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I treat her to a hideous smile, a sneer of my scarred lips that makes her flinch. She takes one step back, spins around, and grabs a hand trowel off the step, brandishing at me. I laugh in her face, a guttural, mean sound.
Her face falls and she clenches onto that garden tool. There is no violence in her now. It bleeds away to be replaced with sadness so acute I can almost taste the salt of it. “You’re not the same,” she chokes. “The old Gray was sweet and smart and kind.”
“Yeah? Well, the girl I knew wouldn’t have gone and passed off my kid as some tush doctor’s.”
She storms past me and heads to the closet flowerbed. The whole front yard used to be a riot of flowers. It sends a pang through me to realize how it’s gone to straight shit with no one to tend it. How metaphorical.
“I’ve never tried to pass her off as anyone’s. I was dating a doctor recently. Whatever you heard from Raiden, you’re mistaken.”
She leans in, her hands scrabbling through the dirt, her back to me. It’s a clear piss off, I’m finished with you,but I’m not going to listen. Not this time. Not so she can grab my daughter and run away with her again.
I could be wrong, but IknowI’m not. My head spins. It’s just as well that Lark isn’t looking at me because I’m reeling here. I’m a mess but I cover it like always.
“You’re a narrow-minded little coward,” I spit at her, hoping she’ll turn back around and gift me with some of her fire again.
Not now. She’s scared and defensive. There’s a difference.
And what are you, you fucking nimbus? Rawing her like there could be no consequences. You were like a horny sixteen-year-old that night, only thinking about your damn hard-on.
She twists and hurls a handful of weeds at me. The green leaves arc up and come down in a shower all over the sidewalk and my boots. “You’ve turned into a mean, dumb asshole.”
“Mean yes, but not dumb. Not at all. The only stupid thing I ever did was allow myself to be taken in by soft words and fake promises.” I have my pride and it was stomped all over. My anger and smart mouth mask the pain that is still as real and raw as ground meat. “You told me that I was your whole world and I believed you.”
“We both decided it was what we wanted. It was… a dream. A dream that couldn’t be. One of us had to be responsible.”
Neither of us were, and look what happened.
“Oh no. No, you are not getting off that easy. You made the life you thought you needed to make, but you’re going to admit that you were wrong. You decided it was best to take my kid away from me. To not even tell me you were pregnant. You made all the decisions alone.”
“You wouldn’t have—”
“Don’t tell me how I would have acted and reacted,” I thunder, before I remember to moderate my voice. “You never gave me a chance. You were the one who didn’t play fair.”
“My brother almost died!” she yelps, forgetting all about decorum now. The neighbors up and down the block probably heard that.
“Raiden had nothing to do with your decision. Tell me, darlin’, did you just want a walk on the wild side? To dip your toes in with the big bad biker? To do something taboo so you could brag to all your friends? Was I just a trophy for you? Were you stupid enough to think that you couldn’t get knocked up as a virgin? Believing in old wives’ tales, or did your parents never tell you where babies come from in all those years they kept you in your golden cage?”
“Stop it! Who are you? Are you even hearing yourself?” She’s done with the weeds and straight up charges at me. She might be fully pissed off and out of her mind with it, but when she shoves me with all her might, I barely rock back an inch. She rebounds off me as if she can’t bear to touch me, breathing raggedly, gesturing wildly, so close to completely losing it. “Get out of here! I want you to leave right now.” She blinks back tears that I tell myself don’t affect me. “I’m sorry that I hurt you, but that doesn’t give us the right to hurt anyone else. Not my brother, not your club. You’re all parts of one heart.”
She’s right. This isn’t me. This isn’t who I ever wanted to be. My pride and the rest of me might be smarting and this moment might have been coming for five years, but I have no right to act like this.
“She’s mine,” she repeats, widening her stance and staring me down like a ball of wildfire.
To get through her, I’d have to incinerate myself. I’m a dumb fucker because every atom of my being wants to try.
“The things I’ve heard, tell me that I was right to leave here.” Her nostrils flare and it takes everything I have not to curl my hands into fists. “You killed your ownfather. I know it’s true. He might have been a threat to the club, but you couldn’t just buy him a condo somewhere and force him into retirement? You had tokillhim? Even if you think you’re above the law, even if you own it now, that still makes you a murderer. Nothing is sacred to you. Why would I ever have wanted to be a part of that? To try to love a man who could—”
She can’t do it, so I finish for her. “Prejudice and ignorance, I’d call it.” I want to defend myself against her accusations. It stings like acid thrown onto my bare skin that I can’t. “Beaten into you by parents who disowned you the second you weren’t going to follow their rules, just like they turned their backs on your brother.”
“Don’t bring my parents into this. Don’t bring anyone into this. We’re done and you’re leaving.”
“I’m not leaving. I’m waiting for Raiden.”
Her lips curl into a fiercer snarl. Seeing her owning her own power and going head-to-head with me, is the spark to my dry tinder.
“I’m sorry your mom is sick.” I back off. This conversation isn’t finished, but I need to get the hell out of here and gather my fucking self and come at the situation with a new approach. “I’m sorry that she’s in pain and dying a horrible death. I’m fucking sorry about all of that, but I will never stop speaking the truth. You’re too afraid to hear it after all this time.”
The tenderness in my voice hits her hard. I watch her mentally stumble. “I loved you,” she breathes after a long pause, the crystal wetness filling her eyes gutting me. “I did. It wasn’t a mistake, it was just the wrong time. All of it was wrong. That’s all there is. Please don’t make something out of it that it isn’t. I’m focused now on my mom, not on you. Never on you again. Please accept that or it’s going to make this unbearable for our family and that includes my brother.”
