Page 18 of Wait For Me

Prospect Mike: Nah, I heard almost the whole conversation and the princess inspected the water to be sure it was sealed before drinking it.

Well, that was something at least.

Bagger: Who is the assclown?

Prospect Mike: Don’t know, will` have the info for you tomorrow. Should I pass this along to Prez and VP?

Bagger: Not yet. Get me a name and I’ll dig.

What the fuck kind of name was Zane Frik? It was the kind of name attached to some big finance guy who just so happened to be married with two kids waiting for him back home in Idaho. The asshole was thirty-six years old and fucking around with a girl who wasn’t even twenty yet. Yeah, the older MC brothers fucked the young whores for the club too, but it was different. They never had to lie about who they were, who was waiting at home for them, or whatever the hell else that Zane-Fucking-Frik guy was or wasn’t telling my Star.

It all made me wonder why Star didn’t seem to know better. She grew up around assholes in the club. Hell, she grew up around me. I threw what was left of the glass of whiskey I’d been drinking and watched as the amber liquid ran down the wall to trickle into the shattered mess that lay beneath it.

If I hadn’t been such a fucking prick all along, she would be mine. It was the pervading thought I’d had since having to follow her around before being called home. Then again, I still wouldn’t have appreciated what was right in front of me if I’d never seen her out on her own being all independent and shit.

“You’re going to clean that mess up,” my mother scolded from the bedroom door. I turned to see her standing there looking like a waif. My mom had always been healthy and boisterous, except during the short time where she was lost in depression, grieving my father’s loss.

“Sorry, I’ll get it,” I muttered. Mom moved into the room and took note of the background check I’d run on Star’s mystery man.

“Who is this guy?”

“The married asshole who Star’s been hanging around.”

“That doesn’t sound like Star, so I’m assuming she doesn’t know he’s married.”

“Probably not.” I shrugged my shoulders. “But who knows? Star isn’t the same person out there that she was back here.”

My mom grinned at me and shook her head as if she knew something I didn’t. When I said no more, she took the chair beside mine and looked me in the eye. “Star is exactly the same person that she was when she lived here. It’s not the girl who has changed so much.”

“I saw those changes with my own eyes,” I argued.

“Exactly! It’s what you opened your eyes to that changed your perspective of who she is. When she was here, you did everything humanly possible to avoid her because you knew she had a crush on you when she was too young. Then, for some silly reason, even after she grew up, you still avoided her like the plague. It wasn’t until you were forced to keep such a close eye on her that you finally saw the woman she had become.”

What could I say to that? My mom was probably right, and it meant that the assholes at the club were too, when they used to say: “Can’t see what’s right in front of you.” It wasn’t that I couldn’t see it; it was that I hadn’t wanted to back then.

“I think I screwed up,” I admitted.

“So, what are you going to do about it?”

I grinned at my mother. “First, we’re going to get you better. Then, when I go back to my Star Watch duties, I’m going to let her know.”

“Let her know what?”

“Everything,” I promised.

“Good. Then maybe you’ll actually get the girl and understand what it is to have a soulmate, like your father was to me.”

My father hadn’t necessarily been a great man in life, but there was no denying he always treated my mom like his queen. “Find a woman you don’t deserve, and make her believe that you do,” he used to tell me before running off to do just that for my mom.

The thing that made me so weary of relationships for so long was seeing what complete devastation looked like when my mother lost him. I never wanted to feel that kind of pain and longing that she went through. It was why I’d never wanted to settle down to anything serious before. Then again, it was almost killing me to know that there was a grown, married man out there giving time and attention to the woman who I should have been with all along.

~*~

Prospect Mike: Ran into the douchebag Frik guy in Star’s hotel lobby. Asshole was bragging about popping your girl’s cherry. Want me to take him out

I stared at the text, not seeing anything happening around me in the clubhouse. There was no way I read that right. Star only just met the asshole.

Bagger: You sure he wasn’t just trying to brag about shit that didn’t happen.

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