Page 76 of A Love So Hard

“Why? You’re family too,” Ann told him simply as she walked into the room and immediately went to sit in the chair I usually occupied during church. I was two down from Merc down, still on his right hand side. Sandman had the chair next to him these days though. Ever and Lucy planted themselves on either side of Anna, as if to hold her up like bookends on a shelf.

I sat opposite Lucy with Joker and Deck taking up the next seats. We had closed ranks on him too. I wondered briefly if he felt trapped there like that, or if having Deck next to him made him feel more secure. No one spoke so I started.

“I’m assuming since you’re here with her, the pregnancy was confirmed?” I asked then nodded down to Anna’s hands that were invisible under the table. “I saw what you were holding,” I added.

She glanced up at me with tears in her eyes, but she couldn’t hide the beautiful smile that bloomed across her face at the mention of those images. I wasn’t the only one to notice since I felt Joker stiffen beside me. Yeah, the asshole was still just as affected by my daughter’s presence as he was when they were sneaking around behind everyone’s back. Well, when she was sneaking and he was clueless.

I turned to him then, curious because I never had asked for any type of details. Not about that the sex they had been having, that was a given. I never wanted to know about that, but the rest of their relationship. I’d just dismissed it. He was so angry with her, I didn’t think was an issue, but now I was seeing how wrong I was. Those words were becoming the story of my life.

“Before you found out who she was, how did you feel about my daughter?” My question jolted him from the stare down he had launched with the table in front of Anna. I’d made him curious about what she held there. He turned his gaze to me, but didn’t answer. Instead his lips were pulled tight in anger and he just watched me. “How long were you seeing one another? Were you seeing one another or did you just think she was nothing more than club pussy since she was hanging around?” Those words tasted vile on my mouth, but I used them for a reason. I was watching for the reaction, and I fuckin’ got it.

He didn’t say a word, he stood and then he laid me out in one punch. He didn’t knock me out, but my ass was no longer in the chair it had once been sitting in.

“CJ!” Lucy gasped and that was music to my ears. She hadn’t called me CJ since before her blow up at the cemetery when we buried our boy.

“You talk like that about your own daughter?” Joker yelled at me, not knowing what my name on my woman’s lips meant to be in that moment. That’s okay though, because I had a feeling he’d understand that soon enough considering how he’d just laid me out. I just started laughing as Deck came around him to help me up. I swatted my son in law away, because I had a feeling I was looking right in the eyes of another one.

“Now you’re laughing?” He accused. Yeah, I was, but not for the reason he thought. Probably not the reason anyone thought I realized as I looked around and saw the horror filled faces. Not quite all of them had horror etched in their features. I could see that Ever understood, because she was smirking and she flashed me a quick thumbs up. “You’re seriously sitting there laughing after insinuating your daughter is a whore? What the fuck, man? No wonder your family’s falling apart and your kid’s acting out. Jesus. She told me her family was fucked since her brother died.” He glanced back over at Anna. “I see that now.” Looking back at me he offered up, “She told the truth about something, at least.”

Well, that hurt. I’m sure it hurt my baby girl too. I picked my ass up off the floor, fucking old ass knee creaking as I did so. Shit, that was embarrassing. Then I massaged the jaw where he’d tagged me, and I knew that shit was going to be aching for a few days at the very least. Damn fine punch. Once I was all the way adjusted and firmly on my feet I grinned at Joker. He took a step back, because he obviously didn’t like what he was seeing in my eyes. He had every right to feel that way, because what I was thinking, it was crazy. I was going to do it for my daughter though, and for once, I didn’t think I was getting it wrong.

“Looks like we need to set up a good ol’ southern shotgun wedding, son!”

His eyes bulged in horror as shocked gasps rang out around the room and Ever, being the only one who understood, tried really hard to contain her mirth. Then I turned to my own woman. “We’ll talk details tonight, in bed.” With that, I got up and walked out of the room leaving them all behind to stew on that shit.

Chapter 31

(Lucy – age 44, Double-D – age 47)

My mind was blown. When we set out for the clubhouse I can honestly say that I did not foresee things going the way they had. When I first stepped foot inside the clubhouse I hadn’t seen it either. I had actually seen the complete and total end of marriage at that point. Now, I was sitting with CJ in our living room, on our couch, with our bodies cocked sideways just so to where our knees were touching and he was holding my hands in his.

Ever had taken Anna home with her after Joker blew up and walked out. Deck followed him, and even though the man lost his damn mind, I knew he’d be back. I wasn’t blind, and apparently my old man wasn’t either because we both saw the way he watched Anna. Sure, he would have done what he had to in order to stay away from her as directed. He would have used his anger about her lies to sustain that until he felt something for someone again one day. Knowing she was carrying his baby though, I had a feeling that would change everything.

“Tonight was crazy,” I finally spoke to kill the silence that wrapped around us like a familiar blanket, and not a comfy one. The blanket in question being one of those scratchy ones that itched and make your skin crawl.

He just nodded and then tilted his head as if to take all of me in from a different angle. “If you hadn’t brought Anna there to deliver her news would you have come looking for me?”

I dropped my eyes from his and tried to remove my hands from his grip, uncomfortable with the question. He held tight with one hand now and moved to lift my chin with the other until our eyes locked once more. “Would you have come for me if it hadn’t been for Anna?”

I shook my head gently in his hold. “No,” I whispered. “I couldn’t bring myself to walk through that door again,” I answered as honestly as I could.

“So you wouldn’t have come for me?” He lamented, as his eyes were the ones to drop this time.

“That’s not what that means. When you brought Anna home all those weeks ago, I waited for you ask again when you stopped by the door. I wanted you home then, but…” I paused, sighed, and put my stupid little bleeding heart out there. “You didn’t ask to come home again, and I thought that meant you had gotten tired of waiting. Then you only called briefly to say shit was taken care of with the prospect and that he wouldn’t be bothering Anna again. You hung up so quickly. I knew then, for sure, that I had waited too long.” I finally managed to tug my hand free of his and then I fidgeted with the bottom of my shirt. “That’s not even the right way to say it. It wasn’t that I was waiting. I was hurting. I was hurting and I couldn’t handle your hurt on top of my own. I couldn’t deal with you sticking up for the club when I blamed them for Toby. It took me a long time to see, that while they played their part, the club didn’t kill him. Even though I understood that it took away the thing I needed. The focus I needed for my anger, because that woman she took something so precious from me, from us, and I can’t get that back. I’m just so angry that I can’t get that back, and I don’t know what to do with it.”

CJ reached over and yanked me into his arms then, holding me close as I cried into his kutte, the familiar leather scent mixed with the spicy cologne he always wore. It was a scent so familiar I just melted into it feeling like I was finally home.

“Told myself if you still didn’t want me after six months I would stop asking and wait for you to come find me,” he whispered into my hair. “I needed for you to stop running first,” he explained and I stiffened because I hadn’t run anywhere. “No, you didn’t go anywhere,” he said as if reading my darn mind. “You pushed me away though, because it was the next best thing considering you still had the girls around that needed you.”

What could I say to that? He wasn’t wrong. “Where did it all go so wrong?” I wondered out loud. “One minute we were finally all happy and living our lives with so much joy and…” I threw my hands up in the air in frustration. “Are we doomed? Are we not allowed to have too much happy? You were finally okay with Ever, we were doing so well together, CJ. Why did it have to be my baby boy? Why couldn’t someone else lose something for a change?”

“Don’t do that,” he said as he held me tighter. “Someone else did lose big that day,” he reminded me. “I’m hoping our losses have been counted and found overwhelming at this point, but never wish them on someone else, babe. Toby had a woman who won’t even speak to us when she sees us, because she lost so much in one day. We still have each other. We still have our girls, and now we’ll be adding to the family too.” It was his turn to sigh.

“I can’t believe our baby girl is going to be a mom. She’s too young,” he told me.

“She’s only a little older than I was the first time we met,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but we never got to have sex back then,” he teased.

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