AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She knew how he felt though, to have another in a long line of people ripped from your life. She knew what it was like to have to lift your chin and get through it, when your heart was breaking and it hurt to breathe. She’d had everyone in her life ripped from her. Her mother, whom she barely remembered. And then foster home after foster home.
And then along came Shades. And he’d made her believe again that she could have love—that she could open up to someone. That she could let them in. And then he, too, had turned out to be nothing but a lie.
So she’d packed her beat up old car with her meager belongings, and she’d left town to build a life of her own. And she had, with a job she’d loved and co-workers that had loved her, and even a man. But that was all ripped from her, too. And now, to come back home and to lose Mama Rose and Letty, it was just too much.
It just never ended.
Every time she’d let someone in, every time she’d let herself care, they were torn from her again. It all seemed so pointless and useless to get close to anyone.
She turned to Crash and took in his devastated face. He needed her. And she’d be there for him. It was the least she could do, after all the times he’d looked out for her when she was younger. Somehow, she’d get him through this.
She wrapped her arm around him and hugged him as she looked down at the graves.
Somehow, they’d get through this together.
****
As it turned out, Crash indeed ended up staying, and good to his word, Butcher gave him a spot at the table. Shades watched him closely at every church meeting they had. Crash would always give his input when asked and didn’t hesitate to do any job Butcher threw his way, but Shades could see he was distr
acted.
His grief was seeming to turn him into a man who didn’t give a shit about anything or anybody, except maybe the club. Shades couldn’t help but wonder where that left Skylar. Shades noticed that several nights a week Crash would bunk at the clubhouse, staying in the big room they kept for out-of-town brothers. It had four sets of bunk-beds lined up around the wall. Bare mattresses that brothers would unroll their sleeping bags on top of and not much more. Shades couldn’t imagine choosing that over crawling into bed with a woman like Skylar. He supposed the magnitude of grief that Crash was dealing with could make a man pull away from others.
He often speculated on how that relationship was holding up. If Shades knew one thing, it was that things like this had a way of either breaking a relationship or making it stronger. He couldn’t help but wonder which way things would fall for this one.
He knew Skylar must be going through her own grief, which could only put more strain on the relationship. Shades could only speculate, because he hadn’t seen them together since the funeral. He couldn’t really ask why, without arousing suspicions, but she hadn’t attended any of the club parties they’d had. Crash had come, mostly out of obligation Shades figured, since he never seemed to actually party or have a good time. He mostly just sat off by himself and got quietly drunk.
Maybe the old man saw it, too, because Butcher was pushing Crash to bring Skylar to the club’s annual shrimp boil which was this weekend. Maybe he sensed something needed to be done to snap Crash out of the funk he’d fallen into.
Shades wondered if Skylar would actually come.
He was dying to see her, even though he knew it was going to kill him to watch her with another man. She was starting to become all he could think about. She consumed his thoughts day and night. Maybe if he saw her again, maybe if they worked their shit out, rehashed the past, and he finally got some answers, then maybe he’d be able to get her out of his mind.
Then maybe he’d be able to let it all go.
And let her go.
Once and for all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Skylar was in the kitchen. She’d just finished the breakfast dishes from earlier, and she was standing at the sink, looking out the window. Her mind had drifted back to that summer she’d first met Shades. That first time he pulled her to him and kissed her. At the memory, her hand lifted, her fingers absently touching her lips.
Boot steps behind her startled her out of her daydream, and she turned to see Crash walk into the kitchen. When she found out he was planning to stay in town, she’d insisted he stay with her in one of the extra rooms in this big house. He’d taken her up on it, maybe because he’d sensed she was feeling just as lost and alone as he was after their shared loss. But he spent a lot of time at the clubhouse, even sleeping there some nights. Somehow she didn’t think he truly felt comfortable in either place.
She smiled at him, her eyes moving over him as she noted that he seemed dressed to ride. A pair of sunglasses dangled from his mouth as he pulled his cut on. “Are you going out?”
He grabbed the sunglasses out of his mouth and slid them on top of his head. “Yeah. There’s this annual thing at the clubhouse today. They do a big shrimp boil, drink some beer. It’ll be a good time. Come with me.”
The smile faded from her face, and her stomach flipped at the thought of going back there and running into Shades. She couldn’t handle another face-to-face confrontation with him. Besides, she wasn’t even sure she was welcome there. At least, not by him. She shook her head. “I don’t think so, Crash.”
“Skylar, you need to get out of the house. It’s a beautiful day. Come on, take a ride with me. It’ll be fun.” She shook her head again.
“No, you go ahead. I’m not feeling much like being around people today.” She watched him rub his hand over his face, and studying him, she realized he somehow looked worried.
“I know how you feel,” he admitted softly.
She frowned, confused. “You don’t want to go either?” He shook his head, biting his lip. “Then why don’t you just stay here—with me?”
