Chapter Twenty-Four
Summer
Tigger is my hero, my saving grace. He’s saved me from having to face my friends alone and helped me to face the truth, even if I’m not the one who ended up telling them my secret. He did it for me, and now I care about him even more than I did before. He’s my protector, and I love him all the more for it.
There, I admitted it. I love him. We may not have known each other very long, and this relationship may be new and just starting, but I feel this strong connection to him both physically and emotionally. It’s almost like I know him better than I know myself. Like my body recognizes that I’ve found my counterpart in another and I’m not going to fight it.
The problem is, I don’t know if he feels the same way and I don’t have the courage to voice this to him and tell him I’m crazy about him. He might just think I’ve gone mentally insane or something. Perhaps I have, maybe I’ve got a couple of screws loose, and this is going to be the final time before I go completely nuts. I might as well enjoy the ride then because I’ll be damned if I don’t give this my all.
I think about asking him where we are going when we reach a stoplight at the corner, but I don’t do it, he’s still shaking, his body jerking every couple of seconds like much more and he’s going to burst. I wrap my arms tightly around him and rub my hands over his stomach, pressing my head into the small of his back. He reaches one hand down and squeezes my hand, turning his head to the side so he can look at me. I can’t see him clearly through his helmet, but he looks like he’s nervous.
What the hell could he have to be nervous about?
All too soon he’s turning away and breaking the connection when the light turns green. We pass a street I’m all too familiar with, and I think he’s going to stop when The Dragon comes into sight on our left, but he keeps driving past it and takes a road I remember taking in the dead of night. A road my mystery man took me up not too long ago. Butterflies fill my stomach when I think about him, and I have to force myself to focus on the present and the man in front of me.
That’s not fair to him, stay in the moment with him.
See what I mean? I’m all kinds of fucked up emotionally right now. One the one hand, I love Tigger and all the time we’ve spent together, but on the other, TR is calling out to me like a beacon of light. Speaking of which, I haven’t heard from him in a while, I’ll have to text him. We’ve exchanged a few texts, but nothing serious. Almost like he doesn’t want to spend time talking to me. We’ll be talking and all of a sudden he’ll just stop responding. Maybe he’s not serious about me or something.
We make it to the top of the familiar hill, and he pulls to a stop near the edge, and I dismount, not waiting for him, going to the very edge and looking over the side at the view below. The sun is just starting to set in the distance, coloring the beautiful sky shades of orange and pink. I admire the sky above me before looking back down at the city below and the water off in the distance. Reminds me so much of when I was a kid and loved to look out at the ocean when my parents would take me on a trip. I shiver at the thought of my mother and the way she died. She didn’t survive it after my father cheated on her and left her. No wonder I have trust issues when it comes to men.
Warm arms embrace me from behind, and I cover my hands over his when he places them on my stomach. He leans forward so he can kiss me on the cheek and I rest my head against his chest and sigh in contentment. This right here is what I needed. To get away from my friends, get to spend time with Tigger, and enjoy the view. Not worry about what’s going to happen tomorrow or next week, and not have to worry about facing everything upcoming in my life.
After a few minutes of silence, Tigger pulls me with him over to the bench overlooking the view. I go to sit on his lap, but he instead pats the space next to him. I’m a little hurt when he doesn’t allow me to sit where I want, but moments later it becomes clear why. He wants to look me in the eyes.
“You shared your secret with me, and now I feel that it’s only right that I share my big one with you. There are only three other people that know this secret; my president, VP, and Sergeant at Arms. The last two were not by choice,” he starts but stops suddenly to run his hands through his hair.
“That’s alright, take your time,” I scoot closer to him and take his face in my hands and kiss his cheek. My eyes search his, and now I see why he was so nervous. He thinks telling me his secret might change things. There is very little he could tell me that would change the way I feel about him. The only thing that could change it would be if he told me he was born a woman or that he’s gay. I’ve seen the way he reacts to me and fucks, believe me, the man isn’t either of those things.
He smiles at me softly, but his eyes still hold weariness in them.
“There is very little you could say to me that would change the way I feel, Tigger,” I tell him, giving him some space and placing my hands back in my lap when he pulls away from me.
“Tom,” he responds.
“I’m sorry, who is Tom?” I ask, my eyes searching his. That must be his name.
“That’s my real name, Tom. I came here about six years ago to Maple Valley. That’s when I turned eighteen, old enough to prospect at another club outside of the one from my hometown, and that’s why I came here. Small enough that I wouldn’t get lost in the crowd, big enough that my step-father would never find me. Seven years ago, my dad was murdered,” he stops, inhaling a shaky breath and releases it. His hands are shaking now.
I take his hands in mine and squeeze them. I offer him a smile when he looks up at me.
“My dad was the President of the Captains MC, our enemy, our second biggest next to the Nomad Jokers. He was killed by his VP, Connoly Peppers. I witnessed it, saw the whole thing, but there was little I could do, I was nobody compared to them at the time, and I had to think about my family. Long story short on that end, Connoly became President and married my mother becoming my step-father. But that’s not why I ran away,” he confesses. He bites his lip, and when he looks back over at me, there are tears in his eyes.
I wipe away the ones that fall.
“Come here,” I tell him, enveloping him in my arms. “That’s okay, you don’t have to continue.”
If this is that painful for him, I don’t want him to finish. I don’t need to know his secret that badly.
“He killed my sister, Summer. Emerson was only fourteen, and he killed her. I had to stand beside him at the funeral when they buried her in the ground and took her away from me. He did it, and my mother was so scared I would be next that she sent me away. She told me to hide and never come back. I haven’t been back a day since then. My mother has a general idea where I am, but I never told her I joined the enemy club. That’s my secret, everyone here knows me as Tom Young, but my real name is Tom Rayo, and I used to be a member of my club’s enemy. Something that could get me killed,” he looks heartbroken, having lost first his dad and then his sister must have been tough for him. We’ve both lost those that we love. Tears fill my own eyes when I think about how much we’ve both lost. Two broken, shattered hearts sitting next to one another, the question is if we can make the two parts of our broken hearts fit together as one?
“We all have a past Tigger, that’s what makes us who we are today. I don’t care if you’ve killed people in the name of your club if you slept with your enemies mother in the past, the past is the past, and it made you who you are today,” I tell him, bringing his hands up so I can kiss them.
“Come here,” he pulls on my hands and sits me on his lap where I wanted to be this entire time. There’s nothing sexual about this moment, we take the time to hold one another and look out over the darkening horizon.
Right before the sun goes completely down, he speaks again. “That’s why I feel so protective over everyone. Because of what happened to Emmy. I feel like I should’ve done more to save her, keep her safe from that monster, but at the time he seemed so big and strong, I didn’t know what to do.”
“You shouldn’t blame yourself for what was out of your control, Tigger. You weren’t strong enough then, but I bet you are now,” I tell him turning to face him.
He simply nods, lost deep in thought.
When he speaks again, I’m shocked.
“About a year ago, Kara was taken by the Nomad Jokers. She used to be married to one of their members, but that member was murdered by his own club. She had a notebook in her possession and ran here to hide from them knowing that we were their biggest enemy. They had a member, his name was Lefty. Lefty was put away for a couple of years for raping Kara. The problem is, now we think he might be out and that might have been the guy that Clara was attacked by. I’m scared to think of the other one inside the club that night being Connoly. I wouldn’t be surprised if they teamed up. The issue is the video equipment wasn’t working that night, and we have no proof of who was inside the club.”
I go to say something, but he continues before I can say anything.
“Kara was the last woman I loved. She’s the reason I am the way I am. A lot of the other women who hang around this club will tell you that I’m a cold, heartless bastard who speaks his mind and doesn’t stop to think about what comes out of his mouth, and that would be true. I stopped believing in love a long time ago, Kara was the reason I started to think love was real.”
“So what happened between the two of you then?” I ask before I can stop myself from asking. I have no right to ask him that. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“No, that’s okay, you can ask,” he kisses me softly on the lips before looking off into the distance. “She was seeing Dean. Dean has always been in love with her, but when they started having issues, I’m the one who held her at night and talked to her. I shared my bed with her, my hopes and dreams, I told her everything except what I’ve just told you, and in the end, she chose to be with Dean and not me. I wasn’t meant to fall in love, that isn’t in the cards for me. Kara was my last ditch effort at dating,” he looks sad when he says it.
“So, what’s going to happen with us then?” I can’t help but ask him that. If he doesn’t believe in love and relationships, why are we even seeing one another right now? Why spend night after night with me? Share feelings, share secrets? Does he feel obligated to tell me his secret because I told him mine?
“I’m not sure, Summer. We are just going to have to take it one day at a time and see where things go, I can’t promise you anything.”
Well that just officially burst the happy little bubble I was in and now I know I can never tell him how I feel about him.