***
Hours later found Ruthie and I at a diner in town.
And none other than Isaac and his new wife two booths in front of us.
“That’s my ex that I thought stood by me through it all,” I whispered, leaning forward so only she could hear. “But I found out the day I got out that he was about to get married and had a kid on the way. He has been openly cheating on me since I went in.”
“Seems like you bounced back well,” Ruthie’s eyes sparkled. “And with an older man at that! Jesus, is he sexy as hell or what?!”
I smiled.
Silas was sexy as hell.
“I know, God, how did I get so lucky?” I whispered conspiratorially. “And I never even saw him coming! It was just one second he was there, and I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I saw him everywhere I turned!”
What he didn’t know, is that he half saved me.
I was well on the way to being depressed.
And Silas had been there to rip me off that path with such ease that it was scary.
“So what’s his story?”
“You’re never going to believe this, but I think he had some sort of relationship with my mother,” I whispered. “And I haven’t had a chance to talk to either one of them about it. Although I guess I can now. Dallas won’t keep his trap shut about the two of us. My mother and father will know by morning, I’m sure.”
Ruthie’s mouth dropped open.
“So you think they were like…what…fucking? He didn’t seem the type to cheat.”
I refrained from saying that he was the type.
That he’d done it in the past.
Then she’d think I was crazy for still being with him.
Ruthie hated cheaters.
Her now dead husband had been a cheater.
And she had an irrational annoyance with them.
She contributed her husband’s desire to beat her to the fact that she’d confronted him about his cheating.
So I decided to steer clear of that topic.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I have to talk to him about it. There hasn’t been time to ask. And I don’t want to ask my mother, because that’s just awkward. What if they did share a relationship of some sort?”
She shrugged.
But before she could say anything else, a man’s throat clearing had me looking up.
At Isaac.
Oh, yay!
“Yeah?” I asked with a raised brow.
“I thought I’d check to see how you were doing,” he said, eyes smiling at me.
I blinked.
“How I’m doing?” I asked, confirming what he’d said.
He nodded.
“Yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet you. I didn’t have much choice,” he said, pointing with his thumb at the woman behind him.
Ruthie snorted into her drink before taking another sip, trying gallantly not to get into the middle of what she knew was about to become a huge fight.
“Well, Isaac, I guess I’m doing alright considering,” I said smoothly.
He blinked.
“Considering what?” He asked.
It was my turn to blink.
“Are you really that stupid, Isaac?” I asked slowly.
He frowned. “What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything to you.”
“Let me start from the beginning then,” I said, holding up one finger. “You forced me to go to a party eight years ago that I didn’t want to go to, and, as a result, I killed four people.” I held up a second finger. “Then you lead me on for eight years. Telling me you’ll be waiting for me when I get out. Yet, the day I get out, you don’t show up, and my best friend tells me that you’re getting married – to the woman you knocked up.”
His eyes narrowed. “A guy has needs, Sawyer.”
I laughed humorlessly.
“Oh yeah, a guy has needs. Sure, I understand. How about you just go and leave with the girl that met your needs, and leave me to eat my burger in peace, hmm?” I asked snidely.
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know why you’re being such a bitch.”
Patience has never been Ruthie’s strong suit, and I was waiting for her to make her move; I intercepted it before she could.
“Ahh,” I reprimanded Ruthie, taking my cup of coffee from her hands and placing it back on the table. “It’s not worth it. And I’m over him anyway.”
Ruthie turned annoyed eyes to me.
“Well, he definitely could use a talking to,” she hissed. “Leave already.”
Isaac gave the two of us one more long look, before he turned on his heel and walked back over to the woman that was staring daggers at me.
I waved back at her, amused that she thought she could intimidate me.
It’d take a lot more than a glare, bitch, to make that happen, I thought humorlessly. I’ve got a black belt in prison yard tactics. I could have her on the ground before she even had a chance to lift that finger she was pointing at me.
“That was fun,” Ruthie said as the waitress placed a chocolate milkshake down in front of her.
Ruthie pounced on it like a starving dog.
“God,” she breathed. “I forgot how great this shit was.”
I could entirely relate.
You just seemed to have a greater appreciation of the simple things in life after having them withheld from you for any length of time.
For instance, going to the bathroom or taking a shower.
A day hasn’t gone by in the last month that I haven’t said a silent prayer of thanks over the fact that I now had a door I could shut while I was using the restroom.
You could never really understand the humiliation of having to do number two in front of a guard unless you’d had no choice.
Ruthie and I had done damn near everything in front of the other.
There wasn’t one thing she could do right now that would shock or surprise me.
“Your Bristol didn’t look very happy with me,” Ruthie said once she’d downed nearly half of the chocolate shake.
I’d noticed that.
“I think she’s a tad jealous,” I told her. “It’s like she didn’t think I made any friends or anything had changed since the day I’d gone inside. She picked right back up where we’d left off the day that I was released as if not a single day had gone by. It’s almost as if she’s scared to broach the topic.”
“She still blames herself,” Ruthie finally said, finishing the last of her shake.
How she’d been able to down something like that – so thick and cold – in under three minutes, I didn’t know.
But it sure was fun to watch her do it.
“I think she does and she doesn’t. I think she feels guilty for living her life when I couldn’t live mine. She’s also worried that I’ll get mad at the fact that she and my brother married,” I told her.
“Are you sure she won’t mind me staying with you?” She asked worriedly.
I shook my head.
“No, she won’t mind. Then again, that place where they’re living is technically mine. Something that Bristol informed me of when she picked me up,” I explained, bringing my glass of water up to my lips.
“I don’t fuckin’ care if you’re not serving breakfast anymore. If you don’t give me some of your biscuits, I’ll literally have a new asshole made for me by my extremely pregnant wife. Seriously, just two is fine. Please!” A man’s annoyed voice pleaded.
“We don’t have any more. I’m sorry, sir,” the old woman behind the counter said, not sounding sorry in the least.
Ruthie and I looked up to find a dark haired man with even darker eyes looking at the waitress with a frown on his face.
“We took the last ones,” Ruthie said, pointing down at the biscuits we’d just been given.
I looked down at the succulent morsels, and my stomach growled.
We’d gotten to the diner about ten minutes before they’d stopped serving breakfast, and we’d never gotten any jelly, so we’d yet to eat them.
But seeing the pleading look in the man’s eyes, I stood from the table and made my way to him with the biscuits in my arms.
The real reason I’d even contemplated giving them away was the leather vest, or what Silas like to call a ‘cut,’ on his back.
He was a Dixie Warden.
And the name on his vest declared him to be ‘Cleo.’
I vaguely recognized him as someone I’d seen at the clubhouse Silas had dragged me to last week, and I knew what I had to do.
“’Scuse me,” I said.
The man’s dark eyes turned to me, then dropped to the biscuits in my hand.
“You can have them,” I said.
His eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
I barely contained the urge to snort.
“Because you’re wearing that,” I said, pointing to the cut but not touching it.
I’d gotten a lesson in that, too.
Apparently a brother’s ‘colors’ were sacred.
No one was supposed to touch them unless they were intimately involved with the man wearing them, such as a significant other or an ‘old lady’, as Silas had called it.
“What’s your name?” He asked, eyes narrowing.
I smiled.
“Sawyer Berry.”
Recognition flared in his eyes. “You’re Silas’.”
I cocked my head. “How do you know that?”
He grinned. “The whole fucking city knows. When Silas wants something known, he makes it known. Plus, I saw you at the clubhouse last week. Thanks for the biscuits.”
Then he took the biscuits from my hand, and I was left standing there stunned.
It’d only been a few hours since my brother had found out about us.
Now, supposedly the whole town knew? Holy shit!