Page 17 of Where We Promise

“I’m asking Callie and Laura, they never said anything!”

Wiping the tears from the corners of my eyes, I smiled at her. “I needed that.”

Natty’s expression hardened for a second. “I heard what happened, you doing okay?”

How had she already heard what happened? Was it just being talked about everywhere? Then I remembered that Jameson had said he was calling her. Heat warmed my face at the reminder, making me want space. I began wandering the small kitchen, toying with the small coffee maker.

“I get it…not exactly excited to talk about the fact that you were uprooted from your life and club and transplanted here. How you’re having to pretend and act like everything is fine simply because people are being nice to you. When all you want is to throw a fit, scream, cuss, and hit something because none of it is fair. None of it at all.”

My gaze snapped over to hers.

She had just summarized nearly exactly how I was feeling.

“You?”

She gave me a slow nod. “I haven’t ever talked about it with anyone here.”

Stepping closer to her, I finally slid onto a chair. Natty walked over and filled us both glasses of water, then she joined me at the table.

“I think I heard you were from the Death Raiders?”

Natty’s face stayed completely stoic as she sipped her water. I sipped mine too as the silence grew.

With a tight blink, she finally let out a sigh.

“My mother was a Sweetbutt in the club…she messed up and got knocked up.”

My heart felt a tiny prick at the understanding of how painful that was, based off my own experience.

“She wasn’t patched?”

Natty shook her head. “Just there to fuck. But when she got pregnant, someone took her in as a house mouse. They let her keep me, as long as she was still able to perform her duties…”

Oh god.

I had grown up in the club, but I had grandparents who had helped raise me when my mom couldn’t shield me from the dangers of the club. It wasn’t until I was sixteen that she decided I was ready to start understanding how they worked and what my role would be within the club if I chose to stick around.

My head dipped, knowing what Natty’s life was like.

“I guess it wasn’t all bad. There was another mom in the club, she was nice. Yelled at my mom from time to time. I didn’t understand why until I was older, but I guess my mom did drugs a ton while she was supposed to be lucid, watching me. That woman…she became kind of like my mom, at least in my mind, I had sort of adopted her.”

I listened intently while I continued to sip.

Natty dipped her face, slowly drawing an invisible design into the table.

“Her name was Sasha. She saved my life…when it mattered the most, and I needed to be rescued. She got me out, had Simon Stone make a deal for me…”

She trailed off, but I knew there was just about a million things she wasn’t saying.

“She was a mom…were you friends with her kid?”

Natty’s face jerked up, her eyes wide.

“What?”

“Her kid…you said she was a mom too. Did that mean you had a friend in the club?”

“He…well we, yeah…I mean.” She blinked a few times as if she were trying to figure out how much to tell me. “We were friends…he kept me safe.”

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