How About No (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 3)

“Kourt.”

All the breath was ripped out of my chest.

“Kourt?” I croaked, stunned.

Wade nodded, calmly going around a slower moving car. “Kourt.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it.

“W-when?” I stuttered.

“The day I was shot,” he answered simply. “I would’ve come after you then, but I was kind of, sort of, maybe too weak to do it. Plus, I had some anger to work through. I wanted to be able to come to you, to talk to you, without wanting to wring your damn neck.”

I looked down at my hands and clenched them, then leaned forward and started to sift through the bag of food.

There was nothing else to eat but a couple of protein bars that Wade had bought, and there was no way in hell I was touching those.

They were disgusting.

I’d tried them once when I was hungry, and had tasted the disgusting things in my mouth for a half a day afterward.

“You don’t have to be mad at your friend, baby,” he said to me. “He was only looking out for you.”

I knew that.

That didn’t make my heart feel better, though.

My best friend had shared my dirty little secrets, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I felt utterly betrayed.

“I’ll never marry you again,” I whispered.

He patted my hand. “As long as I have you, I don’t care if we’re married.” He paused. “But, just sayin’, I’m not going to settle for anything less than everything from you. One day, I’ll convince you.”

The fact that he sounded so sure of himself made me want to punch him.

But I didn’t say a word. Not for the next two hours. Not after my final parting comment.

“You know how badly you wanted to take my ass and I never let you?” I whispered furiously. “Well, this is also something that you’re not going to get.”Chapter 8It’s not about how many times you fall. It’s how many times you get back up.

-Wade listening to a DWI suspect

Wade

“Do you want me to stop?” I asked Landry.

She shook her head.

The last two hours had been filled with enough silence that it would’ve bothered another man.

It didn’t bother me.

When Landry was pissed, and she knew she was right, she’d talk until she was blue in the face.

But, over the last couple of hours, she’d had absolutely nothing to say to refute my earlier words. Words that I’d meant every single one of.

I didn’t care if we were divorced.

I didn’t care if she thought that our being together was a lost cause.

I was going to make us work, even if I had to do all the work myself.

I’d failed her by not listening to her, not trying to figure out why she hadn’t wanted to donate her bone marrow. I had pressured her to the point that she felt like she had no other choice than to leave me. I wouldn’t fail her again.

I’d fight until there was nothing left of me.

“Well then, I guess we’ll head straight to the lawyer’s office. Sound good to you?” I asked.

Landry sighed. “Sure.”

Lips twitching, I passed all of the restaurants in town and headed downtown straight to the lawyer’s office that we used—I had no clue why we didn’t use one closer, but I hadn’t known any lawyers except for the one my dad had used.

Since we had no children and I gave her everything, Landry had drawn up divorce papers online. I’d gone along with her. We had the final decrees sent to my uncle Jimmy, also my dad’s lawyer after it was drawn up.

I had never used a lawyer for anything but that divorce in my whole life. Now I was regretting that because I should’ve found someone closer. Certainly closer than four hours.

And I wished that I had never had to use a lawyer at all. There was that.

Arriving downtown, I sighed when I didn’t see any parking spaces that were big enough.

“You’re going to have to park in BFE,” she murmured.

Bum-fuck-Egypt.

I rolled my eyes and did just that, not caring in the least until I got out of the truck and realized that I was going to have to walk three blocks to get where I needed to go.

She saw my hesitation as I rounded her side of the truck and opened her door for her.

“Do you want me to drop you off?” she offered.

I snorted and held out my hand, which she took.

The feel of her tiny, soft hand in my big, rough one made my heart hammer.

Something so small shouldn’t make such a big hole in my heart, should it?

But it did.

There was so much I missed.

Holding her hand. Brushing the hair back off her face. Pulling her body in tight to mine. Pressing myself up against her ass as she bent over the sink to brush her teeth. The way she used to leave her long hair on the shower glass.