Haunt (Bayonet Scars #6) (5 page)

I groan and turn my attention to Ryan, who’s grinning from ear to ear.

Three, two, one . . .

“Going out in diapers too, eh, old man?”

For the first time in almost a year, Pop smiles. It’s not a smirk. It’s not forced. He’s just . . . smiling. His brows are relaxed, his cheeks are high and pushing up on his eyes, and his chest shakes with laughter. He shakes his head. Not since Pop came to me before Church and told me he was putting in that marker has he looked this chill. Not only was that conversation close to his heart, but everything that followed it was a goddamn consequence of our choice to head out to New York. I don’t regret it. I
can’t
regret it. Alex was just some girl who got caught up in shit she couldn’t handle when I promised Pop I had his back regardless of what the club voted. She’s not much older than the kid I almost had, but she’s tough, and she’s growing into one hell of a woman. Chief wouldn’t want us to regret the shit that went down, even though we lost him in the process.

“I’d like to blame your mother for that mouth of yours, but I’m afraid you’re all me,” Pop says.

“Well, half you and half some hooker you knocked up,” Ryan says dryly. He never talks about his birth mother, so nobody really knows what to say. Pop only ever refers to Ruby as his mother, even if she didn’t give birth to him. Thank fuck, too, because the whole Ryan and Alex thing would be more twisted than it already is.

“He’s your problem now.” Pop’s got his eyes on me. He slaps the back of the chair and walks around the table to Chief’s empty seat at the other end. He stares at it for a long moment before pulling it out and sitting down. We’re silent as he gets comfortable. Nobody’s sat in that chair since Chief.

When the moment passes, everyone’s eyes drift to me. I stare at them for a long time before realizing that they expect me to take the head of the table.

“What? I can’t even get drunk first? You fucking assholes.” Moving from the VP’s chair to the vacant seat to my left takes more effort than I could ever imagine. It’s the second most difficult thing I’ve ever done.

The most difficult thing I ever fucking did was walking away from the only person I was living for.

The rest of Church is terrible. It doesn’t even suck. It’s not like the time Grady and Trigger pulled a piece on each other. It’s not like when Chief died. I have no idea what I’m doing here. I fumble through procedure, trying to lead my brothers—my men—through voting in new officer positions and deciding if Squat is ready to be patched. I’m not a small dude, but I feel like I’m about a foot tall through this fucking meeting. Pop refuses to take any other officer position, saying he just wants to ride until he can’t anymore, and after every single person in the room hassles him, we finally move on. I suggest Grady for VP and nobody objects.

To everyone’s surprise, Grady raps his knuckles against the wooden table and says, “I want Trigger for sarge.”

“You yankin’ my dick?” Ryan’s eyes are narrowed and his brows are pulled together.

“You’re a shithead, you got a loud mouth, and you’re disrespectful. You need to chill your temper, and there’s no better way to do it than to be responsible for the discipline of your brothers. Time to grow up, son.”

It’s a bold move, but after a few comments from the brothers, they vote in favor of the nomination. Diesel takes over as road captain, and then we move on to discussing whether or not Squat deserves his top rocker. Bear, Torque, and Grady are hesitant. Torque doesn’t really know the guy, and Bear and Grady think he needs more time with the club.

“Every man at this table has a history that brought him here. For Rob, that was Aaron. Aaron died trying to keep our women safe. His death still fucks with Mindy. They got close before he died, and she’s made friends with Rob now. He’s hurting, but he shows up every day, does his part, and doesn’t bitch. I don’t doubt his heart,” Ian says.

“So, take another vote,” Torque says.

We do, and this time, everybody votes in favor of patching the little fuck in.

“I’ll get his top rocker, Pres,” Pop says from the other end of the table.

“Asshole,” I say and shake my head. He just
had
to call me that. “Somebody get Squat in here. I want this meeting over with as soon as fucking possible.”

CHAPTER 3

“This party is shit,” Duke says. He tips his head back and looks over his shoulder at his old lady who’s breastfeeding their baby across the room. Not gonna lie—Nic’s tits have gotten real nice since she had Robin. Not that I’ve been looking since Duke caught me eyeing ’em a few weeks back. There’s a lot of shit brothers don’t care about, but respecting their old ladies is mandatory.

“You’re the one who’s turning this place into Chuck-E-Cheese,” Grady grumbles with a sideways glance at Duke.

“I’m just saying. We didn’t plan anything.”

Neither Grady nor I make a move to get up. The clubhouse isn’t dead, but it’s not hopping either. It’s a weird night, and nobody knew Jim was going to ditch the gavel today, so we weren’t prepared for anything.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say and finish off the beer in my hand. “We’ll have Ruby get something together.”

“Except she’s not the pres’s old lady anymore.” Grady shoots me a taunting grin. I do my best to ignore him. I know what he’s getting at, and I have no interest in going down this road with him.

“And on that note, I’m gonna go find some pussy.”

Standing from the table and surveying the room, I spot two lost girls behind the bar. One is bare at least from the waist up, and the other has just a bra on. They’re quietly talking to one another while wiping down the bar top. With the snap of my fingers, I have their attention, and with the crook of my finger, I have the new girl coming toward me. I haven’t had her yet—don’t even know her name—but she’s here and she’s willing, so she’ll do. Anything to get Amber out of my head.

Grady is a real fucker for bringing her up. It’s not like I can go more than a few hours without thinking about her as it is. I’m on autopilot as I grab a hold of the bitch in front of me and take her mouth. I can’t really feel her touch even though she’s trying to get her hands on every inch of my skin that she can. My body is here in the clubhouse, but my heart and mind are back in Michigan in a grassy field watching a girl give a mean old man the dirtiest look I’ve ever seen.

Amber Wallace isn’t the love of my life.

She’s not the one who got away.

She’s not my old lady.

She’s my everything, and if I weren’t so used to admitting that to myself, I’d feel like the biggest fucking pussy.

I keep my eyes mostly closed as I devour this bitch’s mouth and palm at her ass. My gut twists the closer we get to my room. It’s like a lead balloon that’s getting bigger with every step. The woman in my arms is soft to the touch but not nearly soft enough. It’s not the skin I miss getting lost in. Her curves are all wrong, and her hair is too straight. Nothing about her feels right, and even though I know I’ll be hard enough to pound her pussy once we’re naked, I’m not going to enjoy it the way a man should enjoy getting his dick wet.

Regret is a powerful emotion, and it doesn’t get any easier with the passing of time. If anything, it just gets worse. Days go by, and you don’t chase after her. Then weeks. Months. And finally years go by, and no matter how much you want to drop to your knees and rip your own fucking heart out of your chest for breaking the strongest woman you’ve ever met—you don’t. Because some mistakes can’t be fixed, and there’s no going back.

Not everybody gets a happy ending, and I’ve had to learn to live with that. Even seeing half my brothers get hooked up with old ladies isn’t enough to make me seek out mine. I’ve been down that road more than a time or two, and it always ends with me in a two-week detox. It was fucked enough when I was VP, but as president, I can’t be going off the fucking rails for some pussy that rode somebody else’s dick and walked out on me over a decade ago.

I’ve got the chick pressed up against the door to my room when the lead balloon in my stomach feels like it explodes. Amber isn’t some pussy, and I’ve never believed she cheated on me. I just don’t know how to make any of it any better. I can’t make it hurt less. I can’t make myself forget her. I’m rendered totally inept when it comes to moving on from Amber Wallace.

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

I hear the bitch I’m mauling speak, but I ignore her. There’s nothing wrong except for the fact that she’s not my old lady. She’s not the woman I’d spent four successful hours not thinking about before Grady brought her up. She’s not the woman who once told me I’d make a great president. She’s not my fucking body and soul, so I ignore her because she’s nothing more than a warm wet hole I can drown in for a little while to numb my self-loathing.

My hand wraps around the door knob, but I stop. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes I just don’t feel like having sex. With one hand, the nameless whore grabs at my dick, and the easy fuck jumps right up. Well, there goes the whole being good thing. Her other hand covers mine on the doorknob and we tumble into the room. She giggles, and if I didn’t already feel like an old-ass pervy fuck, I sure do now, and then she turns on the light. I’ve barely adjusted to the light in the room when a throat clears from the other end.

My heart stops immediately.

My lungs won’t work.

“Oh shit.” The words leave my mouth before I even realize I’ve said anything. I’m still processing what I’m seeing.

Amber Wallace.

My old lady.

My entire fucking world is in our bed. An angry scowl drags her brows together and has her mouth pinched up in the corner. Her reddish-brown hair is up in a messy bun that’s half fallen off her head, and her green eyes are trained on me like I’m something disgusting she stepped in. I don’t deserve that look, and it pisses me off. I don’t deserve the goddamn gift of having her here—even if she is pissed—and I sure as fuck don’t deserve to have her anger. I threw all that shit away a long time ago.

In a matter of moments, the last twenty years of my life flash before me. Everything from my bullshit teenage angst to the first time we kissed to the last time I had her naked and writhing underneath me. I work to fight the instinct to rush to her, claim her, and never let her go. I can’t go down this road again. I’m not Fort Bragg’s number two. I’m their president, and that means I have to keep my shit straight no matter how much I want to spend the next two weeks repenting for my sins, both of us naked and greedy for one another.

Amber’s arms are pulled up above her head, locked around the metal headboard with a pair of cuffs. She wiggles her wrists and grins at me, never breaking eye contact. She says, “Honey, I’m home,” like she means it. But I know her better than to assume she’s really back. Not that it matters, because she never really left me. She’s always been here—in my heart—right where the crazy bitch belongs.

CHAPTER 4

Wyatt’s eyes harden in an unfamiliar way, and he tilts his head to the door as he says, “Out, bitch.” His eyes don’t leave mine, but I know he’s not speaking to me. Not that it would matter if he was, since my ass is handcuffed to this fucking bed. The stupid bitch doesn’t leave. My hating on her has nothing to do with her. It’s purely about the man before me—the man staring at me with such indifference that I feel even less significant than I did back in the day when he was screwing anything with tits.

“Maybe you’re hard of hearing, but my man told you to get the fuck out.” I bark the words at her but don’t take my eyes off of Wyatt. His eyes widen but just barely, and if I hadn’t spent so many hours over the years just looking into those beautiful eyes, I wouldn’t notice it. Before I let myself absorb the change in his behavior, I turn my attention to the woman at his side. She looks so angry that I think she’s going to charge at me. Her nostrils flare, her eyes bug out, and she’s breathing heavy. She thought she was going to spend the night with the VP but is getting her ass kicked to the curb.

“And who the hell are you?” she snaps.

A slow, steady warmth fills me as my lips curl up into a smile and I say, “I’m his old lady.”

When Wyatt doesn’t correct me, her shoulders slump and she slinks out of the room. She’s barely cleared the doorway when he slams the door shut and locks it. He’s acting strange, and I don’t understand it.

We stopped being us before Zander was born, but we’ve seen each other a handful of times since then. Each time begins and ends the same way—with my man walking toward me and scooping me up in his arms. He takes my mouth and palms my ass and tells the entire world that his old lady is home. And then he drinks a bottle of whiskey, fucks me until I pass out, and when I wake up, he’s higher than a kite. He doesn’t talk to me until he’s good and wasted and can’t remember anything. He always asks about Baby Z and I always tell him about our son and with tears in my eyes I tell him I want him to know our boy. And then he does a couple of lines, downs more booze, and promises me that we’re going to be a family.

And it’s over when we start fighting because he starts making unreasonable demands that don’t make any sense. And no matter how much I want my son to have his father, Wyatt ends up detoxing out of town in a cabin somewhere, and I always hope he’s going to reach out once he’s clean and sober, but he never does.