Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 127390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
That’s when I started drinking again.
When even my headache couldn’t drown out those thoughts.
The pool was abandoned as it was yesterday. I could’ve been the only person in the entire motel. In the entire world.
It was nice, feeling so alone. To be miserable in such an all-consuming way. I hadn’t been able to grieve properly with so many people around watching, wanting to help, trying to show me they cared. What they’d really been was an audience.
I think I’d played my part well enough. Grieving mother, in pain but still managing to hold it together. That’s what people wanted, wasn’t it? They wanted to support you, make casseroles or what the fuck ever, feeling good about themselves and then moving on. Well, that wasn’t exactly what the women of Sons of Templar had done.
I’d taunted myself with how each of them would act if they were in my shoes. Each of them loved their husband with a ferocity, each couple had a lifetime love. Any one of them would’ve been shattered if she lost her man. But they were also strong. The strongest women I knew. They’d crumble. They’d wallow. Then they’d figure it out. Put on heels, lipstick and find a way to face the world again.
So why couldn’t I do that? It had been a year, yet I couldn’t even face myself. I hadn’t even been to his club. Our club. I’d hidden myself away in our home, said no to every invitation, doing my best to shut away the world.
No, I hadn’t faced anything.
So I sat there and drank. Tried to drown the misery, poison the pain and get all the ugly out. Tried to do all my despicable grieving in one shot so I could go home and be the Old Lady that I needed to be. The mother I needed to be.
Unfortunately, my plan didn’t work that way.
I didn’t open my eyes. Not for a long time. I kept them squeezed shut and the music blasting.
Gage was sitting on a chair, regarding the pool when I pulled out my earbuds and opened my eyes.
He wasn’t the same man who had sat in the same spot years ago. He still had the same scars, the same cut, but he was not the same man.
There was something about the way he held himself, about his energy that was different now, his wedding ring glinting in the sunlight. He wasn’t any less dark, he would always be a dark, tortured man. But he’d become more at peace with life now. There was more substance to him, which was in large part because of his wife and son. He’d managed to move on from the terrors of his life before. To rebuild. To become more than he had been before.
I was so glad he’d gotten that. The second chance at a life that he deserved. But I knew I wouldn’t get that. Even if I did deserve it. I wasn’t a bad person. I was a good friend—before all of this, at least. And a good mother—also before all this.
Yes, maybe I deserved something else. But I’d never get it. Something in my bones told me that. I’d had it, one shot at love, happiness and everything else that comes with a happy marriage.. Maybe I’d had too much. That was it. We’d had too much. My allotted happiness had been depleted, all used up. Whatever love I was meant to have in my lifetime had been stretched too thin over the years, and it was now gone.
“You come to take me back again?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Depends on if you wanna go,” he said. “Not gonna force you to do anything. You need this.”
I raised a brow at him. “I need to sit in a shithole motel drinking vodka all day while someone else looks after my kids?”
“You need to grieve,” he said, raking a tatted hand through his hair. “Hate that word. Always fucking hated that word. I avoided it for years. Thought that violence and pain was the way to treat my loss. To get over it. But it only prolonged it. Made me more fucked up. There’s no right way to deal with this shit. You’re facin’ it, that’s all that matters. I’ll stay with you for as long as you need.”
He would. Gage was a man of few words, and the ones he used he meant. He would sit here all day. All night.
We had a morbid connection, him and I. We had death between us. Darkness. He had a duty to Ranger. One he’d take seriously for the rest of his life.
Beyond that, he was my friend.
One who didn’t expect words, didn’t expect anything from me.
So I just sat there with my vodka, my friend and my grief.
Chapter 4
I’d just finished cleaning the house top to bottom. That’s what I did on Saturdays. Every Saturday. Though I’d made it a point to make sure I was the exact opposite of my mother in almost every way, I had picked up a few habits from her that had served to be valuable. Like the fact that she’d told me I should always carry tampons, moisturize twice a day, always take off makeup before bed, make my bed as soon as you got out of it, and keep a tidy house for a tidy mind.