“No,” I said, the force in my tone causing her eyes to widen. “You’re staying right the fuck here so we can discuss this more when I get back.”

When she didn’t respond to that, I said, “I’m not done, Birdie.”

She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Why? You should be. What I did was unforgivable.”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” My anger roared to life. “That you even have to ask me why I’m not done… that fucking kills me.” I jabbed my finger at her. “Don’t fucking go anywhere while I’m gone. I swear to fucking God I’ll come for you if you do, and it won’t be pretty if I have to.”

I stalked out of the room without waiting for her response. Far too fucking many emotions crowded me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Like I needed to rip my skin off and let these emotions the fuck out. But more than anything, for the first time in my life, I needed to be as far from Birdie as I could get.

20

WINTER

Focusing on the words coming out of Max’s mouth was near impossible. Birdie’s confession made sure of that. I’d spent the last twenty minutes trying like fuck to listen to him and put her out of my mind, but that was never going to happen. At the best of times, Birdie was hard to shift from my thoughts; at the worst of times, thoughts of her were unrelenting.

“Have you heard a word I’ve said, Matt?” Max asked, his biting tone forcing my attention to him. “Or have I just wasted all this time sitting here sharing my shit with you?”

I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Fuck, sorry.”

His eyes narrowed at me. “What’s going on with you? Something’s off.”

I nodded and exhaled a long breath. “Yeah, Birdie and I have some stuff to deal with, but we’re not here to discuss that. You and I need to—”

He drank the last of his coffee and pushed his mug away. “Maybe you need to go deal with that so you’ve got a clear head for this.” His voice was hard. Harder than I’d ever heard from him.

“Let’s just keep focused on the will.”

“Let’s fucking not.”

If it had been any day other than today—the day Birdie had thrown a grenade into the middle of our relationship—I would have cheered Max’s anger on. I would have encouraged it because of what it signified. But today, my own inner turmoil got in the way of that, and I responded to his anger with my own.

“What the fuck?” I demanded. “Why the fuck are you coming at me? I’m not the one causing you grief, brother.”

“Yeah, you are. You’ve stirred everything up between Mel and me—”

“Shit that needed to be stirred, Max.”

“Not this fucking week it didn’t.” He pushed his back against the chair again, crossed his arms angrily, and shook his head while muttering, “Not when our father just fucking died. I don’t have it in me to deal with all of this at once. And if you’d been listening, you’d fucking know that.”

Max wasn’t one to swear like this. And he was right; I hadn’t been listening. Not well enough to know what he was talking about now.

In an effort to calm him down, I said, “Okay, so I wasn’t paying attention. I heard something about your debt and that being the main problem between you two. What debt do you have?”

His anger didn’t disappear, but he did rein it in enough to continue the conversation. “Mel has a shopping addiction, hence the car and the lounge and the TV amongst a whole heap of other crap we don’t need. It’s been getting worse over the last six months, and as much as I try to help her figure it out and put a stop to it, nothing I say or do helps. If anything, it just makes everything worse between us.”

“That’s why she’s been desperate for me to agree to sell Mum’s house.”

He nodded. “Yeah.” Glancing down, he stalled for a beat before meeting my gaze again. “There’s more.” He hesitated for another moment in which he looked anything but comfortable with this conversation. “Fuck, Matt, she’s been talking with a guy online for a few months.”

My brows pulled in. “What, as in cheating on you?”

“No. Yes.” He unfolded his arms and blew out a harsh breath. “Fuck, I don’t know what you’d call it. All I know is she’s not happy with me and she’s been messaging this guy on Facebook, staying up half the fucking night talking to him while I’ve been busting my balls trying to pay off her fucking credit cards. She’s not sleeping with him, but it sure as hell feels like she’s cheating on me.”

My dislike of Melissa roared to life, punching through every cell of my body. The shit she’d caused for my family, especially between Max and me, all came rushing back. “Fuck, brother, I’d fucking call that cheating. And I’d walk the fuck away from her if I were you.”

“Says the guy who’s back with the woman who destroyed him years ago and who’s still having issues with that same woman.” A mask of bitterness fell over his face. “If it were Birdie who’d done this to you, would you walk away? Because I fucking doubt it.” He stabbed his finger in the air at me. “So don’t sit there and judge my marriage and tell me you’d do something we both know you wouldn’t.”

“I’m not judging you, but I’ve never hidden the fact I’m not a fan of Melissa. I hate what she’s done to us. To our family. And yeah, there’s a lot I’d put up with from Birdie, but if she ever treated me the way Melissa treats you, I would put my fucking foot down and refuse to stand for it.”

Tags: Nina Levine Storm MC Reloaded Romance
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