Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 156796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
Some women knew you needed to pretend that your world wasn’t imploding just to get through the day, that to be a friend was to pretend right along with you.
Jen was one of those women.
Amy was not.
I had purposefully left earlier in the morning so as not to catch her wanting to walk with me—though she didn’t do it as often, as she’d walked in one morning to Gage fucking me against the wall. She hadn’t even blushed, just nodded once and said, “As you were.”
I nearly vomited at the thought that it would never happen again.
Gage would never be inside me again.
I knew Amy would make me face reality, that she’d try to help me heal, help me fight. She was that kind of woman. All of them connected to the club were.
Hence me avoiding them.
Ignoring all the calls and texts.
Until Friday came and so did a knock at the door.
I was going to ignore it, but it was purposeful and obviously not to be ignored. And I didn’t procrastinate. Because logical people didn’t do that.
My legs were dead weights descending the stairs.
I had barely opened the door before a small and surprisingly strong figure pushed through it. She was a flash of blush pink and a floral perfume that definitely smelled expensive.
“Wh… Gwen?” I stammered, looking back up as she glided up my stairs effortlessly in shoes I would’ve tumbled from on a flat surface.
“I’m getting us wineglasses. We need wineglasses,” she called over her shoulder, disappearing in the direction of the kitchen before I could tell her I didn’t have wineglasses.
Or wine.
And I couldn’t follow her and tell her that because a baby—yes, a live human baby—was thrust into my arms.
A beautiful and rather frustrated-looking—yet still crazily inhumanly put together—Amy stared at me. “Take him, would you please? He’s being a total asshole.”
I looked down at the baby in my arms, who was just as surprised as I was to be there. He was probably one of the most beautiful infants I’d ever seen, with striking large green eyes and a smattering of amber hair on his adorable little baby head.
Amy winked at me, and it was then I realized she’d been holding her baby in one hand and a bottle of wine in another. Like Gwen, she traipsed up my stairs in heels even higher than the woman before her, and a figure that was scientifically impossible given the age of the beautiful and placid baby who was happily toying with locks of my hair.
“You can’t call your own baby an asshole, Amy,” a soft voice called to her.
It belonged to Lily, who was holding an adorable baby and smiling at me in sympathy and apology before hustling in my door.
“Um, yes I can if he’s being one,” Amy said, stopping on the stairs and looking from the baby to Lily. “And he’s his father’s son. So he’s being an asshole. And he’ll grow up to be an asshole. But he’ll get his mother’s looks. And wits. So hopefully he’ll pull off being an asshole, like his father seems to do.” And then she disappeared at the top of the stairs.
“It’s easier if you just go along with it,” Lily said. “They mean well, really. Apart from when they call babies assholes.” She gave me another shy smile that lit up her almost violet eyes. The same eyes the quiet baby in her arms had.
And then she followed Amy up the stairs.
Mia was next. “Don’t worry, I didn’t bring the hellions,” she said, kissing me on the cheek. “I brought something better.” She held up two bags. “Processed sugars and complex carbohydrates!” And then Mia went up my stairs too.
Bex wasn’t smiling or holding anything like the rest of them. Her gaze was hard and a little intimidating.
“He’s doing absolutely fucking horrible, if that helps,” she said.
My stomach clenched and I squeezed the tiny human in my arms for some strength. “No, it doesn’t,” I whispered.
She nodded. “It never does.” She nodded to the stairs. “At least these mad bitches might serve as a distraction. Or at the very least a reminder that you’re not alone.”
And she climbed the stairs too.
I waited just in case anyone else decided to show up.
In case one person in particular decided to show up,
But his bike wasn’t sitting in the spot where no one was allowed to park. No, a cherry red BMW with a car seat was parked there, half on the curb and half off.
I stared at it for a long time. Then the small human in my arms started to fuss.
So I closed the door and climbed the stairs too.
“That’s it?” Gwen nearly spluttered her glass of wine from her mouth. “He doesn’t want marriage or kids?”
I chewed my lip, hoping for a small amount of pain to distract me from the massive hole in my heart.