Chapter 17
teddy
“Hey,” I said softly, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, needing to touch her even if it felt like she already had one foot out the door. “Look at me.”
Kelsey kept her eyes down, shoulders curling forward like she was trying to shield herself from whatever came next.
I tilted her chin up with two fingers, gentle but insistent, until her tear-filled eyes met mine. Seeing the proof that I’d managed to hurt her yet again fucking gutted me.
“C’mon. Don’t do that,” I warned, my voice rough.
“Don’t you dare shut down on me again. And don’t—” I had to swallow hard, fighting the urge to shake her until she understood.
“Don’t congratulate me like I’m a fucking acquaintance you ran into at the grocery store.
Not after everything we’ve been through this week. ”
Her jaw tightened, and she jutted her chin up at me, that stubborn streak flaring to life. “You built something good here, Teddy. The club needs—”
“Stop. Just fucking stop,” I bit out, and she shrank back at the heat in my voice, bringing her elbows in close to her body.
I released her to drag both hands through my hair, trying to find the right words.
“Yeah, I built something. And yeah, it’s good.
Got brothers I’d die for, a chapter that’s thriving.
And you know what? None of it means shit. ”
“You don’t mean that—”
“Yes, I fucking do. Spent the past one year and ten months feeling like half my goddamn heart got ripped out of my chest,” I snapped, forcing the words past the anvil lodged in my throat. “Walking around pretending I’m whole when really I’m just—I’m mailing it in. Every single day.”
She tried to step back, a familiar move I’d been on the receiving end of one too many times. But I wasn’t having it. Not this time. My hands found her hips, holding her firmly in place.
“No, you don’t. Been carrying it too fucking long, and you’re gonna let me get this out.” I searched her face before continuing. “Took over because I needed something to care about after I lost everything else that mattered. Needed a reason to get up in the morning.”
My grip tightened on her hips. “You think putting five hundred miles between us made a damn bit of difference? You think I just forgot about you because I’m in Colorado and you’re in Texas?
Baby, I wake up every goddamn morning, reaching for you before I remember you’re not there.
I cook every meal for two. At night, when I’m lying in bed, I remember how you used to press your cold ass feet against my legs to warm them up. ”
“Please,” she whispered, her palms pushing weakly at my chest.
“Please what?” I released her hip to cup her cheek, needing her to understand. “Please stop telling you the truth? Please let you walk away again without a fight? Not fucking happening, baby. Not this time.”
“But it hurts too much,” she choked out. “Hearing this, knowing it doesn’t change anything—”
“It changes everything.” I dropped my forehead to hers. “You think I decorated that rental cabin for the girls, baby? Did it because it made me feel close to you. Made me remember what it was like when we were happy.”
She hiccupped through another ragged breath, her hands coming up to grip my biceps, squeezing me tightly.
“Those ornaments we put on that tree over there—” I gestured toward the living room.
“They’re us, Kels. Every Girl Scout ornament Addie made, all the glittery ones Sky brought home from school, even that weird one Levi made with Santa riding a tornado—they remind me of all the Christmases we spent together.
Of you corralling the kids while I tried to get the lights on the house.
Of staying up till two in the morning, putting together bikes and dollhouses.
They’re a reminder that we were good once.
That we had something worth fighting for. ”
“We were good,” she agreed, tears flowing freely now. “But that doesn’t mean—”
“These past few days,” I interrupted, needing her to hear what I was about to say. “Being here with you, waking up next to you, watching movies and baking cookies and doing all the normal shit we used to do—it’s the most alive I’ve felt since I signed those fucking papers.”
I pulled back just enough to look her in the eye, making sure she could see every bit of truth written across my face.
“So I’m gonna ask you again, and I need you to be honest with me, darlin’.” I gripped her face in my hands, drying her tears with my thumbs. “Do you feel it too? Or am I standing here bleeding all over your feet for nothing?”
Because everything I was, everything I’d built, everything I’d become—none of it meant a goddamn thing if she didn’t feel it too.
Outside, the morning sun climbed higher into the sky, but all I could see was her—the woman I’d loved since I was seventeen, the mother of my children, the only person who’d ever made me want to be better than I was.
“Of course I do,” she blurted, and for a second, hope flared so bright in my chest it hurt. Then she kept talking. “But it doesn’t change anything, Teddy. I live in Texas. You live here. You have a whole chapter depending on you, and I’d—I’d ruin it.”
Ruin it.
I recoiled at the statement, taking a step back to process. Like she was one of the natural disasters our son had always been so fascinated by, and not the only thing that had ever made any of it worthwhile. Something must have shown on my face because she immediately tried to soften it.
“You know what I mean. You have responsibilities—”
“No,” I said, moving back into her space before she could blink. My hands found the counter on either side of her hips, caging her against the island. “Fuck my responsibilities.”
“But you’ve worked so hard for…” she trailed off, and I leaned in close enough that she had to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact.
“For what?” I demanded. “A title? So I could prove to my old man I’m as good a leader as he was? Told you, none of it means shit without you, Kels.”
She opened her mouth, probably to argue, to tell me I was being irrational or making decisions based on emotion instead of logic. All the reasonable things that made perfect sense on paper but crumbled to dust when held up against the reality of how much I needed her.
I didn’t give her the chance.
“Remember the first time I saw you?” I asked, my voice dropping lower.
“You were fifteen, walking down the hallway at school with your friend—what was her name? Doesn’t matter.
Point is, I couldn’t take my eyes off you.
You were wearing a dress—yellow with white flowers—laughing at something, and I swear to God, Kels, it was like everything else just fell away.
“Took me three weeks to work up the balls to talk to you. Three weeks of finding excuses to walk past your locker, to sit where I could see you in the cafeteria. My boys gave me so much shit about it. Big bad biker’s son, tongue-tied over some sophomore.”
A small, watery smile tugged at her lips. “You asked me if I knew where the library was when you were standing right in front of it. Idiot.”
“Yeah, well.” I huffed out a laugh. “Cut me some slack. You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen… my brain stopped working.”
I traced the line of her jaw with my thumb before continuing, “Remember when you asked me to the homecoming dance. Just marched right up to me in the parking lot, all five-foot-nothing of you. I fucking hated school dances. Hated the music, the crowded gym, the teachers watching everyone like hawks. But you wanted to go, so I showed up, in a suit and everything.”
“Your dad’s suit,” she said, the smile widening. “It was too big in the shoulders.”
“Wasn’t exactly focused on fashion.” I shifted closer, my hips pressing against hers. “I was too busy trying not to stare at you in that dress. Teal, with thin straps that kept sliding down your shoulders. Every time I’d fix one, you’d smile at me, and I damn near forgot my own name.”
I could still see the mum I’d bought her—some black and gold monstrosity that had cost me a week’s pay from my part-time job working in Phantom’s garage.
“We left early,” I continued, my voice taking on a wistful tone. “Planned on driving you home, but what’d you say?”
Pink bloomed across her cheeks, but she held my gaze. “I said I didn’t want to wait anymore.”
“Said you didn’t want to wait anymore,” I repeated. “And I tried to be responsible, tried to tell you we should slow down, that you deserved better than the inside of my Bronco next to an old oil well for your first time.”
“I didn’t want better. I just wanted my first time to be with you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
My lips curved into a smile at the memory.
“Only you didn’t know it was my first time, too.
I was so fucking terrified of doing it wrong, of hurting you.
But you just kept touching me, kept pulling me closer, and when it was over—” I had to stop, clear my throat.
“When it was over, you curled into my side and told me you loved me. First person who ever said that to me who wasn’t blood. ”
Kelsey blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the tears building in her eyes.
“Knew right then,” I said fiercely. “Seventeen years old, and I knew you were it for me. The only woman I’d ever want. Had two dreams back then, Kels. To marry you and run a chapter like my old man. That’s it. That’s all I wanted.”
“And you got both,” she whispered, her chest heaving with a sob.
“Yeah, I did. For a while, anyway.” I pulled back to look at her. “You know how I earned my three-piece?”
Her brows scrunched together. “Your dad sponsored you?”
“Not what I’m asking, baby.” I rubbed at the back of my neck. “I’m asking if you know what I did to earn it. What I had to do to prove I was worthy of wearing the colors.”
Understanding dawned on her face, closely followed by a flash of fear. “In by blood, out by blood,” she said, softly reciting the club mantra.