He wanted her to sleep on it.
But for her, sleep became impossible to find.
Chapter Nineteen
Trip used his key to get into the rear door of Crazy Pete’s. He locked it behind him, took long, fuck-this-shit strides down the short, dark hallway, slammed the swinging door to the store room with both palms, making it crash into the wall behind it. He was through it and at the bottom of the stairway before it violently swung the other direction with a loud whoosh.
He took the stairs two at a time, the muscles in his jaw so tight, they were popping.
The second he woke up. The second he rolled over. The goddamn second he noticed the bed was empty.
The second he knew somehow her piece of shit Jeep traveling down the rough lane hadn’t woken him up.
That very fucking second he knew he’d lost her.
He had pushed the kid thing before he should have. But he’d needed to know. He needed to know where she stood on it.
He should have let it lie. He didn’t and now he was going to pay for his impatience.
He should have waited until after the meeting, until after the vote on making Stella his ol’ lady. Until after she was permanently moved into his house.
Until she was a solid part of his life. Of their life.
Then he could have gradually worked on her. Showed her life could be good again. Life could be complete.
Showed her that he’d have plenty to offer her and their kids, if they had them.
Once she saw the businesses, both the bar and the motel, as well as the repo business, were successful, so that she and their kids would want for nothing.
Once he proved his fucking loyalty to her.
Once the club was crawling with sweet butts and female hang-arounds and she’d see he only had eyes for her.
But fuck no.
He had fucked up.
And now he had to pay.
Those steps they’d taken forward in the last month? He’d undone it all in a matter of minutes and now he’d stumbled twice as many steps backward.
She had scars.
Not just the one on her scalp he’d given her.
Not just the one on her belly her pregnancy had caused.
But the loss of her son had scarred her deeply. And irrevocably.
So deeply, Trip didn’t know how to handle such pain. Because no matter how much he tried to imagine that pain, he knew he couldn’t.
He wanted to hand her the fucking world. Even if it was their own small world. But instead he had handed her some hurt.
He didn’t mean to. But he wasn’t sure how to deal with it.
Because as much as she hurt, she also needed to live her life. He needed to live his. And he was trying to build their world together.
However, her fucking sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, or the early morning, while he was zonked out, pissed him the fuck off.
That was not how they were going to deal with shit.
Not by running away.
Not by hiding.
Not by curling into a ball in the corner.
Or putting their arms over their heads, hoping it all went away.
Because it wouldn’t. It simply wouldn’t go away.
It was something they needed to deal with head on.
At the top of the steps, he paused at the door and pressed his forehead to it, his breath beating violently against the wood. After a moment, he closed his eyes, sucked in a deep breath, held it as his pulse pounded in his ears, and counted to five. While he did so, memories assaulted him.
One.
Him so pissed and shoving Stella so hard she split her head open on a wall. But it was the look in her eyes after it happened... The surprise. The betrayal. The disappointment. Fuck.
Two.
Buck and Pete kicking his ass so badly, he couldn’t walk for a couple days. He didn’t beg them to stop because of that look she gave him... He knew he deserved what they did to him.
Three.
His father splayed on his stomach naked on the bed, bleeding out from being shot point-blank in the back. He had broken everyone’s trust. And trust was huge in a brotherhood.
Four.
His mother quickly packing their bags and taking off in the middle of the night, not only leaving his best friend behind but also everything and everyone he’d ever known.
Five.
Finding out too late his best friend was actually his brother. When he finally tried to get a hold of Sig, he was gone.
Trip slowly released his held breath, his boiling blood now at a simmer.
It wasn’t their choice to scatter. They all were forced into it.
All Trip wanted to do was take the broken pieces of the club and make it whole again. To repair what had been shattered.
It had been his burning desire. To have something that was his.
To build something worthwhile.