Hurricane Hearts (Storm MC Reloaded 1)

I took the drink he offered me. “Do you think two people can get past lies and betrayal?”

“Fuck, Matt, are we settling in for some deep shit tonight?”

“It feels like the night for it.”

He scrubbed his face. “We’re definitely going to need this other bottle of whisky,” he said before exiting the kitchen.

I followed him into Dad’s office, trying like hell to shake off the nostalgia washing over me. Usually, I liked taking a trip back to old memories, but not today. Fuck, not today. However, they were flowing thick and fast, and I couldn’t avoid them.

Standing in the office doorway, I watched Max rummage in Dad’s filing cabinet. A flash of a smile crossed his face as he pulled out two bottles of whisky. Both full.

“This should do it,” he said, placing them on Dad’s desk.

I heard him, but I was too caught up in the memories this room held that I didn’t respond.

Dad teaching me at the age of ten how to play poker.

Mum sitting on Dad’s lap at this very desk, kissing him and laughing with him while she tried to distract him from working so many hours.

Max and I hiding from each other in this room while we played hide-and-seek.

Fuck.

My chest tightened as I thought about going through Dad’s belongings in here. This office was jam-packed with his personal possessions.

“We can go through the office another day,” Max said, drawing my attention back to him. He came my way, holding up the whisky bottles. “Let’s just sit tonight.”

I let out the breath that had been trapped deep in my chest, thankful he’d recognised my inability to deal with the office today.

We moved into the formal lounge room and he passed me another drink as we sat on the couch we’d hardly ever sat on in our lives. This had been Mum’s favourite room. The one room in the house Max and I’d had to be on our absolute best behaviour growing up. No shoes, no food, no drinks, no mess. The cream couch had never had a mark on it from us. Her crystal vases had remained unbroken. And her beloved piano was still in immaculate condition. Even after her death, the three of us had looked after her favourite things.

“Thank fuck we only have two parents,” I muttered. Going through this twice was hard enough.

Max nodded, but didn’t say anything.

W

e sat in silence for a long while, both lost in our thoughts, before Max finally answered my earlier question. “I think it’s possible for two people to get past lies and betrayal if they want to.”

I sat forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “How?”

Displeasure flashed across his face. “If this is going to be another conversation where you trash my choice to fight for my marriage, I’m not fucking interested.”

I stared at him, my thoughts and emotions a mess. “Birdie got herself pregnant five years ago without telling me. She was trying to force me to quit the army. But it was another ectopic pregnancy. She lost the baby and her ability to have children naturally.” I swallowed hard. “She only just told me this yesterday.”

His eyes widened. “Fuck.”

“Yeah, that covers it,” I said roughly. “So tell me, how the fuck do we move past this?”

My question pushed us into silence again as Max contemplated it. He always had been the deep thinker out of the two of us, and I’d always gone to him with my problems when we were younger. The years had come between us since then, and I’d stopped reaching out to him for help, but I needed it now.

“You have to want to move past it,” he finally said.

“I want to, but right now I have no clue how to do that.”

He drank some whisky. “So maybe it’s just time you need.”

I thought about that. Hell, I’d done a lot of thinking about that over the last twenty-four hours. “I can’t be in the same room as her, Max. Fuck, I can barely look at her. I’m that fucking angry. And I know she’s gotta be hurting too while we’re bringing everything up that happened to her, but I can’t bring myself to…. Fuck, I can’t even bring myself to check in on her over that.”