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I glance out the window to check on Josie but mostly I just want to get away from the intense look in his eyes. She’s having just as much fun as she was before. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but I feel like something just fundamentally shifted in my life.
When I sit back down, Striker starts talking, like nothing happened, making me feel like maybe this odd feeling in the pit of my stomach is just my imagination.
“We’ve got a canvass goin’,” he says. “All the brothers are taking shifts canvassing the area with a picture of the guy from the gray truck in hand. We reckon that if we show it to enough people someone will recognize him. If he’s still in Cedar Falls, we’ll find him.”
“That’s a lot of man-hours to find one guy who’s already driven his truck into a ditch.”
“Speaking of that, we have brothers checking local area hospitals and walk-in clinics. It’s reasonable to cover those places on the off chance that he was injured in the accident and seekin’ medical attention.”
“Wow, your club thinks of everything.”
He looks pleased at that and nods. “Yeah, we’ve been burned before. It don’t do to get too comfortable. Better to do unnecessary legwork now than be caught on the hop.”
He seems to be in a chatty mood, so I decide to ask about that other thing Candy said.
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Always. What do you want to know?”
“Is it true what Candy said? That you never got serious with anybody after I left you?”
He freezes and the smile drops off his face so fast, I think he’s going to get angry like he did three years ago. I flinch and don’t even know why.
“Yeah,” he says roughly. “It’s true.”
Chapter 11
Striker
Ijust told Beth there ain’t been nobody since her, and now I’m sitting here feeling exposed for admitting that out loud. Fuck me. That’s the kind of shit a man should keep to himself. In fact, I’d thought for the last three years I was keeping that on the down low. Apparently, I was just fuckin’ kidding myself. I realize that because if Candy knew, then every single person in this clubhouse knew my secret. I glance away, preparing myself for her to look at me with pity. I’m dreading the hell outta that.
“Really?” she asks. Only the tone of her voice doesn’t sound like pity. I don’t know what her tone suggests, but it doesn’t sound like she feels sorry for me.
I suck it up and go ahead and tell her the whole sordid story because I’m apparently secretly a fuckin’ masochist of some kind and just never knew that about myself.
“Yeah, it’s true. After what we had, everythin’ else seemed second best. I tried to move on, but the interest in other women just wasn’t there for me. Fuckin’ pathetic, I know.”
“I don’t think it’s pathetic at all. But I’m sorry you didn’t find someone to ease your loneliness.”
I look at her intently because she’s saying all the right things, but the tone of her voice doesn’t match her words. She’s carefully schooled her face into a neutral expression, but I can tell something is up with her. Maybe she’s secretly thrilled that she managed to get into a relationship and move on, but I didn’t. I don’t even want to stray into the conversation about who gave her that adorable kid of hers. It would be too fuckin’ painful.
Instead, I just keep on talking about the only subject that really interests me, which is us. “I never stopped lookin’ for you,” I volunteer. “I told myself it was so I could apologize. But the truth is, I couldn’t stand not knowin’ where you were and if you were okay.”
She’s quiet for so long that I begin to think she’s not going to respond to my confession. Then she looks up with a hurt expression on her beautiful face.
“I don’t understand,” she whispers. Clearing her throat, she continues in a frustrated voice, “If you loved me so much that you never moved on and were so worried about me, why didn’t you believe me? It’s not like you’d ever caught me in a lie and had reason to doubt my sincerity. Why did you destroy our whole relationship over this?”
She’s asking the most important question, the one keeping us from giving it another try. So, I try to explain in a way she can understand.
“In case you ain’t worked it out yet, I wasn’t one of the popular kids in high school. I was the skinny computer nerd that everyone made fun of. Only the girl I had a crush on was more than popular. I, bein’ young and dumb, wasn’t very good at hidin’ my feelings back then, so everyone knew. One day she asked me to go to the movies with her. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity.”
I pause, feeling all kinds of ignorant for even remembering shit like this.
“She was a no-show at the movie theatre, and I found out later she asked me out on a date because her friends thought it would be funny.” I make myself say the next part plain. “It was humiliatin’ as hell because no one let me forget it. They were still bringin’ it up the day we graduated.”
“Striker…” She starts to say something, but I turn my head to the side sharply and she snaps her mouth closed.
“While I was in college, I thought the first girlfriend I ever lived with really loved me. That she saw me and decided bein’ the way I am wasn’t a fuckin’ deal breaker. I was wrong about her too. I came home and found her cheatin’ on me with some frat guy. He was the one she complained about all the time and called an asshole, so I didn’t see that comin’.”
