Page 8 of A Love So Hard

He grinned at me. “I’m counting down the days, Lucy.” That admission threw me for a loop.

“Counting down the days?” I asked, but he just winked at me and tipped his head toward my house. “You better get going. Knowing Jack, you’re already going to get the third degree about why you’re home tonight instead of staying with your friend.”

That was true. I didn’t really have anything else to add to that since my brain was still tossing around the idea that he was counting down the days for some reason. Maybe I was overly tired, but I quickly came to the conclusion that I was overthinking things and he couldn’t possibly mean what I thought he did. Surely, he wasn’t counting down the days until he could be with me. A man like Double-D didn’t wait around for a girl to become a woman.

Just two short days later I would get confirmation that I was right. It was probably the one time in my life I wished I had been wrong, because being right just hurt too darn much to bear.

Chapter 4

(Lucy – age 16, Double-D – age 19)

My chest hurt in a way I never imagined it could. I glared down at the ground as his words permeated the aura of indifference I attempted to project. It didn’t matter my hand still moved of its own free will to that painful spot over my chest before I managed to pull myself together and look up into the familiar green eyes that seemed to be twinkling in delight at the sight of my pain.

“Do you feel good about telling me that?” The words flew from my mouth before I could pull them back and I watched as Johnny’s shoulders stiffened and the delight in his eyes washed away into something more akin to concern. To hell with him, and what he thought he was going to get out of this. He hadn’t been gentle in telling me about the scene he had walked in on at their clubhouse the same night Double-D dropped me at home. Johnny hadn’t left out any details about the girls I knew from high school who were all over him and how he took turns fucking each of them out in the open for anyone and everyone to enjoy watching the spectacle.

“Did it make you feel better to hurt me that way?” The question slid from my lips just as potent as the poisonous images he had planted in my head. “Do you feel better about yourself now? Do you think you managed to accomplish some sort of goal for yourself, Johnny? All you managed to do was hurt me, and if you thought that was going to go well for you, I suggest you pull your head out of your butt and grow the hell up!” I stormed off to the house where both of our mothers were standing on the front porch step watching the confrontation go down.

“Lucy!” My mother’s shocked gasp caught me up short.

“That was quite rude,” Abigail, Johnny’s mother, confirmed.

“Really? Telling your son to grow up after he described in graphic detail how a man had sex with not one, but two women, at his biker clubhouse in front of everyone wasn’t rude? I’m still a virgin!” Those last words were screamed into the neighborhood. That was something I could be embarrassed about later though. “The most I’ve ever done is kiss a boy, and he told me all about how a man stuck his… his…” I couldn’t bring myself to use the same words he had. Not that I was too good for the words, but because of the painful images they conjured of the man of my dreams having baseless, meaningless sex with women who were free enough with themselves to do those things. That would never be me, and I knew then that I would be more like Double-D’s ex girlfriend Patty. I didn’t belong, and Johnny had just made that fact painfully obvious to me.

“Oh, forget it,” I huffed out. “You can ask your son for all the details about the sights, sounds, and smells of the spectacle he just described for me in vivid detail. Then tell me I was being rude. He’s lucky I didn’t punch him in the balls.” I turned and ran then, not bothering to go into my home where I wouldn’t be treated with sympathy. I could already see it in their eyes. They were glad Johnny had told me what he had. I’m sure my mother probably wished he hadn’t been so detailed, but he had clearly filled them in on my infatuation with a certain biker. She would definitely be applauding his efforts for keeping me away from the town’s bad seed.

“Johnny, how do you know what happened at that clubhouse?” I heard my mother ask as I continued to get as far from all of them as was humanly possible. I was too far away to hear if he ever answered her or put her off again. My parents still didn’t know he was part of the club. I doubted his did either since I never saw him wear his prospect kutte near the house. If they did, I knew for certain my father would change his tune about me ending up with the man.

It’s strange that in that moment, when my heart was breaking, and my faith in people had been sorely diminished that I ran to my daddy for comfort. When I got there I watched as Double-D was pulling his bike out of the garage. He paused for a moment taking in my disheveled appearance the tears that were no doubt dripping down my slightly numbed face. It wasn’t exactly the warmest of days and I’d run all the way here, crying the whole way.

Seeing the man caused another sob to break free and I turned and ran to my daddy who wrapped me in his arms and pulled me into the office. I listened to the pipes on Double-D’s bike as he roared off to who knew where. It was obvious he didn’t care so I wasn’t sure why my own heart did so much that it hurt to breathe.

“What’s going on baby girl? You’re breaking my heart right now.”

I just clung to my daddy and mumbled nonsense into his shirt before finally pulling away once he had managed to guide me to his office. He sat me down in the uncomfortable worn out chairs he had in there. He once told me he ordered them that way on purpose so customers wouldn’t stick around to bother them every five minutes while they tried to work on their vehicles.

“What’s this all about, Lucy?”

“Johnny came to the house and t-t-old me,” I stuttered through that much before it became apparent that I really needed to blow my nose after the bawling session I just had. My dad offered up a tissue from the box on his desk and once I was cleaned up I started over. I couldn’t look my dad in the eye though. “I have a crush on someone,” I admitted.

“Johnny,” my father nodded knowingly.

“No, God no!” I yelled out in disgust, shocking my father.

“But your mother said,” he started but stopped as I vehemently shook my head in the negative.

“That’s part of the problem,” I moaned. “Mom and Mrs. Abigail always pushing him on me. I don’t like Johnny in that way, and I never have. Those two have seen to the fact that I am actually at the point where I can’t stand to be around him any longer.” My father looked shocked. Clearly, this was all news to him. I guessed he’d been taking my mom’s machinations as coming from me instead of some warped ideal she had built up in her head.

“Did you know Johnny is a prospect for the Aces High MC?” My father immediately turned red in the face and his scowl deepened the creases along his brow.

“No, I didn’t. He’s done a pretty good job of hiding that information, especially since I asked him about it the other day when I saw him riding his bike near their clubhouse.” My dad grumbled. “He lied to my face and told me he was just out for a ride.”

“Well, he is a prospect there. I know, because I dropped his bike off to him that day, and that’s where I had to go to do it.”

My father was blazing mad at that admission. “You did what?” His bellowing question put me immediately on edge. “You went inside that clubhouse?” I nodded my head timidly, worried about how he was going to react to that information.

“I’m going to kill that little shit. He knew I didn’t want you around those people!”

“Daddy,” I hesitantly began and he seemed to come back to himself and remember how upset I’d been.

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