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Thirty minutes later, after texting R.J. and Ghost in case they should need me, I parked in the visitor parking lot of the hospital, right up front so my bike didn’t get dinged by some dipshit who couldn’t drive. The receptionist informed me that Bryce was out of the I.C.U. and in a room on the tenth floor.
After taking the elevator I walked slowly toward his room, 1034 B. I didn’t think much of the weird lighting until I walked into the room. A greenish mist hovered around the bed and caused a sudden flashback to enter my mind. A woman with fair hair and piercing green eyes, a smile full of love, and the feeling of peace and happiness. My recent dreams came rushing to the surface and I gasped. The familiar glow reminded me of the last time I saw my mother alive.
Twenty years ago.
Tears stung the back of my eyelids as I fought the surge of emotion. Her passing was sudden and unexpected, and I remembered the feeling of loss and confusion that combined with my devastation when I realized she was gone. Even as a young boy of three I knew something wasn’t right. I missed her.
Patty Harding was a pretty petite blonde with a ready smile and kind heart. Whenever someone spoke of her it was only with kindness. I never forgot her, and to this day I wished I could have had a chance to know her.
When I could raise my eyes from the mist and bury the pain in my chest, I met Bryce’s curious gaze. I recognized at once that same connection that I felt with my MC brothers, the same strength – almost inhuman – and the similar way our senses could reach out and communicate without words. He felt a part of me . . .
The unnatural glow seemed to dissipate and slowly disappear as we stood in uncomfortable silence. We didn’t say a word, both of us caught by surprise.
“I’ve only seen that once before,” he whispered low as I strained to hear him.
“Same with me,” I deadpanned, swallowing hard.
The silence stretched until we said, at the exact same time, “My mother, Patty.”
Until that moment my life had been set on a deliberate and reckless course but when Bryce said her name it was as if someone took the wheel from my hand and swerved the car in the opposite direction. Everything I thought I knew was dumped on its head until I began to tremble with the knowledge that nothing I knew was real and my family kept secrets, deep life-altering secrets that would change my entire world.
Bryce swallowed loudly and cleared his throat, his eyes locked on mine, “Pete?”
For the first time since I met Bryce, I held no animosity or ill feelings toward him. Maybe I should have taken time to process what that meant but instead, all I could think was Bryce and I shared the same mother. Both of us stared and desperately tried to make sense of what this meant.
Before I
could react he sat back against the pillows on his bed and huffed out a breath, his cheeks splitting wide in a huge grin. Sheepishly I rubbed the back of my neck, at a loss for words. That didn’t happen often.
“You know what this means?” he asked with a small chuckle.
“Yeah,” I smirked, returning his bright smile with one of my own.
“Neither of us are alone Pete, not anymore,” shit, he used my real name.
“I know,” I laughed, a huge weight lifting from my chest – damn, this was fucking weird – and chasing away some of the pain and loneliness since my mother died, compounded by the loss of Rae in my life. “Never alone again.”
“I’ve got your back,” he assured me. “Always.”
“And I’ve got yours.”
We didn’t say anything else until I walked closer to the bed and extended an arm which he clasped tight, both of us hit by the profound sense of belonging that raged through each of our bodies the moment we touched. Light green sparks traveled along our arms, danced along our skin, and began to glow brighter as the two of us felt the connection deepen.
“This is unreal,” he breathed. “Holy shit!”
“We’re more than blood,” I gulped.
“I know, you’re my brother . . . and something more.”
Chapter 37
I was the lowest I had been in a long time. Times like this were when I missed my bestie Hayley the most. In the last five years I hadn’t met anyone that I clicked with the same way we did. Kat was my co-worker, but after that night in Providence and the biker fight she sort of wrote me off, and since then I didn’t have the heart to try and make new friends again.
Sitting on my balcony, curled up in a ball with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders, I let the sorrow overtake me. Usually not one to feel sorry for myself I was both pissed and sad. I shouldn’t be in this situation. None of that crap that happened five years ago was my fault and yet I was the one suffering for it.
Part of me felt like calling up Detective Sims and telling him I didn’t care if I wasn’t supposed to be in Providence I wanted to find my best friend. Why should I live in fear? Why did I have to be the one to give everyone and everything up?
Agitated I began to pace my balcony.
