Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 127390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
He surprised me when he moved to sit on the lounger next to me, taking the bottle from beside me, taking a hearty swig without flinching. An impressive feat since it was warm, cheap vodka at... I didn’t know the exact time, but it was still morning.
“Is Ranger too mad at me to come and get me himself?” I asked. “Does he hate me?” The last part was said in a small, vulnerable, terrified voice. That pissed me off. People were already going to treat me different now. Smaller. More breakable. I didn’t have to sound that way too.
He had every right to hate me. What I’d done was unforgivable. Abandoning him and our son in a time when they needed me most.
“Sweetheart, no one on this earth and no one wearing this cut has the capacity to hate you,” he replied. “Most especially your husband. You know that.”
I stared at the dirt in the pool. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
“You do. You just can’t see anything through the pain you’re going through,” Gage countered.
“What do you know about it?” I snapped, suddenly furious at his presence, his kindness.
Neither of us spoke, a vodka-infused silence lingering for a long time. “I had a kid.” he finally said, his voice the softest I’d ever heard it. “A daughter. I lost her. It was a pain unlike anything I can explain. I wanted to rip off my skin just so I wouldn’t have to feel the pain of her loss slowly killin’ me. So I know about the pain.”
His words, the loss etched into his voice, carved a hole in my chest.
I turned my head, Gage was staring at the pool, clutching the vodka bottle. His arms were covered in scars, ones that I’d always wondered about but never questioned. No one had. He’d had the misfortune to wear the scars of his past on his arms, like his insides had run out of room. I’d always known it must’ve been bad, his past, but I never imagined it could be something like this. Because I couldn’t fathom the idea of walking, breathing, having a heartbeat if I lost Jack.
I was doing all of those things now, though, even though I’d lost a baby who didn’t have a name.
I didn’t say I was sorry, though twenty-four hours ago I would’ve. Would’ve told him I was sorry for his loss and tried to hug him, given him some kind of support. I would’ve been deluded enough into thinking that there was a point in doing such things. Like they would make any kind of difference.
“That’s why you patched in?” I asked. “Because you were hoping the club might kill you?”
He shrugged. “Wouldn’t have been mad if it did. But no, wasn’t exactly looking to die. Just looking to hurt in a different way. Ranger is the reason I found the club. He was going through his own kind of pain, somehow convinced me to come back here with him. To the club. I went because I had nowhere else to go. He went because it was the only place for him to go. To be with you.” He took a swig. “You took him back when he came back because that’s who you are. Knew that he needed to be gone. He knows you need to be gone now too.”
“And he just let you come to retrieve me?” I asked.
Gage grinned. Or at least his version of a grin, a slight twitch of his mouth. “Oh, fuck no. He doesn’t know you’re here.”
I stared at Gage. “You didn’t tell him?”
“Figured you were gone for a reason. That you needed to be away for a reason. Shit you went through isn’t simple. You need time to sit at a crappy motel in the middle of nowhere and drink crappy vodka, that’s fine. Won’t force you to say shit. Just gonna sit here and make sure no opportunistic asshole tries to hurt you while you’re going through this.”
And he did exactly that.
He sat beside me for six hours, leaving only to get water and a greasy hamburger that he forced me to eat. Eventually, the bottle was empty, and I was ready to go home.
Ranger was waiting for me.
With no hatred. No judgement. Only love.
It was enough to get me through it all.
Not unscathed, of course. We were both scarred now. Our marriage too. Things would be hard. I’d be distant for months, and Ranger would be frustrated that I wouldn’t talk, that he couldn’t help, that he didn’t know how to handle his own pain.
But we survived.
Chapter 6
“Evie, to what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked, jostling Jack on my hip. He immediately reached for the leather clad woman who smelled of cigarettes and expensive perfume.
She took the baby from me before pushing the sunglasses on her head. “You got vodka?”