Page 23 of Lynch's Match

For some reason, I feel as if I was dropped into an alternate parallel dimension. The last time I’d been in this clubhouse, not the time when I’d come to help Lily, but years ago, it was totally different.

Back then there were skanky bitches barely dressed walking around, laying wherever. Now, the place looks clean, women, these being the ol’ ladies to members of the club, were sitting with coffee in hand and talking. A couple of children were playing. It’s baffling to my mind. Especially when Lily approached me, taking my hand once we stepped into the clubhouse.

Lynch had dropped my hand, kissed my cheek, left me with the women, and walked off to go do whatever it was he needed to do. I wanted to be mad at him still, but Lily apologized to me for being in my apartment packing up some of my clothes. This totally made me feel like an utter bitch for what I said to Lynch at the house. Damn him. She explained that they’d only been in there long enough to grab what I had hanging in my closet. Considering I hung up the majority of all of my clothes, this meant she got all of my clothes except my undergarments, nightgowns, and loungewear. They even packed up my shoes—all of them.

The inside of Lynch’s closet contains all of my things, with a small amount of room left for anything he might have wanted to hang. Then again, he probably keeps everything in his dresser drawers.

“You okay?” asks Nora, one of the ol’ ladies I’d been introduced to.

“Yeah,” I answer, coming out of my thoughts and giving her a smile. “I’m just still tired, I guess.” It was totally a lie, but I didn’t want to tell the truth.

“I call bullshit.” Nora snorts and cocks a brow.

“Excuse me?” I balk, not knowing how she could read me so well.

“Babe, we’ve been where you are,” Nora says, sitting forward, eyes locked on me as she juts her chin, acknowledging the other women at the table. “We know what it’s like to deal with these men. They can be assholes. They’re totally possessive and don’t like anyone fucking around with what they deem theirs.” Nora pauses and rolls her eyes. “They also would do anything in their power to protect their families. Now, tell us what’s going on with you. We’re all family here, and you’re a sister.”

“What she’s trying to do is get a feel for you because Harlow, Raven, and Victoria asked us to after they heard about you and Lynch being married,” Tiny remarks. “Trust me when I say there aren’t any secrets around here kept like the one about you to being married. It was a shock to the system for sure.”

“Only a few people knew we were married. I didn’t come around the clubhouse much. Lynch didn’t want to cause trouble since the first time we met, I was only sixteen.” I give them a quick rundown since it seems everyone knows now about Lynch and my marriage. It’s not that we hide it, but I’d gone to school not long after, and then it all fell apart on us.

I guess you could say the world came crashing down around us.

“So, you and Lynch are now working things out?” Rissa asks. She stayed quiet where the others had asked questions while I told them about my past with Lynch.

“I don’t know what we’re doing.” I shrug, take a sip of my coffee, and set it gently back on the table with my fingers wrapped around the warm mug. “I honestly find myself more confused than ever when it comes to Lynch.”

“Why’s that?” Lily asks, tilting her head slightly. “You two seem to be together. I mean, he had us move some of your clothes.”

“That’s what I don’t get. He’s being as he used to be with me when he shouldn’t be. It’s like he’s over the fact we were separated for so many years because of my own stupidity. I just don’t get it. Because of my not talking to him about the pictures, I shut him out. Worse, I cheated on him. I might not have had sex in all the years, but that didn’t mean I didn’t date or kiss other men,” I ramble and slouch back in my chair. “When it comes to him, it leaves me running scared. And that’s something I never allow myself to do. I’m hell on wheels in the courtroom because I don’t admit defeat. I refuse to let others win.”

“So, why keep running scared,” Nora states, like it’s something that can be done as easily as that.

“Because I did wrong to him, and everyone knows it. Because I have to live with the guilt of it eating at me. And he’s acting like nothing happened.”

“Do you want him to yell at you? Treat you a different way than he is?” Tiny asks, looking in my direction but not actually meeting my gaze.

“Honestly?” I straighten in my seat, rake my nails through my hair, and nod. “Yeah, I want him to yell at me. Tell me what I bitch I am for what I did. I don’t want him having sex with me, acting like everything’s all good and dandy when it’s not real because what if it’s all a joke to him? What if he’s just playing me, getting me to fall for him all over again? Which, by the way, isn’t hard considering I never stopped loving him. Every guy I dated was compared to him. So, yeah, what do I do if it’s a way for him to play me? At least if he got in my face, yelled at me, and showed me his anger like the day I came here to help Lily. That day, he showed emotions. And that night. After that, it’s like he thinks everything is all good.”

During my rant, I didn’t notice the others shifting in their seats straightening.

“Babe,” Nora utters, eyes shifting to mine, “don’t think you have to worry about saying that to him.”

“What?” I slowly turn in my seat to see not just Lynch standing there but Tyres and Chains. “Great,” I mutter and stare at him through knitted brows. “How much of that did you hear?”

Lynch steps forward, his expression dark and foreboding. “Walked into you saying, ‘Yeah, I want him to yell at me.’ Means I heard all of it.”

“Well, great.” Just my luck he heard that. He heard it all. Maybe he’ll stop playing games with me, divorce me, and leave me in my misery.

Lynch holds my gaze a beat before he looks in Chains’s direction. “I’m supposed to be at the bar tonight, can you get someone to cover for me?”

He’s working in a bar now? I didn’t know that.

“Brother, until this shit is handled, Axel’s gonna cover for you,” Chains remarks. “Watch your back and keep in touch.”

“Will do,” Lynch grunts, gives a chin lift, and starts in my direction. “Let’s go.”

That’s all he says. After what I said to him, that’s all he has to say?

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