West (The Henchmen MC 19)

"Then why are you here, not West?"

"Well, I have to take your puppy for a walk. She really shouldn't have lasted the night. She must have been exhausted not to get up to pee." He hooked the leash on her pink collar, lifting her off of my lap. "Yes, hello, sweetness. I am glad to see you too," he cooed at her as she lapped at his face.

"Remy..." I called as he turned to go to the door. "Remy!" I yelled louder as he quickly ducked out of the door and away.

If Remy was too chickenshit to tell me the truth, I was really in trouble.

"Teddy!" I called, slowly getting off the bed, feeling a little more sore than I anticipated. My body was catching up with the impact of falling out of that tree.

"Gus."

That was Huck's voice.

Solemn.

My head turned to find him leaning in my doorway, frowning down at me as I dropped back down on the side of the bed.

"Okay. What is going on? I know it can't be good if Remy can't even tell me."

"Alright, Gus," he said, moving inside, closing the door, dropping down on the bed beside me. "I'm just going to tell you. West is gone."

"Gone where?"

"He left, Gus."

"What? No," I said, shaking my head.

No.

That wasn't possible.

Just the night before, he'd been promising me a back massage and some pain-killing orgasms. Then we were going to watch a horror movie and eat Chinese food.

He wouldn't have told me all that if he was going to leave.

He might have been kind of carefree and flippant, but he was honest. He kept his word.

"Yeah. I'm sorry, but yes. He left. His boss told him to head home."

"Reign."

"Yeah. Reign is on his way down here with a bunch of his men to help us, but he wanted West home to help out there."

"Oh, he did, did he?" I asked, jaw getting tight.

"You can't be mad at him for delivering an order."

"Oh, I can," I countered.

"I think your anger should be directed at West."

"Oh, I have room enough for anger at both of them," I assured him, moving to stand, finding too much pent-up energy surging through my body, making my skin feel electric, my insides feel fluttery.

"Gus, you had to have considered this day coming. He lives somewhere else."

I'd considered it. Of course I had. But as an abstract 'someday in the future' thing. Weeks, months even. After the club was fully established. Hell, the guys didn't even have cuts yet! They hadn't taken out their enemies. West's job wasn't done. It made no sense for him to leave yet.

So I had put off the idea in my head, choosing instead to enjoy the moment instead of ruining it with the future.

It was like putting life on hold because you were going to die someday.

It spoiled the joy of the moment.

And, well, I had always been more of a 'the moment' person rather than a 'the future' one.

I knew the day would come, but I chose to hope it was a while in the future.

Naive? Maybe.

"Maybe he was always going to leave. But he could have not been such a chickenshit about it. Who doesn't say goodbye? Assholes, that's who."

I paced the room, anger getting bigger and bigger until it felt like it was going to knock down the walls, burst out the window.

"Alright., I see you are working yourself into an epic fit," Huck said, moving to stand, making his way to the door.

"I'm not ten anymore. I don't have fits," I snapped, rolling my eyes at him.

"Yeah, sure, kid, keep telling yourself that," he said, closing the door.The anger kept the sad at bay until much later that evening, when it was time to get back in the bed, to smell him on the sheets, to ache for the way his hands would move over me. Even in non-sexy moments. Just touch. Just connection.

The grief came in a tidal wave, pulling me under, tumbling me around, getting me caught in the undertow.

I was not someone who cried easily.

I didn't tend to get attached enough to transitory people to feel deeply enough to cry. And the people I did love deeply were constants in my life. So they wouldn't hurt me. They wouldn't make me cry.

"I'll drive up there," McCoy's voice broke through a particularly pathetic sniffle. "I will drive my ass up there, and put a hole through that thing he calls a heart. Just say the word."

Pushing myself up in bed, I didn't bother to try to dry my cheeks or pretend I wasn't losing my shit a little bit. The nice thing about old friendships was there were no masks, no fronts to put up anymore. They knew your good and your bad, your beautiful, and your positively hideous.

So McCoy could handle my hideous right then.