him.
He was studying their hands.
“Go on… if you want to.”
Devin had to put up a wall there. While she’d dealt with the guilt of sleeping with a man like that by choice, she had not dealt with the guilt of leaving when she did, the way she did.
Alone.
Like a coward, she’d taken the way out offered by the Bastards in Omaha and left without a backward glance. She’d had her reasons, which she thought were valid at the time. However, as the days and weeks passed, she realized how wrong she’d been and no matter what, she would rectify the situation.
“That’s pretty much it.” All she could bring herself to share anyway. The sad smile he gave her had her adding. “I think it might be good for me to visit home and just kinda close that chapter of my life, you know?”
His eyebrows shot up at her words. Fuck, why had she told him that? The knowing look in his slightly inebriated but still far too intelligent gaze told her that last sentence would come back to bite her in the ass.
Devin couldn’t stop the self-sabotage even when she wanted to.
“Devin.”
It felt like he was staring into her soul, she had to look away.
Squatch stood. “Look at me.” Gently he gripped her chin with his thumb and forefinger, turning her back to look at him. “When you go, take me with you.”
Not if, but when. He knew. He knew she would go back. Devin was a shit liar, so instead of words, she gave a non-committal sort of nod.
“I mean it, Dev. I want to slay your demons.”
Six words that caused her breath to hitch.
Not because he was the only one willing, hell, her brother and the whole of his club were itching to do just that. Not because they wanted to, but because it was expected. They took care of family, and she was family.
Squatch said he wanted to.