AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Not five minutes later I was determined to follow through with my choice. I didn’t care anymore. Nothing was as bad as being alone and forgotten. If the Outlaws still wanted me dead there was nothing I could do to stop it but my life was at an all-time low and even rival MCs wasn’t enough to convince me to stay here a minute longer.
Paul was on my speed dial. I didn’t remember adding his number to my I.C.E. list and had a sneaking suspicion he did it when I wasn’t looking. Frowning, I waited for him to answer.
It rang twice.
“Hey Rae, you alright?”
“Yep,” I answered curtly. “But I need to talk to you. Now!” I hadn’t taken that tone with him before, and it seemed to put him immediately on edge.
“What’s this about? Are you in trouble?”
“No, but you might be if you don’t get here ASAP.”
“Shit. Give me ten minutes.”
He was at my front door in eight. I opened the door before he had a chance to knock and I ushered him in, pacing back and forth in a rare display of temper.
“Do I get to know what this is all about Rae?”
I sighed, leveling him with a serious stare, “I’m not staying here any longer. I need to go home.”
His eyes widened and he shook his head, taking several steps toward me, “No way.”
Sorry? Did he just tell me no? “I don’t care what you say I’m sick of living my life alone. I’m done.”
“Done? What happened? I’ve never seen you like this before. Did someone threaten you? Bother you? Just tell me –”
I cut him off with a snappy attitude, folding my arms across my chest in agitation, “Does something have to happen for me to want to leave? Can’t I just want to find my best friend and live a normal life? Hayley is the closest thing I have to family. Everyone else is gone.”
My voice broke, and I turned on my heel, practically running through the door and out on my balcony.
I needed the fresh air, gulped it into my lungs as I leaned over the black metal railing, squeezing the bars so tight my knuckles turned white. My chest heaved as the first tears filled my eyes but I wouldn’t let them spill. Not anymore. I’ve cried so many times the last five years I lost count.
“Rae? I’m sorry. I should have understood where you were coming from. I forget sometimes . . . how young you are and how much you’ve lost.”
I didn’t answer him as I turned around, afraid all of the emotion I kept bottled up would overflow.
“Rae, honey?” he was right there, so close we could nearly touch. “You aren’t alone. Not ever. Don’t you see that?” he tilted my chin up until our eyes met. “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.”
“Sims, this isn’t the time.”
“Paul, remember?” his lips twitched with a small smile.
“Paul, whatever you think this is between us, it’s not –”
I was going to say it would never happen but he cut me off . . .
With a kiss.
I STRADDLED MY HOG, sitting as the heavy engine rumbled beneath me, staring up at Rae’s balcony from a distance. Whirling from my afternoon at the hospital with Bryce I left with only one destination in mind. Today I had been reunited with the brother I never knew I had. That shit was surreal, but for once I was actually sort of happy. I knew my mother was a good person so I wasn’t upset with her choices. Who knew what she had to endure with Striker? He was Bryce’s father but also a dangerous prick. Maybe she left him for my dad. Who knew?
A hundred questions floated in my head for Mack, but there was one thing I had to do first. Even if I failed and Rae rejected me, I decided once and for all that I wasn’t going another day without her in my arms.
No matter what.
So here I was, nervous as fuck, looking up at her apartment and hoping I had the courage to tell her how I truly felt. Sitting in the late afternoon shade, hidden off to the side behind a long stretch of trees, I rehearsed the words I wanted to say in case I got tongue-tied.
She had that effect on me when I was near her.
