"Things?" I asked because it sounded like he was angry with me.
"The future—yours and mine. I didn't say everything I said tonight just to walk away from you again."
He didn't wait for an answer. He walked to his bike and kicked it to life and pulled out of the lot, and I watched his taillight chase the pack that had passed until he disappeared around the bend at the edge of town.
I sat there on the step and tried to make sense of any of it. Garret had made it clear under no uncertain terms that he couldn't have more with me than just sex. So what future was he talking about? Because I certainly wasn't going to sleep with him to make him happy all while my heart continued to wrestle and be broken bit by bit.
I locked up the diner and got on my bike and rode toward my parents' house down streets I used to know by heart, but the whole way home, the guilt ate at me, chewing through the warmth of what had just happened and leaving something cold in its place.
Garret wanted a chance to do something different and everything inside me that had missed him wanted to give it to him. But Kip was at my parents' house right now, asleep in the bedroom I grew up in, and Garret didn't know he existed. Telling him about Kip would destroy whatever we'd just started, and keeping Kip from him was destroying me from the inside out.
There was no version of this that didn't end with someone getting hurt, and the longer I let Garret believe we had a real shot, the worse it was going to be when the truth came out.
I pulled into the driveway and killed the engine and sat there in the dark.
Pushing him away again would hurt us both. But it would hurt less than watching him find out he had a son I'd kept from him. That kind of wound wouldn't heal. And Garret, for all his strength and stubbornness, wasn't the kind of man who forgave a betrayal that deep.
I'd rather he think I didn't want him than to watch him look at me like I had betrayed him.
No matter how bad it hurt me.
14
GARRET
I caught the pack a mile south of town and fell into formation at the rear. Butch glanced back and gave me a nod, and I returned it and matched the pace of the bikes ahead of me, but my mind was still on Sara. I couldn't believe how foolish I was losing control like that. I knew what Fox would say dragging another woman into the club right now with things how they were.
The Locusts had set up shop in our territory selling their drugs, which was probably what we were out on the hunt for again tonight, and if any one of them found out she was my weak point, I’d end up having to explain to Anne why she was losing another family member. It was just the way things went. They'd threaten or harm Sara, and I'd never forgive myself. I knew better, and I caved because I wanted her.
The wind whipped across my skin, making my cut flap hard on my back, and I focused on the taillights ahead of me. Peter was lying in a hospital bed dying, and while that wasn’t my fault, I felt the pull of guilt for cozying up to his little girl again. I was way too old for her and I knew it, and the fact that she was really hurting over this made her that much more susceptible to beinginfluenced. Folks might look at us like I was a predator, which would draw a lot of unwanted attention which Fox would hate.
I felt the urge to pull back from her and revved my engine, antsy to get this over with so I could go have a drink. We rode the rest of the way in formation down a county road that every club in the state knew belonged to us. When the grain elevators rose up against the dusky sky ahead, the pack slowed and fanned out. Our engines dropped to a low growl as we rolled off the pavement and onto the gravel lot behind the far building.
The Locust boys were exactly where Butch said they'd be and heard us coming. By the time we rolled into the gravel lot behind the elevator, they were already on their feet with their product stashed and their hands at their sides. Three of them were spread out in a loose triangle between their bikes and the elevator wall. They'd been expecting trouble eventually. You didn't set up shop on another club's road without knowing the bill would come due.
We fanned out and circled them, cutting off the exit to the road. Our engines died one at a time until the lot went quiet.
Butch was off his bike first. He walked straight at the one in the middle, a stocky guy with a braided beard and a Locust patch so new the stitching still looked clean. "You know whose road this is?" he asked, puffing out his chest. I'd seen him do similar about a hundred times just this year. He liked confrontation, and he liked being the one to pick a fight, which was exactly where this was headed.
"I know whose road it used to be." The guy was green, and way too young to be out here flapping his jaws like that.
"Used to be?" Butch stopped about three feet from him and cocked his head. "That's cute. You rehearse that?"
"We ain't looking for trouble," the one on the left said. He was older than the other two and his eyes kept darting between our bikes, counting heads. "We're just doing business."
"Your business is on your road," Rusty called from behind me. "Not on ours… You ain't got no business here." I heard him spit as I swung my leg over my bike and forced myself not to wince at the pain. Anymore, I let the brothers deal with most of the fighting, but lately, it'd gotten worse, like someone purposefully lit these guys' pants on fire or something.
"Roads don't have names on them, brother."
"Don't call me brother." Rusty swung off his bike and walked up beside Butch. "You got about ten seconds to get on your bikes and ride east before we decide to stop being nice."
The stocky one in the middle looked past Butch and Rusty at the rest of us. He wasn't stupid. He could count just fine, and the numbers weren't in his favor. But pride was a hell of a drug, and these boys had been selling enough of the real thing to think they were untouchable.
"We paid our dues to be here," he said. "Talk to your president if you've got a problem with it."
"Our president sent us," Butch said. "This is him talking."
The stocky one's jaw worked for a second, clenching and loosening up like he was chewing snuff. Then he looked at his boys and gave a small nod, and for a moment I thought they were going to mount up and leave without a fight. Instead, theyoung one on the left threw a sucker punch at Rusty that caught him on the cheekbone and snapped his head sideways.
