I rolled my eyes at him and his stupid question.
“Yeah, it’s fuckin’ Ella…and fuckin’ Star...and fuckin’ everything.”
He shook his head and looked at me. “Yeah, that tells me exactly nothin’. What the hell happened? I thought things were lookin’ good for you two.” He had to raise his voice to be heard as someone cranked up the music.
I sighed and took a swig of my own. “It was, until I fucked up by not calling her – “
I was interrupted by cheers and catcalls and looked over my shoulder to see that DD had joined Diamond up on the tiny stage. Their bodies moved together, and it looked like they were getting ready to put on a show. My cock showed zero interest, and the music was giving me a headache.
“Dammit, I can’t even hear myself think. I should have just fuckin’ gone home,” I told Cowboy. He studied me for a few seconds, then motioned up the stairs.
“Why don’t you fill me in upstairs, and I’ll see if I can help you sort things out. I just need to get something from my office, and I’ll meet you up there.”
I left my now-warm beer sitting on the bar and made my way upstairs. After unlocking my door, I grabbed a fresh beer out of the fridge tucked in the corner of my room, then sat down at my small table and cracked it open. A minute later, Cowboy entered and shut the door behind him, holding a plastic container with a lid.
“This might cheer your grumpy ass up, especially since the brothers ate the ones she dropped off Monday.” Before I could ask what he was talking about, he set it on the table and snapped off the lid, revealing at least two dozen cookies. “Sinner brought these by this morning, and I stashed them in my office for safekeeping. Apparently, Ella went on a baking spree Wednesday night.”
Fucking hell, like I needed another reminder of the woman. I eyed the cookies, glaring at Cowboy as he lifted one to his lips and devoured half of it in one bite.
I downed a big gulp from my bottle, then snagged the container and pulled it toward me. I needed something to soak up this beer, I reasoned, and this would probably be the closest I’d get to tasting Ella ever again.
“So, tell me what happened,” Cowboy prompted.
I ate three cookies as I told him what went down at Inferno, and what Ella had said. Maybe he could help me figure out what the fuck to do next.
After I finished recounting what happened – her run-ins with Star on Monday and Tuesday, me bailing on her after we had sex to go to the meeting at Fallen Angels, and me inadvertently ghosting her for the past three days. Once I was done telling him about the scene at Inferno tonight, he gestured for me to hand over the container, then grabbed a handful of cookies before handing it back to me.
“Ok, let’s put aside the issue of the shit job you did communicatin’ with her for a minute. What the fuck was Star doin’? Sounds like she was tryin’ to lay claim to you, man.”
“Beats the fuck out of me. Shit’s been weird with her lately, but she said she assumed Ella was a one-and-done who was looking for more. Said she figured she was doing me a favor by getting rid of a clinger for me. I set her ass straight, and then explained the situation to Ella.”
“Did she believe you weren’t fuckin’ Star?”
I shrugged and ran my hand through my hair in frustration. “She said she did. She even teased me about having women chasing me. She wasn’t thrilled about finding Star’s half-naked ass sprawled out on my desk the next day though, and I can’t blame her for that.”
He nodded and munched on another cookie.
“Duckin’ out on her after having sex Monday was not a good look for you, especially when you dipped out after gettin’ sucked off on Tuesday. You can’t pull your usual fuck-and-duck routine with a woman like Ella.”
“I know that, dammit, but on Monday night I was just thinking about getting to the meeting with Rossi on time. You know how that asshole gets if he thinks he’s being disrespected, and it’s not my fault that we got interrupted Tuesday so I could deal with that lying motherfucker at the garage.”
“I know, but you could have explained that to her.” At my sharp look, he shrugged. “Shit, I’m not saying you should have told her that you were meeting the head of the local mafia, but you could have made it clear that you would rather have stayed with her.” He chuckled then and shook his head. “And the fact that you had to go to a strip joint two nights in a row is just fuckin’ bad luck and bad timing, man.”
“It sure as hell didn’t help,” I agreed bitterly.
“Now, as far as you not contacting her, she’s right. That was a boneheaded move, brother.”
I started to protest, but he held his hand up and talked over me.
“You should have given me a heads up. We would have sent a text from your phone tellin’ her you were sick. It’s the same story we gave everybody else, and I doubt she would have questioned not hearin’ from you for a day or two then.” He took pity on my ass when I looked confused and frustrated.
“Look, I get it. You’ve never done this before, and you have no idea what to do with a woman unless you’re in bed with her, but you can’t do that shit, man. Women love communication. It’s like the number one fuckin’ rule of relationships.” He took another sip of beer and brushed the cookie crumbs off his T-shirt.
“It’s hard when it comes to club business, but you can make it work with the right woman.”
“BeBe couldn’t do it, and she was raised in the club,” I pointed out.
“King, you know I loved your sister, but she wasn’t cut out for the MC life, and it made us both miserable more often than not. She had a hard time with it, but I think a lot of that stemmed from Ace’s appearance in y’alls lives. It was hard on BeBe, because she worshipped your dad. When she found out about Ace, it knocked Sinner off his pedestal a little in her eyes, and she was pissed as hell at him because Frankie was hurtin’ all over again with the reminder of his cheatin’. It didn’t help that Ace was a complete cunt to her from the day they met, either. He showed her every single bad side of bein’ in the club. BeBe came to distrust everything about the MC, includin’ me over time. It’s not always like that though, and you know it.”
