I showered, changed clothes, and checked out of the hotel. Ten minutes later I was on Jack’s front porch, ringing his doorbell – and when that didn’t work, I hammered my fist on his door.

I was terrified of what might happen. But I was more afraid of leaving town without trying to undo what I’d done.

It took a long time for him to open the front door. When he finally did, he was still wearing his jeans and wifebeater from the night before. Scotch fumes rolled out over me like an ocean wave.

His bleary eyes tried to adjust as he squinted into the morning light. When he realized who I was, his whole face became a mask of hatred.  

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked, his voice coldly vicious. “I thought Kade dropped off your shit.”

I’d prepared a whole speech on the way over. It started with Jack, I know you probably never want to see me again, and continued on through a whole laundry list of why he and I were perfect together, and that I knew I’d fucked up, but it was stupid to throw away everything we had together.

But when you see the person you’re in love with look at you like you’re their worst enemy, it’s a hell of a blow.

My old boss Sid always said, Everybody’s got a plan till they get punched in the face.

All my plans immediately went out the window.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears.

“Ohhhhhh, you’re sorry,” he said sarcastically, then punctuated it with a brutal, “Fuck you.”

I tried again. “I shouldn’t have lied to you – ”

“‘I shouldn’t’ve lied to you, Jack,’” he mocked me. “‘I realize now I shouldn’t have fucked you over and destroyed your life, but I’m soooo sorry – so we’re good now, right?’” His eyes narrowed to slits. “FUCK you.”

There’s only so many times I can get punched before I start fighting back. “I was trying to find out who killed my cousin.”

“Yeah, I heard about that,” he said. His tone of voice was the exact opposite of Kade’s back in the hotel parking lot – vicious instead of understanding. “So it was okay to lie to my face, and let me walk into Lou’s trap, and – ”

“I didn’t know about Lou!”

“NO, BUT YOU KNEW ABOUT YOU!” he roared, jabbing a finger in my face. “You lied to me! I gave you every chance in the world to come clean, and if you’d just fucking told me the truth, none of that shit would have happened last night!”

“Yeah, right,” I snapped.

I immediately regretted it.

“What the fuck does that mean?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous.

“Nothing. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it,” I murmured, trying to bring the tension down a notch.

But he knew exactly what I’d meant. “Even if Lou had been planning last night for years, it all hinged on him knowing something about you that you should’ve told me. And you didn’t.”

“I know. It was wrong of me – ”

“It was wrong of you? FUCK you, Fiona. This isn’t some little white lie. You fucking betrayed me. And because of that I lost the club, not to mention I’m going to lose my house, my business – ”

“Your house?” I was so pissed at his High Horse routine that I couldn’t keep the sarcasm and dubiousness out of my voice.

“What do you think’s gonna happen when people find out Lou’s back in control of the Midnight Riders? You think they’re going to come to my shop and risk pissing him off?”

…shit.

I hadn’t even considered that.

“Jack – ” I started, feeling guilty all over again.

He wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise. “And when I can’t get anybody to come into my shop, how the fuck am I supposed to pay my bills?”

“Jack – ”

“I’ve lost the respect of the club, I’ve lost the respect of the town, I’ve lost everything that meant anything to me – ”

“I didn’t know, Jack,” I pleaded.

“No, you just didn’t fucking think. You weren’t thinking about anybody but yourself.”

Okay, that tore it.

“You asshole,” I seethed. “I was thinking about my cousin. I risked my life to find out who murdered her. I wasn’t thinking about me, I was thinking about her.”

The look on his face softened for the briefest second, but then his features hardened again. “And you didn’t care whose life you destroyed in the process.”

That was when I lost it.

“You keep talking about losing your house and your business – none of which has happened yet, by the way – and you keep talking about losing people’s respect – but she lost her LIFE. Yeah, I wasn’t there, and yeah, I didn’t save her, but you WERE there, and you still didn’t save her! I don’t care if you did to try to help her, you failed MISERABLY – so FUCK you and your house, and FUCK you and your body shop, and FUCK you and your motorcycle gang, because my cousin is FUCKING DEAD, AND ALL YOU CAN DO IS COMPLAIN LIKE A WHINY LITTLE BITCH!”

By the end, I was crying. My whole body shook with rage and sorrow as the tears poured down my cheeks.

Jack stood there looking at me. All his hatred had turned into something else. Sadness? Resignation? Weariness? I didn’t know. I couldn’t read him. All I knew is that he didn’t seem to hate me anymore.

But he didn’t take me in his arms, either, and he made no effort to comfort me.

We stood like that, me weeping and him silent, for a good 30 seconds.

“I’m sorry about your cousin,” he said finally.

I wanted so bad for this to be the moment when we got back together. I wanted so bad for him to take me in his arms, and hold me close, and whisper in my ear that it was going to be alright… that he forgave me for lying to him, and that he understood… and that he was sorry, too, for all the horrible things he’d said.

Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.

His voice turned cold, unfeeling, dead. “But she made her choices, and they led to that back alley. You made your choices, too, so quit crying and acting like you didn’t know what you were doing.”

“You fucking son of a bitch.” All the hatred I had seen in him just minutes ago had taken hold of me. “You want to talk about choices? You’ve spent the last three years with Lou right there in front of you, and you were too stupid to see what he was doing. He outsmarted you. He outplayed you. He beat you with one hand tied behind his back. You can blame me all you want, but last night happened because you were too blind and stupid to see what was really going on. You didn’t care – not enough to do anything about it until it was too late. You just wanted to play motorcycle with all your jerk-off friends like the fucking children you are. You want to talk about choices? YOU lost your house. YOU lost your business. YOU lost your club. YOU lost everybody’s respect. So what? Quit whining about it and go get them back. Go beat Lou at his own game. At least you CAN… but I can’t get my cousin back. And she sure as hell can’t get her life back.”

He was angry – I could tell that much by his expression. I half expected him to hit me. Or throw me off his porch. Or curse me out, at the very least.

Instead, he just shook his head.

“Go home, Fiona,” he said, and started to close the door.

I jammed my foot inside before he could shut it.

“That’s it?!” I shouted. “That’s all you’ve got to fucking say?!”

“What do you want from me?” he asked wearily.

“Oh, I don’t know – why don’t you keep bitching about how you’re so much better than me because I lied to you, and how much you hate me because I took everything from you!”

“I’m not better than you, Fiona,” he said quietly. “I’ve done way worse things than what you did last night, and for a lot shittier reasons. And you’re right – it wasn’t your fault I lost everything; it was mine. Lou outplayed me and outsmarted me, just like you said.”

I pulled my foot out of the door. I was shocked out of my mind. I hadn’t expected this.

“I don’t hate you, either,” he continued. “I understand why you did it, and I can’t fault you for that.”

My eyes welled up with tears.

“Jack…” I whispered tenderly.

Whether he meant to or not, he’d set me up perfectly for the knock-out punch.

“But I was in love with you,” he said. “I trusted you… and you hurt me worse than anybody else in my entire fucking life.”

All the air went out of my lungs, and the jagged pieces of my heart broke into smaller ones.

“Go back to LA, Fiona,” he said. “And don’t come back here again.”

He shut the door in my face.

The deadbolt locking was the loneliest, most final sound I’d ever heard.