Page 13 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

6 - First Night

Merc

She cried when she saw the nursery, but I don’t think they told her that I was the one to paint it. I hadn’t seen the rest of the house, because everything else had been done after I painted. I’d been kicked out after that and sent, with all my shit, to stay at the clubhouse. When he asked me to do the nursery, I never thought he was giving the house to us. Just figured he wanted to make sure she knew there was a safe place for her baby at his house.

I took another look around the room, now that the furniture was in place, I could understand her emotions a bit better. My dad told me this is the second thing a woman dreams of when she’s growing up. The first, he told me, was her wedding. The second was the house, more specifically what she would do in her first-born child’s nursery. Boone told me I needed to get at least one of them right, even if I fucked up the other. So, I’d painted the room with days and nights while imbuing them with my hopes of a brighter future for her baby.

It still didn’t seem real that she was pregnant. She didn’t look like she was. Though, I guess puking at our wedding was probably a part of that. She’d been clawing after me since we were kids, so it couldn’t have been the wedding itself. The innocent, quintessential girl next door was getting what she wanted, after all. I huffed the frustration out and turned to leave the room. No one gave two shits about what I fucking wanted in all this.

What I wanted sure as fuck was not a baby or a stage-five clinger who got to ride my dick once when I was feeling out of sorts. I knew, the minute I went there, that it had been a mistake. Knew she had a crush on me and what that would mean, especially once I realized it wasn’t just a quick fuck in my truck. I’d popped her cherry and that was bound to mean more to her. Fuck my life – did it ever.

By the time I got to the loft, Lily was just coming down and I managed to hear the tail end of their conversation.

“Merc has the clubhouse to get away to and work out of. You need a space for yourself for whatever you end up doing.”

“It’s beautiful.” Lily paused a moment before adding, “Thank you for making my prison look pretty.”

What the fuck?

Prison?

She wanted this marriage. Me. All of it. If anyone had a prison sentence it was me. I watched as they moved away from the loft before I headed up there myself to check things out. I was amazed at the changes. It used to be my father’s bedroom on the rare nights that he came home to crash here. It had been transformed into a library with a comfy looking couch and a desk that had a computer set up. Why was this supposed to be her space? What the hell did they expect her to do here? I laughed at myself as I remembered she was still in high school. Homework, I guessed.

Beyond that, I had no clue. It was the first time I truly realized that I had been forced to marry a stranger. I knew next to nothing about Lily despite our fathers being club brothers and best friends. I had made it a point not to get to know her because I saw that glint in her eyes even back when we were first introduced. She used to look at me like I was her future. The feeling was not mutual. I just figured she was another troublesome club princess who thought she could get her way with me because of who her daddy was. Low and behold, I hadn’t been wrong. She set it all up perfectly.

The annoying voice in the back of my mind told me how wrong that was though. She didn’t set shit up that night we fucked. I think, if anything, she was a little shell-shocked that it happened at all. Still, I needed to place the blame where it was. My girlfriend was missing a tooth, black and blue, and refusing to speak to me anymore because of this situation. That reminded me, I had somewhere to be.

I took off for the front door and didn’t miss the weighted stares everyone gave me as their eyes followed.

“Where are you going?” Boone asked, and I didn’t miss the anger that laced his tone.

“Out,” was all the answer I gave before I blazed a trail outside to my bike and left without a single look back. They might have been able to force my hand with the marriage, but they couldn’t make me pretend to be her husband when I never wanted to see myself that way. Fuck that. I had somewhere to be anyway.

~*~

It didn’t take long to track down Brinley. She was, as usual, wherever she could grab the most attention for herself. Her long legs in that tiny skirt seemed to go on for miles and her tits – already fake thanks to her daddy’s bank account – might have been falling out of her shirt if they had any give to them. They didn’t. It was the one thing I disliked about Brinley. Her tits were small before, but when she came back from California over summer break, she was sporting the new breasts and they just didn’t feel the same.

As soon as she noticed me, she left her friends behind and strolled closer. I could still see the discoloration under her eyes and across her nose from where Lily had pummeled her. I didn’t blame Lil for beating the shit out of my girl. She was protecting her baby. I got that. At the same time, I knew this was an impossible situation for Brinley.

She might have played up that “I’m just pissing off daddy” bullshit to everyone else, but we talked about running off together. I had planned on going nomad as soon as my prospect period was up with the club. Brinley and I had plans to go build our own life together.

One stupid freakin’ fight and I fucked it all up by screwing the wrong girl when I was pissed at the one that I really wanted. I could kick my own ass for that shit.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon or something?” It didn’t escape my notice when her eyes shot down to my fingers to see the ring I was supposed to be wearing now. Fuck that. I didn’t even buy the rings our fathers told me to get. I warned them I’d be married on paper only and nothing more. For some fucked up reason, they keep thinking I’ll change my mind. That’s never happening.

“You know it’s not like that.”

“Tell me you didn’t go through with it.” Brinley’s voice was nothing more than a pleading whimper.

“You know I had to.”

“So, you’re really married to that bitch now?”

I nodded my head, not able to speak the words.

“This is so fucked. Why didn’t we just leave? Why did you have to wait around to join the stupid MC. You could have joined another one somewhere else!” I tried to ignore the whine in her voice. She knew why. The MC opened doors for someone like me who didn’t have a whole lot to fall back on. It was a legacy being passed down to me that I’d dreamed about being a part of for years. The members were family, even if I was pissed at some of them right now.

“I’m sorry baby. It’s not forever though.”

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