Smokey (Hell's Bastards MC 2)

“I fucked up, Ava. I know this.”

“And what about next time? Say I accept that you’re sorry. We move on. We go back to fucking each other again. I can be around the club. What happens the next time someone uses me to make you lose your shit? What do I do then? Go through this or should I wait until Ugly Beast or another of the club thinks I’m innocent?” she asked. “I can’t live like that.”

“It won’t ever happen again.”

“That’s the point, Smokey. Again. It shouldn’t have happened the first time. Please, go home and leave me the hell alone.” She turned on her heel and walked inside the house, closing the door.

He heard the locks as she put them all into place.

Smokey didn’t go home.

He stayed right where he was, staring up at her house. The light in her bedroom window went out after a couple of hours.

Smokey tensed up when he heard the sounds of another bike making its way toward him. He reached into his jacket for his gun, but recognized the rider and the bike as it drew closer.

Ugly Beast parked his bike and came toward him, offering him a flask. “I can’t guarantee it’s good, but Abriana put a lot of love into it.”

“There’s no way we can complain when it comes to feeling. Your wife has a whole lot of it.”

They both laughed as he opened the flask.

“Soup?”

“I think so. It didn’t taste too bad, but that was when I ate it a few hours ago.”

Smokey poured some soup into the cup provided. It didn’t smell awful but when it came to Abriana’s food, scents and looks could be deceiving. It didn’t make his mouth water. He took a taste, and there was a weird twang in the background that he was almost afraid to ask about.

“I think it’s easier if you just drink it without trying to compare it to anything else you’ve ever tasted.”

He laughed and took another sip.

“Abriana’s rooting for you,” Ugly Beast said.

“Why?”

“She wants you to win her back. She thinks you have a real shot.”

Smokey snorted. “I can’t even get too close.” The last real time he’d touched her was at the fair, and that hadn’t been a lot of touching. He missed her. Not just for the sex, he missed her, the woman.

“Do you have any kind of plan?” Ugly Beast asked.

“Did you?”

“Nope. I just wanted to love her, and she gave me that chance. There’s nothing else any of us can do after that. Abriana’s not like Ava, though. I did hurt her quite badly.”

Ugly Beast had said some awful things to Abriana while he’d had the women hurt her.

“Saying stuff and getting others to do your dirty work is a different thing altogether,” he said. “Ava’s never going to forgive me.”

“Never is a long time.”

“Would you forgive someone who signed off on you being beaten? I seem to recall the people who fucked up your face are all dead.”

“Are you trying to tell me, Smokey, you’d die for Ava?” Ugly Beast asked.

“Yes. I would.”

Silence rang out. The only person he’d been willing to die for was the club, and that included all of his brothers. His devotion had been to the patch. No one else.

“Then you can’t give up.”

Smokey turned toward Ugly Beast. “You don’t think I’m a pussy?”

“No. You sound pussy-whipped, but you forget, I know what it truly means to be loved by an amazing woman. There’s nothing like it.”

Smokey took another sip of the soup and wrinkled his nose. “This is fucking disgusting.”

“Yep, but to Abriana, it’s better than the last one. I struggled through the other soup, and believe me, I never knew there was much I couldn’t stand. I think the next time we torture someone, I’ll save all of Abriana’s leftovers.”

“We’ll feed them to death?”

“Nope. They’ll talk before we get to that part.”

Smokey snorted. He finished all the soup because he was hungry.

“Staring at her window all night isn’t going to win her back,” Ugly Beast said.

“No, but it gives me comfort to know she can sleep all night. No one else is going to hurt her.”

Silence fell between them.

Smokey handed him the empty flask. “Thanks.”

“Why did you do it?” Ugly Beast asked.

“Do what?”

“You saw the pictures. I know you, Smokey. You don’t react like that. You never have. You always consider every single possibility, and yet, you didn’t that time. Why?”

Smokey ran his fingers through his hair. “I was falling for her. I knew it. Feelings like that cloud people’s judgment. She was different from the start. I knew that. I saw it every single day. She told me she loved me, and I felt like a fucking king. They were all feelings I didn’t recognize. The fact … it was easier to believe the worst in her.” He turned to look at him. “I’ve only ever known the worst.”