CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Diesel
“She doesn’t have to cook,” Tank said before tipping back his beer.
We were sitting at one of the dining tables in the far corner. I chose the furthest table from the stove, like always, so I could blend into the background. It was also so I could be away from Ellie. Not that I wanted to be. My mind was a constant pull of wanting to touch her and afraid that if I did she would break. It was best for me to keep my distance, even if I could see it was hurting her.
“You could tell her that she doesn’t have to, you know?” Tank asked, pinning me with a pointed look.
I grunted in response. It was true, it wasn’t her place to make the food. But I could tell she liked it. She smiled when she was in the kitchen. She beamed when the brothers thanked her. And she practically buzzed in her skin when she saw that everyone was satisfied. She liked taking care of people and who was I to tell her not to.
“She’s a good one,” Tank continued, not taking the hint that I didn’t want to talk about it. “You’ve seen her with Grass. She’s gonna make a great mom. Grass told me she’s his favorite, goin’ around calling her Auntie El now. Don’t tell Reagan that, though.” He chuckled at that. I half smiled remembering her interactions with the little man. I could see that he was quickly becoming her favorite, too.
“Yeah, she’s going to be a great mom,” I said, half aware I was speaking out loud.
“She’s different. She’s not like Tammy or even Jessica. The brothers look at her and they see a life. They see themselves going home to that every day with a damn smile on their face. They see a future.” I felt the anger rise up at his words. The thought of anyone else taking a place in her life like that sent a pain straight through my chest.
Deep down I knew he was talking about it figuratively. She was just that type of girl, the girl you would want forever with. And maybe in some ways, it had given the guys a hope that they could find theirs out there.
“Figure out whatever the fuck’s got you so messed up in the head that you can’t see that that—” he jabbed a finger in the direction of Ellie, “right there is your future. And it looks like a damn good one from where I’m sittin’.” His voice was gruff and harsh. It felt like he was slapping me upside the head. He snatched up his beer bottle and walked away, leaving me to think over his words.
He wasn’t wrong. As much as I wanted to be pissed at him, I couldn’t. I was stuck so far in my head and in the past, that I couldn’t let my guard down and realize what I could’ve had. And a future with Ellie by my side would be amazing. She had become the focal point of my dreams. However, she was also the reason for the resurfacing nightmares.
Ever since I’d gotten drunk and fucked Tammy, Ellie had been avoiding me. I could tell. She wouldn’t even look at me when we were in the same room. She wasn’t bitchy about it. She didn’t look at me and pointedly turn her back to me, giving me the cold shoulder. No, what she did was worse. More heartbreaking. When she knew I was around, she simply ducked her head, the floor suddenly becoming the thing that held her gaze. I fucked up. I knew that. It was all on me, but I had no idea how to fix it. Maybe I didn’t want to. It was better that way, then neither one of us would be let down.
I tried, drunk as I was, to be there for her that night. It was all wrong. But then the doc told us we were having a girl. That was all it took for my walls to build back up. I didn’t know what to expect and in reality, I imagined any answer would have sent me slinking back into the same place. But a girl, that stopped my heart for a few seconds; the pain seeped in too fast and hard. I didn’t know what kind of sick joke the universe was trying to play on me, and I didn’t have it in me to find the light in it all.
“Everything looks good here. The baby is growing at the perfect rate,” the doctor says moving the wand around Rachel’s belly. I can see fingers and toes on the monitor, and I have a grin that is threatening to spread off my face. “If you would like, I can tell you the sex of the baby today.”
“Yes!” I say a little too eagerly. I clear my throat and try to reign in my excitement. “Yes please, doctor. We would like to know.” Rachel only nods when the doctor looks at her.
“You are having a little girl,” he says after a few moments moving the wand around to get the right angle. He prints off a few pictures and hands them to me. “I’ll see you again in a month.”
He stands up and I shake his hand as I thank him. Once we are alone in the room, Rachel wipes off the gel left on her stomach and gets up without a word. I’m on the phone calling my parents before we even make it to the car. They are excited and giving me loud and loving congratulations. I know my mom is going to go off the deep end buying everything for her first granddaughter.
I snapped myself back into reality and stalked off to my room. Once inside, I flopped down on the edge of the bed and reached for my wallet. I pulled the small black and white picture out from the depths of the hidden sleeve. My fingers flipped the worn edge back and forth as I stared down at the old ultrasound picture. I breathed in deeply, fighting the tears that were stinging my eyes. Everything I tried to keep buried in the deepest parts of my mind was coming forward to meet me like a tidal wave, hitting me with a force that I couldn’t stand up against.
I had wanted this life once. I had been happy about the child I was going to have. I was excited to spend my life with the woman I loved and the child that would have soon held my heart. But in the blink of an eye, I saw how cruel life could be and how quickly everything could slip away. Those fears and feelings were everything that held me back with Ellie. I knew it wasn’t fair to her. But I also knew that if I let her in and something happened, it would break me.
I needed to talk to someone. Tank’s words played in my head and I couldn’t deny he was right. I’d known everything he had said all along. And while Tank may have been the closest thing to a best friend I had, I needed someone outside the whole situation.
Only one person came to mind. One person that I always felt I could open up to, even though I rarely did. The problem was, it wasn’t an over the phone kind of conversation.
I headed to the bar and found Cal on one of the couches. Hannah, one of the club whores, was grinding on his lap while he whispered in her ear. Then was not the time to interrupt him if I wanted to get what I wanted. So, I grabbed a beer and tried to be as social as I could. That meant I mostly nodded and grunted as Bocca and Brand chatted about what-the-fuck-ever. I tried my best to follow along, but my mind kept drifting.
Cal and Hannah headed off not too long after that. They walked down the hall in the direction of his room and I held back a frustrated growl. I could be a patient man, but right then I was fucking ready to get out. Normally, I could take off. But with lockdown, I had to have a damn good reason to leave the compound. And I had to run it by Cal.
An hour of random conversation and a crappy action movie later, Cal came back out. For a while, I’d wondered if he had fallen asleep after his activity was done. I was a smart man, and there was no way I was going to barge in on him in his private time unless it was an emergency. He grabbed himself a beer and sat down on a stool at the bar. I walked over, trying my best to not seem eager or twitchy.
“Hey, D,” he said as I took a seat next to him. “Somethin’ on your mind?” He was good that way, knew how to read people. Just like I did.
“Can I take the next patrol? Maybe get a little extra time out?” I said calmly. He stared at me a beat too long.
“Yeah. Brand is goin’ out next. Probably in an hour. Tell him you’ll take his run.” He took a swig of his beer and watched me. “Might be a good idea to find Chris and see how it’s goin’ at the bar. Just to check and make sure everythin’ is runnin’ smoothly for him.” He nodded, it was almost his version of a fucking wink. I wasn’t fooling anyone and neither was he. I shook my head as I held back a chuckle.
“Thanks, prez.” I stood and slapped him on the shoulder.
In a slight daze, I found myself pulling up in front of the familiar small house. A heavy sigh escaped my lungs as I made my way up the four steps and across the deep-set, covered porch to the front door. I raised my hand and paused for a long second before letting it fall hard against the wood three times.
Chris answered the door rubbing the sleep out of his heavy eyes. His hair was a sexy mess, and he was only wearing a pair of boxers. A pair that had funny, dancing cows wearing hula skirts all over. A desirable sight that didn’t go unnoticed to parts of me.
That was Chris. Light and fun. Sexy and playful. Sometimes, I hated bringing my darkness into his atmosphere. But he never made me feel like I weighed him down. So, the question was, what the hell was I doing there at that moment?
“This isn’t one of those visits, is it?” He asked in a rough and amused voice. When I didn’t answer he pushed the door open wider and turned around, walking off in the direction of the kitchen. “I’ll make some coffee.”
My boots were heavy on the hardwood floor as I made my way in and flopped down on one of the couches in the living room. A few moments later, Chris darted up the stairs to his room, taking them two at a time. Only to return back down wearing a pair of gray sweatpants. A slight smile played on my lips as I took him in, his beautiful chest still bare and glowing in the dim light.
The silence was thick as he went back into the kitchen. I still couldn’t figure out how I had gotten so messed up in the head that I’d ended up there. Something had been clenching me tight in my chest ever since the moment Ellie walked into my life. And the more she was around, the harder it became to breathe. Was it a good thing or a bad thing? I had no idea. Part of me needed to sort this out away from the club. Not that I didn’t trust my brothers. I was never one to talk about what was going on inside of me. It was simply that Chris was outside of everything. He was always there, on the edge of everything, yet somehow, always a constant in my life.
He set down two steaming cups of coffee on the low table and took his place on the couch across from me. The distance felt a tiny bit foreign but needed.
For the briefest of moments, I wondered what it would be like to share him with Ellie. I knew there would always be a part of me that would want him. Not that Ellie wouldn’t ever be enough, it was just different. But that being said, Ellie somehow managed to hold a bigger part of me. The part that I’d spent so much time trying to keep safe and closed off. That was when it hit me, hard. Everything was fucking different in my life. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the feeling of uncertainty and the unknown.
“So, I hear you got some shit going on,” Chris said not beating around the bush. My lips tipped up in a tight smirk.
“Reagan and her damn mouth,” I grumbled and he laughed.
“Yeah, but to be fair, I knew something was off with you before Reagan filled me in on some things. I just…” He blew out a hard breath as he scratched the back of his neck. “Shit, I don’t know what to say.”
“Yep. That’s about right,” I said, sinking back into the couch. “I don’t know what the fuck to do, man. She—Ellie—is unlike anyone I have ever met. She makes me want a future again. And I don’t know how to let go and see that I could have something good. Does that make sense?”
He nodded slowly as he took in everything I said.
“You’ve walked around with the weight of the world on your shoulders for as long as I’ve known you. You’re a good man, Diesel, but you never see it. You let the darkness of the past stop you from being able to see the brightness of the future.” He paused and pinned me with a hard stare. His golden brown eyes sparkled with truth. He was playful but never a bullshitter. I swallowed hard at his words. It reminded me of Mel’s last words to me.
“Ellie’s my light,” I mumbled, not meaning to actually speak the realization out loud.
“I think that if you want it, then you need to let go. You’ve always kept everything locked inside. You never talk about what makes you the way you are. You fuck anything and everything you can get your hands on, and in the end, you still aren’t satisfied.” He shot me a knowing look.
I couldn’t exactly deny it. But I never wanted him to think he was just a faceless nobody to me. True, I had a lot of sex, but I always knew who I was fucking. That didn’t necessarily mean that I had feelings beyond that moment. But maybe, sometimes it did. Or perhaps it depended on the person. I didn’t know why I was having such a hard time putting Chris into that box. He was more than most; meant more than most. I decided that it was because we were friends outside of the bedroom.
I shrugged, my brain started to hurt from all of the things running through it.
“I don’t—” I started, but he waved me off, shaking his head.
“It’s not about me. I get we are different. I’m not even worried about that. I’m just telling you how it is.” He shrugged. “You have all these rules that you hide behind to keep control of everything.”
“Yeah, that’s how this all started.” I huffed out a laugh. “I broke my fuckin’ rules.”
“But do you regret it?” His lips tilted up in a sexy smirk. Like he already knew the answer.
“No. If I had to do it all over again I wouldn’t change it,” I said. “No, that’s a lie. I wouldn’t leave her at that diner to go back to her fuck of an asshole fiancé.” I knew coming here would be what I needed. He had this way of pulling all the answers I knew myself out of me.
My phone rang before we could say anything else. Chris knew enough about the club to keep his nose out of it. He nodded to me and walked into the kitchen, taking his empty mug with him.
“Yeah?” I answered.
“We got him,” Cal’s voice said tight and gruff. He didn’t need to say more. I knew what he was talking about and I had to clear my head and get the dark me ready.
I tucked my shaky thoughts of Ellie away and brought up the anger and hate of my past. The feelings always seemed so close to the surface that I feared that I would never be able to let go. And if I couldn’t let go, then I could never give Ellie and my baby all of me.
“On my way,” I growled low and hung up.
Chris walked back into the room, took one look at me and nodded. He could see it. He knew my mask was in place and I was all business.
“Take care of yourself, Diesel.”
I turned to leave, Chris following close behind me to the door. I paused in the open space and turned to him. I wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of guy, but I had a huge urge to pull him into my arms. It was weird. But, for just a second, I took his advice and let go.
The wide-eyed look on his face was almost comical as I roughly wrapped my arms around him. He held me tight for a beat, then patted my back.
“I’m here, ya know, if you ever need,” He cupped my face with one hand, his thumb bushing back and forth on my scruff.
This was some sort of goodbye. We both knew it. A part of whatever thing we had would die that night. Maybe we would carry on as friends, maybe not. Deep down, I knew that we had filled the same void we’d each had, without judgment or explanations. It just worked. But now, things would be different.
“Thanks, Chris,” I said, my arm slid down and I squeezed his hand once before heading out the door.
I rode back to the compound with a hard mask of revenge on my face. It was time and I craved the blood I would soon have on my hands.