Pierce
“Hey, boss, there’s someone here to see you.” Razor’s face was all twisted up with concern as she poked her head into the office.
Pierce’s eyebrows furrowed. “What kind of someone?”
Razor shrugged and disappeared behind the door before he could ask any more questions, which was a really bad sign. Razor always just came into his office. “Shit.”
“Hopefully it’s not the police. We cleared up everything with them months ago. I think.” Pierce pulled on his jacket and stepped down into the main hangar where the boys were repairing the bikes that had been left by clients to be fixed. Or, they should have been working. Instead, they were distracted by Pierce’s visitor.
He chuckled humorlessly. Dressed like that, it’s no wonder she’s drawing attention.
“Good afternoon, Jennifer,” Pierce called, pulling Jenny’s attention from her phone. She hadn’t changed much since he’d first met her; the long, black curls still delicately framed her pretty face. The ends were still brightly colored, like she’d tripped into a wet canvas.
This time around, her contacts were a too-bright, too-rich sky blue. Pierce silently wondered if Jennifer even remembered what her natural eye color was at this point. “Buenas tardes, Pierce. Nice digs, man.”
“How did you find me?”
Jennifer shrugged, smacking her gum loudly against the roof of her mouth as the bangles lining her arms jangled loudly together. “I got my ways. That’s not important though.”
Pierce glanced around, amused at the open-mouthed stares of his mechanics. “Get back to work and stop acting like animals,” Pierce yelled, making every single one of his boys jump like they’d been caught sneaking cookies from mama’s cookie jar. Jennifer laughed out loud, then took Pierce’s arm and led him outside.
Pierce lit up a cigarette, offering one to Jennifer. She took it delicately between perfectly manicured nails, pulling her own lighter from the depths of her designer bag. Blowing smoke into the cool, December air, Jennifer glanced around herself with surprise. “You have done quite well for yourself, Pierce. Good for you.”
“You didn’t come here just to pat me on the back, I’m assuming.”
Jennifer shook her head, leaning back against the metal of the warehouse, looking up into the winter’s sky. She looked around, then back down at Pierce. Suddenly she asked, “You miss her?”
“Of course I do,” Pierce snapped, wanting to walk away from this conversation. “Does she — Doesn’t she miss me?”
Jennifer rolled her strange, too-blue eyes. “Duh, of course she does. She’s in love with you. That’s not even a fair question.”
Crossing his arms, he hoped Jennifer couldn’t hear his heart thundering in his chest. “So that still doesn’t explain why you are here.”
“I’m here because, although Felice won’t tell you herself, I think you need to know. Her ‘relationship’ with Clay is just for the cameras. They don’t see each other except for shooting and the occasional publicized public outing.”
Despite his best efforts, Pierce could feel hope flaring in his chest. The feeling made him dizzy, the blood rushing loud through his veins. “Maybe I have a chance then. Maybe I can get her to take me back, even after everything. I just have to prove I deserve it.”
But he had no idea how.
“Felice should do whatever it is that will make her happy. Staying with Clay obviously doesn’t and being with me won’t either. So you need to make her see that.” Pierce put out the cigarette on the ground under his boot, blowing out the last bit of smoke from his lungs. “She should do what’s best for our kid and herself.”
“She’s miserable without you, you know.”
It was like a blow to the stomach to hear those words; he’d never wanted to make Felice miserable. After a moment to compose himself, he answered, his voice surprisingly steady. “Felice and the baby are better off without me. I think it’s time for you to go home.” After a moment’s hesitation, he opened his mouth again. “But if you wouldn’t mind bringing something back with you, it would be appreciated.”
# # #
Felice
Felice stared at the obviously handmade crib, her eyes flowing over the intricately hand-carved bassinet, her stomach churning. It was beautiful and obviously a long labor of love. It must have taken Pierce every spare hour of every day they had been apart to create this masterpiece. Tears sprung to her eyes, and Felice had to grab the kitchen counter to keep herself upright.
“You went to see him.” It wasn’t really a question, but Jennifer nodded anyway.
“If nothing else, it proves how much he still loves you.” Felice glared at her best friend as she flipped her thick hair over her shoulder, a cocky grin on her pretty face. “He’s really cleaned himself and his people up; he’s completely legitimate now. He runs a garage in Boston now, fixing up bikes and cars.”
Felice just stared at her, ice slowly replacing the blood in her veins. “I’m glad he managed not to do anything illegal in the past two months. Is this a record?” She knew she was being a bitch, but Jennifer had gone behind her back and brought up all sorts of emotions that Felice wasn’t ready to feel yet.
This was her fault.
“Pierce is still way better for you than Clay, I mean it.” Jennifer jumped up onto the counter, sitting down on the white tiles of Felice’s kitchen island, her feet swinging as she popped her bubblegum in between her teeth. “You should tell that lying, cheating son-of-a-bitch to crawl back under whatever hole he crawled out of and run back to Pierce. He’s a much better man, even with his past.”
Felice crossed her arms over her chest, trying not to wince as she pressed too hard against her very sensitive breasts. “I won’t put my child in danger just because it looks like Pierce might have given up his criminal ways. He can go back to them at any time. You don’t know.”
“And you can’t prove he will go back to them, Felice! How can you have so little faith in the man you claim to love and so much faith in the asshole that cheated on you?”
“Love has nothing to do with this!” Felice yelled, her voice cracking with unhappiness. “Clay will raise Pierce’s son like his own and has promised to be there for all of his birthdays and everything. Pierce can’t promise the same if he ends up in jail, Jennifer.”
“What is it with you?” Jennifer snapped in return, rage lighting up her beautiful eyes. “You are so willing to see only the best in Clay, who is a garbage fire of a human being, and only the worst in Pierce who is a good guy trying to make things right so you will be back in his life. He wants to be part of his son’s life so badly that he’s completely changed his life around, and you won’t even give him a chance.” Jennifer slid off of the counter and walked towards the front door, shouting over her shoulder. “Pierce is lucky he’s not stuck with you, considering how much you’re determined to hate him!”
All of the anger and pain flooded out of Felice the moment Jennifer slammed the door, bringing tears to her emerald eyes. Why did doing the right thing have to be so hard? Being with Pierce would be right, but it’s just so much easier to stay here and not have to try. There was a part of Felice that wanted to drop everything and do whatever necessary to make life with Pierce work, but the rest of her was afraid. What would it do to her career, her show, her store, her life?
If he slips, I will end up alone with a child and my man in jail. Can I really live that way?
Pressing her face into her hands, Felice stood in the empty, white kitchen and cried. The sounds of her tears echoed around the empty house. There was no one else around, no one left to fill the aching void inside of her chest. She cradled her growing belly, eyes streaming tears as she sank to the floor.
“I don’t know what to do.” The tile floor was icy cold against her body, but she didn’t seem to have the strength left to pick herself up. “I don’t know what to do.”
She just sat there and cried quietly into the empty, lifeless silence around her.