Page 23 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

I left that day and when I didn’t hear from Brinley for the next two days, I figured she was just mad at me and hadn’t needed a ride since I gave her the money for a car. Finally, on the third day, I got tired of her bullshit and went to the hunting shack. Everything had been cleaned out, including the fucking space heater, futon, and even the mouse trap we put in the corner after she claimed something had been scratching over there at night. The whole place was empty except the note on the counter, where my father’s mini fridge used to be. That was something that I hadn’t bought for Brinley because it was already in the shack.

Thanks for the truck and the stuff. I can’t stick around for your bullshit for another five years though. Did you plan on keeping me in a sardine can forever? Seriously! You couldn’t even put me up in my own apartment, you asshole. I bought a truck. I’m going to California. When you get your head out of that skank’s ass and stop playing macho man with your dad, look me up. Maybe we can fuck for old time’s sake.

XO,

Brin

I balled the piece of paper up and threw it across the room, not that it had far to go before it fell to the empty floor.

“Son of a bitch!” I yelled into the space. Then I collapsed there and fucking cursed the fact that I’d ever met Lily Ashburn. She’d ruined every fucking thing! She was also the easy scapegoat. The one that made sense to my brain to be mad at because my heart had been all in with Brinley until recently when she started being so damn demanding and bratty.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew she wasn’t going to last. Hell, we were riding on our last leg of the relationship. It was part of the reason I hadn’t bothered to get an apartment established for her. That and the fact that she was always so wishy-washy about whether she wanted to wait around for me to earn my freedom or not. Some days, she behaved as though I’d been sentenced to prison, and she didn’t have any access to me. At least the sentence I was serving came with a little freedom where we could still see one another. We just couldn’t live as a couple yet. Now, any hope of that ever happening was gone. The bitch took everything I gave her and left me.

Lucky for me, I still had her Christmas present in the truck. I had planned on proposing to her, hoping it would let her know how fucking serious I was since she kept shoving it in my face that I chose the club over her. I shook my head when I thought about the ring that I spent three grand on. That ring was the reason I hadn’t given her more cash for a car.

~*~

“What crawled up your ass?” Timeless asked me when I finally made it back to the clubhouse after discovering that Brinley bailed. I didn’t even need to answer my club president because he knew. It was like the asshole was psychic or something. “That cunt you been wrapped up in finally took off, huh?”

“What makes you say that?”

“That hang dog face for one. For two, because we all knew she was nothing but trashy pussy. Might have come from a rich family, but there was something wrong with that cunt from the very start.”

“What the fuck, Prez?”

“Don’t what the fuck me, kid. She took you for everything she thought you were worth and fled the fucking state!”

“How do you know that?”

“You think we haven’t had a man watching that bitch?” He laughed at what must have been my shocked expression. “Your little cunt of a girlfriend threatened a member’s daughter and grandchild. Hell, she threatened a brother’s wife – not that you cared since you don’t take being her husband seriously. She threatened your kid. How the fuck you could stay with her after that was beyond my fucking comprehension, but since we couldn’t trust you to think past your dick and do right by the woman carrying your kid, we did it for you and kept watch on the threat.”

“You knew about the hunting shack?”

“Yeah, Boone did too. The man isn’t a fucking idiot, despite his son being one.”

Shit! I guess I deserved that. “He never said a word.”

“He’s been waiting for you to pull your head out of your ass and do the right thing. Guess he figures now that might actually have a chance of happening.”

I scoffed at that and walked away before saying something to my Prez that I’d regret. That didn’t stop him from trying to impart some wisdom though.

“Sell that fucking ring you bought and do something nice for your wife with the money instead. I hear she might need a few things!”

Guilt kicked me in the stomach again and I tried to remember when the last time was that I paid the electricity or water bill for the house. Shit.

~*~

Two weeks later, just before Christmas, I packed my stuff up and headed out to California to find Brinley. I found her shacked up with some dude who reminded me of the quintessential Hollywood pimps. The asshole had a gold tooth, a fur coat on, despite the temps being too warm in Cali for that shit, and a legitimate skull topped cane in his hands. Brinley just smirked at me. She knew I was coming to see her, and had sent me the fucking address.

“Why?” I asked when I went to get back on my bike to head home.

“You needed to see that I can do better,” was her only response.

“Yeah, looks like you’re doing better turning tricks for some asshole in Hollywood. Good luck with that,” was all I could say to her. When her face fell, probably because it was the truth, I didn’t hesitate to rev my engine and get the fuck out of there. Despite getting whatever closure I felt I needed, I didn’t go home for the holidays. Instead, I took off for the Dakotas and spent a couple weeks at the clubhouse up there.

The guys were running a hole-in-the wall bar where they had skin shows every Friday night. It wasn’t quite a dedicated titty bar, but it was something. Diamonds in the Buff was the name. I still chuckled thinking about the first time I saw it on the sign. Fucking idiots.

There was one consolation prize waiting for me there though, and her name was Amber. All the girls had special little gem names and hers was fitting since it was the color of her soulful eyes. She was just barely eighteen with tits for days and an ass you could hang on to while fucking.

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