Page 47 of A Love So Hard

Lucy nodded and smiled so sweetly at me. “It took me three days to look at her,” she admitted. “Then when I did, all I could see was you standing there. Your eyes were looking back at me, watchful, scared, and hurting. We did that to her. We put that look there, and I hate us both a little bit for it.”

“We’ll fix it, Luce,” I promised.

“I know,” she agreed. Then she patted my side of the bed. It was a silent invite to join her. I had no choice, but to heed her call, because there was nowhere else on this earth my heart would allow me to be that night.

Chapter 21

(Lucy – age 39, Double-D – age 42)

Eight years went by in the blink of an eye. My son was close to graduating high school. Ever was nearly there herself. She had maintained the A Honor Roll in school from the time she came to live with us until then. She never misbehaved, listened like she was supposed to without question, and was basically what anyone else would think of as a perfect child. The problem with that? I didn’t think I’d been allowed to get to know the real her over the years, just the version of her that was trying to be perfect in order to secure her place in our home. It always left me feeling apart from her, unlike I felt with my other children. Lucy didn’t seem to have the same issue though. I was thankful, because I knew at least Ever always had Lucy, and her best friend – her brother – Toby too.

Anna was another story. She was still my baby girl, lost in her world as she wrote in her journals and dazed off into some dream world or other that she was always concocting. I worried about my youngest child a little, because she was always doing that, and not very often in touch with reality. At least, she wasn’t in the way that the rest of usually were. Life’s obstacles seemed to just roll off her or pass her by altogether. One day, she was going to be hit a brick wall of an obstacle that she wouldn’t be able to daydream her way around and I worried what the results of that catastrophic occurrence might be. She was finishing her last year in middle school and something told me that high school was where she was going to finally meet her first challenges.

Lucy was still the love of my life, the light at the end of my longest days, and the one person on this earth that I couldn’t go a day without speaking too. I sometimes didn’t get to speak to my kids when I was away on a run, but if I couldn’t get a hold of Lucy, I was fit to be tied and unbearable to be around, or so said my brothers. I once confided in Merc how I felt. His words had stuck in my head ever since. “It’s different for us, man. The love of your life will always be Lucy. She comes first for you always. Your kids come in a very close second, but only because you know you have a good woman caring for them and that they’re just fine as a result. That’s why you don’t need to hear their voices or see their faces as much as hers. You need to make sure Lucy is there, happy, and whole because if she is – they are. There’s not a damn thing wrong with that.” I was thinking about that once again when I hopped off my bike and stretched.

Crow laughed at me. We had just gotten back from a two-day run to scout out some territory we were thinking about claiming up near Myrtle Beach. It had been a bit of a bust since the businesses we were hoping to snatch up were already under contract by the time we arrived. Still, Merc had ordered us to check around and see if there were any other worthy opportunities we should be thinking about while we were there. It wasn’t that long of a ride, but the hotel we’d held up in the night before had been ass with a mattress that felt like it was made of rocks instead of anything worthy of a restful night’s sleep.

“Fuckin’ hell getting old, isn’t it?” Crow commented.

“Shut the fuck up, you bastard. You ain’t any younger than me.”

“I know that. I was commiserating, not pickin’ on you.” I knew he was telling the truth when he went to step aside and I heard his knee pop as he cringed. Our eyes locked then and we both nearly busted a gut laughing. Yeah, we were getting older, as if having three teenagers and one pre-teen between us wasn’t evidence enough.

There was no missing the excitement in the air as we entered the clubhouse that day. I took off in that direction of the raised voices, my hackles rising as I went.

“Just calm down, Jay. I’m not saying you’re lying,” I heard Toby growling out, frustration lacing his every word. “I’m just saying that doesn’t sound like something she’d do.”

“She fuckin’ did, and she sure as shit didn’t even try to deny it when I confronted her, so I know it’s true.”

“I wasn’t fuckin’ there when you confronted her, asshole. I was in the locker room banging Brooke.”

“What’s going on in here?” I asked the question as I approached cautiously, not wanting to get involved in some falling out the boys were having. Neither of them were members yet, even though they were both working their asses off so they could get patched in after they graduated high school. Despite being legacies, they still had to prospect and prove themselves just like anyone else. The only leg up they had was we’d been able to take their measure for a lot longer than we would with any other prospect.

“Dad,” Toby started, but Jay interrupted.

“Your daughter was running her goddamn mouth trying to get my girl to break up with me!” Jay shouted the words at me in such a harsh, hate-fueled rant that I had a hard time figuring out what exactly he was saying.

“Why would Anna do something like that?”

“Anna?” They both questioned, and Toby then growled angrily in my direction.

“Fuckin’ Ever!” Jay sneered at me. “You know, your other daughter? The one I always thought you treated wrongly up until now. Finally, I see why you’ve always been so standoffish with her. She’s a deceitful, conniving little cunt!”

“Whoa!” I yelled at him. “You better explain yourself right now before another word like that leaves your mouth, or some teeth will be following those words, boy.” Oddly enough, Toby’s scowl warmed a little at that. Still, even if this was about Ever I couldn’t understand what she could have done to cause this type of reaction. She practically walked on eggshells around everyone.

“My girl came to me crying today,” Jay started explaining. “She said Ever cornered her in the bathroom at school and informed her that we were together, and that we had been all along. She said a bunch of other bullshit about how Tiffany was just placeholder because she wasn’t old enough to fuck yet, but once she turned sixteen soon that would change everything.”

“So it’s your girlfriend’s word against Ever that she said this?” I asked.

“Nah, I confronted Ever. She didn’t deny it. She put on the fuckin’ tears, for sure, but she never denied it. Plus, it wasn’t just Tiff there. Some other girls were in the bathroom at the time and overheard that shit too. I should have known. I had other girlfriends try to tell me she pulled that shit with them before too, but I never believed them. Ever never does anything wrong,” he mocked. “I should have believed. Apparently being miss goody two-shoes is all an elaborate act,” he finally said as he jerked at his hair.

“What do you mean by all that?”

“I’ve had other girls before Tiff tell me that she was mean to them and said shit. I never believed it, because Ever pretends to be this sweet, innocent chick. I was wrong.” He glanced at Toby then and spat out the next words. “We were all wrong about her.” He turned back to me then. “I should have listened to the brothers when they talked about how she was just waiting for her time just like her momma did.”

That twisted my gut a little. I knew there were a few brothers who disliked my daughter for their own reasons – most of which had to do with her lying whore of a mother. Still, it felt wrong that they talked about her like that to a kid who was supposed to be her best friend. I glanced around while letting the whole situation settle and then it began to simmer there. I flashed back to when I lost Lucy after Stiff ran his mouth, then again when he and the whores set me up. One thing I couldn’t stand was to see another man go through what I did. Hell, I’d been just the slightest bit older than Jay was now back when Stiff first fucked with Lucy and me. My eyes drifted to Toby then. He still seemed to be more pissed at Jay than his sister.

“This same thing cost me seeing you born, seeing you take your first steps. Lying, jealous women cost me being there for your first birthday, the second, and the fucking third too. You know damn well your sister has had a thing for Jay since you were little. She hero-worships him. You really think her jealousy wasn’t going to get the best of her?”

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