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“Know that.” He lowered the glass and watched me closely. “She call you?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “She checked on Wyatt and me.” When he didn’t say anything, I continued. “She’s a good person, you know.”
“Yep.”
I knew that was all he planned to say, but I wasn’t done. “She makes you happy. Happier than I’ve ever seen you.”
“She doesn’t understand club life, Becs. You know that. And my life is the club.”
“Your life,” I stressed, “is so much more than that. You can’t make every decision based on the club.”
“I have to.”
Frowning, I shook my head. “So what are you gonna do, Bear? Never see her again? Never talk to her again? You know that’s impossible in this town. You’re going to run into her, and then what? Are you gonna ignore her?”
Pain flashed through his eyes, and I immediately regretted what I had said. I didn’t want to hurt him. I just wanted him to see how stupid he was being because it was obvious to me, at least, that he loved her.
Sighing, I glanced down at Wyatt, who was still drinking, before facing Bear. “You love her, Bear, so do something about it.”
“She made her choices.”
“She made a choice based on a reaction she had to what you guys did to Skinner. She was scared, and you never explained it to her.”
“I tried. She threw me out.”
I looked back down at Wyatt when I felt him move and noticed his bottle was almost empty. I put it on the coffee table and lifted him to my shoulder, patting his back gently. “What about Skinner? Did you ever give him a chance to explain?”
His eyes narrowed. “You know the club’s policy on loyalty.”
“I do, but I also know Skinner, and it seems to me there’s more to the story than any of us know.”
“Doesn’t matter. I can’t trust him, and if I can’t trust someone, they have no place in my life.”
His words slammed into me. Trust was everything to him, and I was hiding something that I had a feeling was a big deal. I just didn’t know what it entailed yet, and I didn’t want to lay more on him. Dark circles weighed heavy under his eyes, and there was a sadness in him that I had a feeling would turn into anger before long.
“Widows been around?”
He took a drink from his glass but then shook his head. “Nope. Seems their new president is doing what he promised and keeping them away from us.”
I could tell by the way he said it that he didn’t believe that would last. “But you don’t trust that?”
“Don’t know him.” Bear gestured toward Wyatt. “You hear from Race?”
Not much happened in this town that Bear didn’t know, and nothing had ever happened with the club members that he wasn’t aware of before it happened. I hadn’t heard from Race, but I wasn’t sure if Bear had, considering I’d never asked. He’d been gone for three weeks and not one word. That wasn’t like Race, and I was starting to worry that he went home and got himself into some shit he shouldn’t be doing.
“No. Have you?”
He jerked up his chin. “Just to say he was dealing with some family shit, but that was a couple of weeks ago.”
“You think he’s okay?” I asked.
“Not sure,” Bear acknowledged. “Home isn’t a great place for him, from what I’ve heard. He doesn’t talk about it much, but the little he has, one thing was true. He didn’t plan on going back.”
“Where’s home for him?”
“Grew up in Philly.”
Wyatt started bouncing on my thighs, and I shifted my attention from Bear to his smiling face, but I kept talking. “Philly can be dangerous, can’t it?”
