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“What?” I asked.
He shot me a quick glance. At first, I thought he was going to blow me off, then his face contorted in indecision and he turned down the music. “I feel torn right now. I’m in a very uncomfortable position.”
My shoulders drooped. “Ghost, I just don’t want everyone to know I’m going to counseling. My brother knows, and that’s enough. It’s embarrassing because they will all start looking at me with pity again. Do you know how sick I am of being the broken girl?”
“Jazz, no one looked at you like that,” he tried to tell me.
“Bullshit. Maybe you didn’t see it, but I did.”
“That might be how you were seeing things, and we’ll agree to disagree on the subject. But that wasn’t what I was referring to.”
“Then what were you referring to?”
He cast his gaze to my stomach, and my heart stopped. How had he figured it out? No one else had made mention of it, leading me to believe no one had a clue. Not confirming or denying a thing, I clamped my jaw shut and sat silently.
“It’s Chains’s, isn’t it?” he asked, though the words were quiet.
The sudden lump in my throat not only caused difficulty swallowing, but I could barely breathe. My heart resumed at a ferocious pace, and I lifted a trembling hand to nervously cover my mouth.
“Why would you think that?” I finally asked, ignoring the slight catch in my voice.
“Because you’ve barely left the clubhouse for months, and one of us is always with you. When would you have hooked up with someone else? I’m not stupid. I know you two had something going on before he left. I’m not sure how everyone else didn’t.”
He was right. The few times I’d left the clubhouse on my own, Roscoe was my tail. Occasionally, I went to get hygiene items and food to contribute, but I usually went with someone.
“Unless you’ve been with someone else in the club that I don’t know about,” he offered.
“No,” I adamantly insisted.
“That’s what I thought. So how do you see this playing out?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s not gonna be a secret forever. Eventually you won’t be able to hide it with those legging things and loose shirts. Then what? I won’t be the only one able to connect the dots. Do you know what kind of shitstorm that would create? You’re setting Chains up for failure, and that’s not fair to him. He has a right to know, but not only that, he also deserves not to be blindsided. Did you ever think that maybe the club would be supportive of the two of you together? Maybe you guys should’ve come clean and then this wouldn’t be an issue,” he said.
“Not an issue? We all know he got sent to Arizona because Angel didn’t like the attention he was showing me. So the club you all love so much is willing to ship him off because he pissed them off, but they’d be okay with us being together?” I asked incredulously.
“They didn’t send him to Flagstaff because he pissed them off. Venom sent him to protect him because he knew Angel was on the verge of killing Chains. Initially, Angel was pissed at Chains because he got the impression you weren’t interested and Chains was making you uncomfortable. Chains is a player. He’s never had a serious woman in all the years we’ve known him. It’s not a stretch for Angel to think he’s using you.”
I made a shocked noise.
“Hear me out,” he continued. “I know that’s not true, but because you two never made it public knowledge, no one knew that. Venom was only looking out for his club. He figured giving them both a chance to cool off would be for the best. Only you can clear everything up, since Chains isn’t here right now.”
“Well, I certainly can’t announce to all his brothers that I’m pregnant with his child before I tell him!” I said in exasperation.
“I get that. But maybe you should at least tell him.”
“How? You know him, Ghost. He will be on the next thing smoking to get back here and then his ass will be in a sling with the club. I can’t do that to him.”
“Maybe if you two worked things out, the club wouldn’t have a problem with him coming home early. Family is important to us. If you and Chains are interested in a relationship, and you have feelings for each other, then that just makes our ‘family’ stronger. Right? Maybe you could go to him—kind of a trial run of you two together,” he offered as a solution.
“I have my counseling. That’s important to me, Ghost. Without my head being straight, I’m not going to be any good for Chains or our baby. But I promise you this. When he gets home, I will tell him immediately.”
“What if they don’t bring him home until after the baby is born? Did you think of that? The man deserves to be there for the birth of his child.”
“That’s if he even wants to be,” I said with worry. Because part of my secret worries when he finds out is that he won’t want the baby for the same reason he initially didn’t want me. The thought of him being unable to feel the softness of our baby’s skin on his fingertips broke my heart. Which got me thinking. Babies don’t really have memories, so maybe it would be okay. I needed to ask him without giving it away.
“He will be,” he insisted.
