Bastard was getting irritated.
Two days since Kit jetted from the clubhouse and he couldn’t get someone to answer at Andi’s apartment to save his life.
His motorcycle roared as he pulled into the parking lot of Andi’s complex. Felt like he’d been coming here non-stop the past couple of days. He visited at almost all hours; between runs, on his way to lunch, on his way back to the clubhouse. Just to see if someone would answer then. Kit had been off the last two nights at the club, too, or else he would have made sure she talked to him there.
But Andi was gone. Practically like she moved out. And if Kit was in there, she was hiding real good. Nobody could mistake his knocking for something else. Sometimes even a neighbor answered, thinking it was their own door.
God dammit Kit, where did you go?
He’d been worried, that morning, about leaving her so suddenly. The Damned Devils president had called him at the ripe hour of seven a.m. for an emergency run; he barely had time to pull on his underwear before bolting out the door. Only hours later did he realize Kit would be waking up alone, with no information about where he was, when he’d be back. And like idiots, they still hadn’t exchanged numbers.
Bastard stomped up to the apartment complex as though the determination in his step might somehow influence the outcome this time. Fucking answer, somebody. He needed to find Kit, and keep her around for good this time. Get her goddamn number. Make sure she didn’t fly away an out of his life forever.
Bastard pounded on the door, tense as he awaited the result. There was rustling behind the door, or was he just imagining it? At this point, he could imagine Kit’s voice if he tried hard enough.
No answer. He pounded again, clenching and unclenching his fists as he waited. He’d come here day and night for a year if he had to.
Thump thump thump. Third try. This time, in the bloated silence between pounding on the door, he did hear a rustle. Footsteps, even. And then finally…
“Jesus, what do you want?” A bleary eyed Andi opened the door, squinting up at Bastard with one eye. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Yeah, it’s me.” Bastard swallowed a knot of anxiety. “Where’s Kit?”
Andi straightened, clarity making steps across her face. “Why should I tell you?”
Bastard deflated. Hard balling the only person with information about Kit probably wasn’t the best approach. “I need to see her. I need to talk to her. She left the clubhouse the other morning before I could get back and explain.”
Andi’s eyes narrowed. “And I’m sure you had some perfectly wonderful explanation, didn’t you?”
Bastard’s nostrils flared. He should have expected this resistance from Andi. She probably didn’t think so highly of him. And probably neither did Kit anymore. Not that he’d really started out with such a high score card.
“I know you don’t wanna hear it. And that’s fine. But I’m not gonna stop coming here until I get to see her. She’s carrying my baby. I need to talk to her.”
Andi’s mouth formed a thin line and she crossed her arms, eyes boring into him like a drill. “She’s not here.”
Bastard sighed. “Okay. When will she be back?”
“She doesn’t come around much anymore.” Andi picked at something on the doorframe, her bottom lip jutted out. “She doesn’t live here. She got her own place.”
Bastard nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets. This was progress, at least. “It too much to ask for you to tell me where she’s at now?”
Andi laughed bitterly. “Nice try, bud. I’m not giving that up.”
“Fine. Worth a shot.” He gnawed on the inside of his lip, wondering where to go from here. “Can you at least give me her number?”
“You seriously don’t have it?”
“No.”
Andi scoffed. “It’s the 21st century. You don’t survive if you don’t have people’s numbers.”
“Yeah, point made.” He worked his jaw from side to side. “Listen, I just want to talk to Kit. Can you help me out or not? I don’t need to be reminded of all the ways I’ve fucked up.”
Andi seemed to soften at that comment. She let a small sigh, studying something on the ground. “How about I take your number, and then see if she wants it?”
“Fine. Whatever gets me closer to her.”
Andi disappeared into the apartment and then returned a moment later with her phone. It was hard to believe he’d ever been on the inside of her place. Drinking wine like he belonged. That time felt like eons ago now. Before he’d burned Kit. Before he was going to be a dad.
“You haven’t gone back to her work?” Andi swiped her phone on.
“No, I have. She just hasn’t been in. Trust me, I’ve checked.”
Andi sniffed. “Okay. Tell me your number.”
Bastard relayed his number. Once Andi confirmed it was correct, a tense silence passed between them.
“She probably won’t be at that bar much longer,” Andi said. “Just so you know. She’s been looking for work that’ll better support her as a single mom.”
Bastard’s chest tightened. Seemed like in just a few days, Kit had gone ahead and made a whole lot of decisions without him. Probably she thought he’d never come back, and that she’d have to forge ahead on her own. Kit, you couldn’t be more wrong. “Single mom?”
“Yeah.” Andi shrugged. “You know how it is. Easy enough for guys to slip away, just never come back. She’s the one who’s gotta deal with this. She’s the one who needs to be prepared.”
Andi was right, but her words grated on him all the same. She didn’t know his past…didn’t know how wrong she’d be. “Yeah, well, Kit’s not gonna be a single mom. Sorry if that bursts your bubble, but I’m gonna be around for this kid.”
Andi looked him up and down, her expression the equivalent of I’ll believe it when I see it. “Well. I’ll pass on your message.”
“Thanks.” Bastard didn’t want to leave. It felt like closing this small window of connection to Kit, but what else was there to say? If he stuck around much longer, he and Andi would probably start fighting.
He jerked himself away from her door, heading for his bike while his mind spun with questions and worries. It didn’t seem right that he couldn’t talk to Kit right away. And even though it pissed him off, he respected Andi’s protection of her friend. She was a good friend, even if it presented a major roadblock for his goals.
But he wasn’t giving up. Oh no. Kit would see him soon, whether at work or somewhere else.
Now that she had his baby, he had no choice but to make her his.
***
Kit was only half ready when the knock on her door sounded. It was either Gary or Bastard, and her heart nearly burst out of her chest with hope that it was the latter. He was the only one bold enough to approach her dressing room after so many fuck ups, and part of her liked the thought that he was still trying to make good with her.
Andi had told her he’d stopped by and asked for her number. That seemed promising. But she wasn’t going to get her hopes up. She’d let it sit for a few days before reaching out.
Just like he lets things sit for a while before doing any damn thing about it.
She sauntered toward the door, heart in her throat as she pulled it open. Gary stood on the other side, dark brow arched.
“What’s up?” She pushed an earring through her lobe, disappointment tremoring through her.
“You have a visitor.”
Hope sparked once more. It could still be him. “Who is it?”
“Burly biker type. Same guy who came back here last week.”
“Oh.” She tried not to let the excitement show on her face. If she was going to be strong and steady and stable, it started by not falling for someone like Bastard. It started by standing up to these childish, whimsical fantasies about falling in love. “What does he want?”
“Well, he wants to see you. I told him I’d ask if he could come back here.”
“Thanks for asking first this time,” she said dryly, heading back to her vanity. She settled onto the soft cushion, her cheeks lit up as she considered her options. If he came back here…she might completely dissolve into his arms. Images of their steamy night at the clubhouse flooded her, sent her thighs clenching together. The only good memory of that place was that night, locked away in his room. The rest of the clubhouse was a sty, fit to be burned. She scowled. “Let him come back. I don’t care.”
Gary nodded, heading down the hallway. She practiced hanging onto that disgust, trying to conjure the exact words his brothers had called out to her. Don’t you forget where he comes from…what sort of life he leads. It was no life that she wanted for herself. It was no life for her baby, either.
A few moments later, slow, heavy footsteps approached. She didn’t turn around when she felt him enter the doorway. All the skin on her arms prickled. She swallowed hard.
“Finally found you,” Bastard said.
“Yeah, well,” was all she could say.
“Why are you avoiding me?”
She shrugged, rummaging through a makeup bag. She had no idea what she was even looking for, just needed something to occupy her attention. “I just don’t really have anything to say to you.”
“I thought we had…” Bastard trailed off, letting out a puff of air. “I thought we had talked about all this.”
“And I thought you were even remotely interested in supporting me,” she spat out, the words dripping like acid from her tongue. She couldn’t hide the anger now. It would all come pouring out.
“I am,” he said, his voice hard. “I don’t know why you think I’m not.”
“Oh, I don’t know why I might think that. Maybe it’s because you disappear, all the fucking time. Maybe it’s because you don’t think twice about it, because why should you? You can walk away whenever you want. Isn’t that right? This isn’t really your problem, it’s mine.” Okay, so she had a few things to say to him.
She looked back at him over her shoulder. His jaw flexed, eyes burning on her. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she said. “You are not the type of guy who’s gonna stick around. You’re a fucking nomad, first of all. And second of all, you’ve never done anything but ghost. I’m sick of ghosting. I want someone who will stay.”
“I want to stay,” he said in a low, firm voice.
“Oh, really?” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that? You’re gonna trade in your lifetime of sleeping around and going wherever you want whenever you want? And, oh, another thing: the way your brothers talked to me the other day, Bastard, was the most disrespectful shit I’ve ever heard. You couldn’t pay me to go back to your clubhouse. And if that’s who you hang around with, then I already know all I need to know about the type of guy you are.”
He rolled his head in a slow circle, fists balled at his side. “You don’t know shit about what type of guy I am.”
“Well I know what you’ve shown me.” She swallowed a knot of fear, preparing to repeat Andi’s words. “You’ve ghosted on me, let me down, bought me a pregnancy test, and then disappeared. That doesn’t make you a stable guy, or even a nice guy. It just makes you halfway decent.”
A crippling silence descended over the room, and she was scared to look at him. He was getting pissed, she could feel it. But she was pissed too. She had earned the right to tell him exactly what she thought about him.
Bastard’s mouth was a thin line. He kicked at the doorframe. “Good to know you think so highly of me.”
“Should I feel some other way?”
“You won’t even give me a fucking chance,” he said.
“I gave you a chance, the last time you came back here. That was fucking hard for me, okay? And look where it got me. Left in the dust, again. Alone in a creepy clubhouse. And harassed by a bunch of men you call your brothers.” She scoffed, turning to the mirror. “Not exactly the family I want to marry into, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m going to deal with them,” he said in a low voice, his gaze on the ground. “Immediately.”
“It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t. My child will never know them.” She leaned closer to the mirror, examining her hairline. Anything to distract herself from the pulsing attention of Bastard, which drew her in like a tractor beam. His gaze was so intense it could practically cut her in half.
“Don’t be like this,” he warned.
“I’m not being like anything.” She whipped around in her seat, glaring at him. “I’m the pregnant one. I have to do what’s best for my baby. Don’t you get that?”
Bastard’s chest rose and fell as he watched her, but he didn’t say anything.
“You’re just a biker. I get it. This is your lifestyle. I’m not trying to cramp that.” She flicked her wrist, hating the tremor of regret whirling through her. This didn’t feel right. Dismissing him wasn’t right. But it was the only course of action that made sense. “Don’t bother sticking around.”
She let a heavy pause go by before she dared to turn around and look at him. When she twisted in her seat, he was gone.
He was fucking gone.
Tears pricked at her eyes and she leapt to her feet, slamming the door shut. Emotion flooded her, sent a wave of anguish trembling through her. So it’s that easy to get rid of him? She hated how disappointed she was. How deceived, yet again, by her own hopes and desires that Bastard might somehow magically be different. She leaned against the door, letting a hiccupping sob escape her before she sunk to her feet, wrapping her arms around her knees.
She wanted Bastard but having him wasn’t right. Her future child didn’t need that drama, that instability. Better to just make up a story, relegate Bastard to some sort of fairy tale.
That way, she, and her baby, would never get hurt again.