In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take. -Anonymous
Butch
She rode with me all night long in the cold like a real trooper. I’d expected to hear her moan, bitch, or complain and not exactly in that order. Did she? Nope. She tightened her arms around me a little bit near the end, and that was my indication that she was getting tired.
By the time I could tell she was at her crashing point, we’d already rode a good seven hours. We were deep in Virginia and would be home in just a few hours. I pulled into a motel right off of the highway and got us a room, carrying her in there like some coming of age Romeo and Juliet shit. I held her securely to me as the girl behind the counter led us to the only available room they had left for the night. Normally, they’d require payment right then and there, but she told me to not worry about it until the morning. There was no way I could get to my wallet anyhow with Bellamy in my arms like this.
The girl opened the doorway for us, and I laid Bell down on the bed before going back to grab the key out of the door, shutting and locking it behind me.
She looks like an angel, spread across the bed clad in my shit. Fuck. Damn. Right now, here in this moment, it’s hitting me that she isn’t the kind of girl I can fuck and get away with. This girl…right here, she is the real deal. Maybe at first, I just wanted to fuck around with her, but now I know that there’s no way I could just fuck her. I want more than that from her, and I’m the selfish bastard who always gets what he wants.
“Abe,” she mutters, stretching her arms out across the bed. I get a good look at her shirt rising up and exposing her stomach. Dammit to Hell, but I already wanna take another bite out of her.
I go over, sliding off my cut, my boots, shirt, and pants. I unzip my jacket and unbutton her pants, take off her converse and toss them off to the side of the bed. Bellamy sits up, grumbling and pulls off her hoodie, reaching behind her she unclasps her bra and pulls the contraption out one of the sleeves to her shirt, tossing it in the direction I’ve tossed my clothes, and lastly, she yanks off her pants and we’re both sitting there, exposed and exhausted as all Hell.
“I can’t believe she did this to me,” Bellamy mumbles, pulling her knees back to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
“I know, Sugar, I know.” I don’t know what could’ve gone through Evie’s head to make her think that doing such a thing was okay, but it wasn’t. Nothing about what Bellamy had to experience tonight was okay. I hardly knew anything about the guy, but what I did know wasn’t good, and the fact that Evie knew more? Or, no…the fact that she knew mostly everything that he’d done…that pisses me off. She openly invited someone who hurt Bellamy to her show. I don’t fucking like that one bit. Evie has just gotten herself on my permanent shit list.
Bellamy shuts her eyes, and before I can say something to calm her down the tears start flowing. Flowing is such an understatement, pouring is more like it. She’s been holding all this shit in since it happened. My poor, poor Sugar.
“Bell…” I coax, her eyes open gently, and her lip is trembling.
“He sold photos of me to the press, to Summer Poole, and she blasted them out everywhere. He tried to ruin me, they deemed me as some status hungry whore. Evie knew every awful thing people said about me. She was there when I cried myself to sleep a few times. She…I just don’t understand how she could have thought this was okay. It was everything but okay!” she cries. I move and sit behind her on the bed, tugging her against my chest, holding her as close to me as I possibly can. My heart is breaking for her right now; seeing her emotions unraveling before my eyes is making me furious. She shouldn’t be feeling anything that she is right now. The only thing that she should be doing is getting a decent night of fuckin’ sleep.
“He’s threatening me, and she fucking brought him here!” Bellamy sobs, hiccupping over and over again as she speaks.
“What do you mean?” I ask, not sure what she’s talking about.
“He sent me a text a couple weeks ago,” she mumbles, her tears falling onto my arms. “He threatened to leak an adult video to everyone.”
“A sex tape?”
“Yes, a sex tape.” She cries again, lurching forward. I pull her back against me, trying to think of whatever I can to help calm her down. No way in hell is this bastard going to get away with this, with what now seems to be the constant harassment of her, or with trying to hurt her again. No. No way am I going to allow this to happen.
“You don’t worry about a damn thing, alright, Sugar? I’m gonna take care of it.”
Bellamy’s red, tear stained face turns towards mine. “How?”
“I just will, sweetheart. I promise.” I press a soft kiss to her lips and pull her with me as I lean down on the bed. She’s gonna get all the snuggles she fucking needs tonight.
Zac is going to regret ever fucking with Bellamy. I’m a man of my word, and boy do I keep my promises. My brothers and I will make damn sure of that.
***
I let her sleep in all morning, we didn’t have to be out until eleven and luckily for me, she woke up a little after ten. I paid the girl at the front desk for the room and took Bellamy to a diner down the street for some breakfast. Overnight I’d gotten a couple of texts from Slash asking where we were, and I told him. He made a smartass comment how Elena was gonna have my head for splitting from him, and she probably would. The orders were that two of us were supposed to be watching Bellamy, not just one. I’d deal with that when I had to. Right now, I was focused on one thing. Making sure this girl had a good day.
After breakfast, we headed straight for my bike and back out onto the road. I loved riding this time of year, the weather was perfect – a little chilly at times, but it wasn’t anything that I couldn’t handle. The way the crisp air would brush against your face through every turn, it was exhilarating. The first time I’d gotten on a bike I knew that I wouldn’t stop. It was like a man finding his first love. When you find her, you never want to leave.
In my case, a motorcycle was my first love.
I drove until I turned onto the little pebbled drive taking me to the one person who’s been biting my ass for not visiting her the past couple weeks.
My momma.
“Where are we?” Bellamy shouts over the engine, I drive up slowly to the cabin until we park just out front. My momma’s old beat up Subaru is sitting out front which tells me that she’s home.
“Home,” I respond back, kicking my stand and turning off my bike. I stand up and wait for Bell to get off the bike first, and once she does I follow.
“Home?” she asks, a confused look across her face, she removes the helmet and sets it on the seat, looking around into the woods that surround us and then onto my childhood home.
“Well, I’ll be! Abraham Warren, is that you?” I hear my momma screaming the second she darts out the door, this little old lady has my heart and dammit…she knows it. The guys back at the club used to give me shit for coming up every week, making jokes that I’m a momma’s boy – and I am – but when Enzo and Reed came up one time for dinner, they didn’t complain. They always demand we have plenty of banana pudding for every club party, and boy does my momma make sure that happens. “And lord have mercy, did you bring a girl with you?” She’s in a pair of cutoff daisy dukes and a dark blue t-shirt. I’ve told her time and time again she can’t be wearing’ this type of shit being her age and all. The woman just shakes her head and tells me to mind my own damn business. One time she threatened me with no food, so I stopped that shit right there.
The woman knows the way to my heart, it’s straight through my stomach.
“Abraham, ay?” Bellamy giggles, elbowing me in the arm.
“Yeah, she has a weird kind with the dude on the cash.”
Bellamy busts out into laughter and my momma shoots me a glare that could stop me dead. “No, he’s named after his father sweetie. I’m Malinda, Mal for short! Now, where on Earth did he pick up a good lookin’ girl like you from? No way you’re just some bar bimbo.”
“Ma,” I groan, glaring at her.
“What? I’m just sayin’ I can see alla the class over this one, so how the hell did you find her? I can already tell she’s too good for the likes of you, baby!”
Bellamy covers her mouth, laughing into her hand. “Elena is her sister.”
“Elena? Sweet spitfire Elena is related to this one? Well, hot diggity! You’ve got yourself a fight, dontcha?”
“My ma’ loves Elena, they’re two kindred spirits,” I tell Bellamy, quoting her exact words the last time she crashed a club party because that’s what she does. She makes pudding and then invites herself.
“I’m Bellamy, Bell or Bells for short. It’s so lovely to meet you. Sorry, I’m so…ah…underdressed. The caveman here dulled me down a bit.”
My ma wacked me so hard I stumbled back. “What the hell was that for?” I snap, growling at the woman.
“For dullin’ this girl’s sparkle! How could you do that to her?”
I sigh, rubbing my hand across my beard. “You realize I couldn’t dull this lil diamond’s light even if I had a gun held to my head telling me I had to, right?”
My momma grins like she’s never grinned before, and before she even says it I groan. “You’re different than all the others. He actually likes you!”
“He’s not too bad himself,” Bellamy admits, smiling.
Out of nowhere, I hear Jackson moving his big ole ass over to us and in comes the 101 Dalmatians, otherwise known as the herd.
“Oh. My. GOD!” Bellamy squeals, instantly dropping to the ground. “Oh, my god! Oh, my god!” She repeats over and over again. “I’m in Heaven!”
“Welcome to my humble abode, babycakes, something tells me I’m about to love you more than Abe, and baby…take one of them. It’s a gift from me to you. I’m sure he’s not gonna let go of your ass anyhow, so consider a puppy an apology from me for downgrading to my son.”
I look down at Bellamy, whose eyes catch my own. My momma usually doesn’t know half of what she’s talking about, but today she sure does. No way in hell am I gonna let this one slip through the cracks, and she just was gifted a puppy. I’m pretty sure I’ve won some major brownie points right about now.
I knew bringing her home would do me some good. I just didn’t know how much.