Craving Trix (The Aces' Sons 1)

“What’s really going on, Trix?” Nan asked softly.

“I can’t—” I stuttered to a stop and tried again. “What if—”

“What, Trix?” my mom asked in exasperation. “Spit it out.”

“What if he hurts me?” I said in one breath. “What if I stay and have the baby and then I’m stuck. What if I never get a job, and I have no way to support us? I’d never be able to leave. I’d be a single mother with no job and I—”

“That’s your worry?” Nan asked in confusion. “Has Cam ever hurt you?”

“No!” The word came out louder than I’d intended. “No, but he could. He could, and by then I’d have a baby and I wouldn’t be able to leave. You should’ve seen him when I—” My voice began to grow thick and I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat.

“What complete bullshit,” Nan mumbled, shaking her head.

“You don’t know!” I snapped, jerking to my feet. “You have no idea what—”

“No, but I do,” my mom cut in softly.

I turned and met my mom’s gaze and my heart sank into my stomach at the sorrow there.

“Sit back down, baby,” she said, leaning toward me.

As soon as my ass hit the chair, she sighed and ran her hands over her face.

“I want to apologize to you,” Mom said, her voice wobbling as tears filled her eyes. “First, that I didn’t get away before I did, and second, because I thought you’d forgotten it all, so I haven’t talked to you about it.”

“Don’t cry, Mom,” I pleaded, her tears bringing forth my own. “You did the best you could. You didn’t know—”

“I did,” she cut me off, squeezing her eyes tightly closed as she shook her head. “I had that gut feeling, you know? I had it from the first. But I was so fucking stubborn back then, Trix. So sure that I was doing the right thing.”

“I think we were all like that when we were young,” Nan told my mom kindly, reaching out to pat her hand.

Mom scoffed, and wiped at her face. “I knew something wasn’t right, but it wasn’t until after we were married that I saw Tony clearly. But Trix, I knew something wasn’t right, baby. Okay? I knew it. Deep in my gut, I knew I was making the wrong decision, and I made it anyway.”

“You said it yourself,” I replied hoarsely. “You didn’t see things clearly until after you were married.”

Mom sighed. “This is coming out all wrong.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sounds right to me,” Nan put in dryly.

“I didn’t love Tony. I was scared and pregnant and he offered me a way out. I knew it was weird that he was okay with marrying me, even knowing that I didn’t love him and I was already pregnant with another man’s children, but I let the idea of him speak louder than my common sense.”

“I didn’t remember him before,” I said when my mom paused. “But I remember it now.”

“I’m so sorry, Trix,” Mom rasped. “I knew I should get away from him, but I thought if I could just wait a little longer for you to go to school it—you know what? It doesn’t matter. My reasons were ridiculous, and I’ve hated myself for them for years.”

“I can’t take the chance of that,” I whispered, looking down at the table in front of me.

“What if Cam died tomorrow? What if the club got raided?” Nan paused to knock on the wood kitchen table. “What if you fell out of love with Cam? What if you weren’t actually pregnant? What if the goddamn sky was falling? You can’t live your life on what-ifs, Trix.”

“I can’t live my life regretting my decisions, either,” I snapped back.

Nan scoffed. “You think you won’t regret this decision? You love him. You’ve loved Cam since you were five years old!” Her voice dropped and went hoarse. “I used to lie in bed at night when Nix was a kid, wishing like hell that Patrick was lying next to me. I wanted to tell him about the trouble Nix had gotten himself into—to listen to Patrick’s voice telling me that we’d figure it out. Every time something great happened, from a successful season of Little League to the day Nix lost his first tooth, I’d mourn the fact that I couldn’t tell Patrick.”

I closed my eyes at the pain in her voice. I wanted that, too. I wanted to be able to roll over and tell Cam that it was his turn to wake up with the baby, or that our little one had done something fantastic that day. But what if he didn’t care? What if, for some reason, he started to hate me? What then?

“I can’t,” I said as I opened my eyes. “I haven’t had nightmares since I came home. I’m getting better.”