Page 30 of A Love So Hard

“I heard screaming, and wanted to check on Lucy. I didn’t realize she had company.” Maggie, the recently divorced mother of two who lived next door, explained as soon as my mother opened it.

“She’s going into labor. I called 911. They’re sending an ambulance.”

Maggie bustled right through the door, ignoring my mother as she attempted to throw the woman right back out. “I don’t know who you are, or what you think you’re doing…” my mother started before Maggie wheeled around on her.

“I do believe I heard your daughter telling you to get the fuck away from her. So, you’re going to do just that and I am going to help until the ambulance gets here. I will also let them know she doesn’t want you around so I suggest you pack up whatever poison you’ve left sitting around and take it back to South Carolina where you belong.”

Maggie was by my side checking on me before my mom could even form a response. “I’m here, sweetie. I know we haven’t really spoken a whole lot, what with you trying to patch up your broken heart and me trying to move on from my loser ex too. I will be here for anything you need help with though.” She glanced over her shoulder before adding, “especially now I see you weren’t kidding around about that mother of yours.”

That made me laugh for about two seconds before another contraction ripped through my lower back and whipped around my abdomen once more, squeezing tight and forcing the ball of my belly to go so rigid I thought I might just burst apart. “Maggie?”

“Yeah, hon?” She answered back as she swept the hair out of my face.

“I really feel like,” nothing more than a grunt followed as I leaned into the contraction this time.

“Oh shit!” Maggie called out and went to work whipping my dress up so she could see what was going on between my legs. She quickly pulled my soaking wet panties down and then just stared for a moment before getting back to work and ripping them none too gently from my legs. “Sweetheart, I don’t want you to panic or anything, but that baby isn’t going to wait on those paramedics to show up.”

“What?” My mother shrieked from somewhere in the living room where she’d collapsed to feel sorry for herself.

“I’m going to,’ I started and then as the contraction gripped me in its hellish hold I pushed, grunting, crying, and screaming my way through the burning sensation that felt like it was tearing my womanly parts to pieces. “Oh God,” I sighed as the contraction eased momentarily.

Maggie caught my eye briefly. “I’m holding a baby’s head in my hand, honey. I don’t see no cord or nothing. You should just give another really good push and…” She didn’t get the rest out before another contraction was forcing me to do what she’d just suggested. “That’s it, sweet girl. Push a little harder. Here it comes.” Then all I felt was the immediate relief of not having a baby stuck between my legs.

No sooner had the baby come out than the door, which had been left open when my mother answered it for Maggie, was filled with a man and a woman who were hustling a stretcher into the room with them. “The baby already came,” Maggie mentioned just as I heard the beautiful sound of my baby boy as he took his first full breath and let out his frustrations into the world with a wild cry. I could relate to that. If I could help it my boy would never feel that kind of frustration again. He might not have a father that wanted him, but I would love him hard enough for the both of us.

Chapter 14

(Lucy – age 22, Double-D – age 25)

1 year and 5 months after Lucy…

Another club party with a ton of club whores running around trying to entice all the brothers, and I honestly wanted no part in it. Most of the whores were used to me ignoring them so they left me to my miserable existence. It had been so long by that point though I wasn’t sure why I was supposed to still be miserable. I didn’t want to feel this way anymore. I’d moved beyond all the hurt, but the numbness I’d carried with me for the past year hadn’t been much better. Eight months ago I bled out all that emotion that had been trapped inside myself since the moment I woke up in the hospital to find Lucy was gone. I drank myself near to death after that moment in the parking lot of Jack Carter’s auto shop. Then about three months ago I’d woken up in a puddle of my own vomit and decided enough was enough. I’d lived in this perpetually numb state ever since, but even though I wasn’t killing myself slowly anymore I still wasn’t living either. I promised Merc that I would at least attempt to have fun at the club parties from now on even if I wasn’t ready to try on any of the women yet. Lucy had been gone a year and a half now and I still hadn’t managed to bring myself to be with another woman. How could I? None of them were her. The club whores were absolutely off limits. Sure, the ones who had betrayed me were no longer in the land of the living and couldn’t do it again, but that didn’t matter. The rest were tainted by that experience in my eyes.

There were a few women here that had been brought with friends to party. They weren’t the usual, and I knew some of them had been watching me tonight, but I wasn’t ready to give any of them a reason to think I would be available to them either. Hang-arounds were only a step up from the whores, and half the time they ended up being whore initiates or untrustworthy enough they weren’t invited back.

“You sure you aren’t ready to get back on the horse?” Merc asked as he tipped his beer bottle toward a curvy blond. I shook my head. I definitely couldn’t even think about being with a blond. I would just be picturing Lucy and that wouldn’t be good for anyone involved.

“He needs to forget the horse and get on some pussy. Brother, your dick is gonna fall off if you don’t start giving it something other than your hand to fuck,” Crow tormented.

“Shut the fuck up,” I muttered. It was easy for them to say considering they both had women of their own. Hell, Merc had two kids already with his woman, Lily. Two boys. While I had been happier than hell for him at the arrival of both, it was particularly hard to bear seeing his son Jason born. The fact that my brother had named him after me just killed me a little more inside. I never really wanted to use my first name for a son, because I hated it considering where it had come from. My middle name had been earned from my mom’s dad who had died during Vietnam. I was proud of fuck to bear that one and would have wanted my son to have it as well. It was something Lucy and I had both spoken about during our numerous discussions about our future. All I could think now was that Merc started out his relationship not giving a fuck about his woman, and suddenly he had the family I was supposed to have had with Luce.

We could have started a family and fuck! There I went again. Everything tipped my brain right back to her. What would it take to forget? I glanced over at the bar and remembered how much Jack used to make me forget. That was where I headed without another word to either of my brothers. “Grey Goose and OJ,” I told the prospect working the bar, “Go light as fuck on the juice,” I added as I thought about how quickly I could get fucked up and forget if I just pounded the liquor back. I still couldn’t stomach the thought of whiskey, and smelling it turned my stomach so I’d managed to acquire a taste for vodka.

The first couple months after Jack Carter hinted that Lucy had moved on I’d dived to the bottom of a bottle and had a fuck of time resurfacing. I didn’t water down my drinks with shit back them either, which is why I figured I better at least start with a splash of something in them tonight at the very least.

“Think that’s a good idea?” Merc asked, ever my shadow since his woman was home with their two boys tonight, and he knew he couldn’t really get sloshed or she’d be pissed. He was expected home at some point. The one good thing that came out of me losing Lucy was that it finally lit a fire under Merc’s ass to do right by his woman. After overhearing her conversation with one of her friends about how she was pregnant again and wasn’t sure she could continue to stay with someone who didn’t love her, he had said he would get it together. He couldn’t lose his boys. Seeing what the club whores had done to me, and watching my devastation at losing Lucy had sealed the deal though. I hadn’t seen him so much as glance at another woman since. For a year and a half, he’d been living a life I was jealous of.

“Make up your mind, asshole. You want me to party? You don’t want me to party?”

He chuckled and slapped me on the back. “I just want you happy, man. Whatever that takes.”

“Me too,” I admitted, though I knew what would make me happy and since her family refused to divulge where their daughter had been hiding out I knew I might never get a chance at that happiness I craved so damn much. I honestly had already lost all hope of seeing her again. Our club president had supposedly spoken with the family since he was her biological father. He thought he’d get somewhere since I couldn’t, but only after the other brothers threatened to vote no-confidence in him and talks of replacing his ass as president were happening even with him in the room. Either way, it hadn’t panned out. If it did, the bastard didn’t tell anyone. What he did do was come back and tell us that he would be stepping down as club president soon, and that we needed to think about whom his replacement was going to be. I was well and truly fucked.

“Hey hot stuff, you looking for a little fun tonight?” I glanced over my shoulder to see hot pink fingernails resting there on my kutte, and a matching grin trying to entice me to join her. It was the curvy blond the guys had pointed out not too long ago.

“Not from you,” I offered with a glare and a pointed look at her fingers that were still touching me for some reason.

“But,” she started hesitantly.

---