Page 8 of Always and Forever

“Lu, what’s going on?” I walk into my childhood bedroom and find Luisa sitting on my bed crying. “Hey, Lu, talk to me.” Lifting the bottom of my dress to sit down, I trail my hand down Luisa’s back. “Lu, please, it’s my wedding day. The rules state you’re not allowed to cry.”

She sniffles. “Oh, Jazz, it’s happened again,” she finally says, looking up at me. Her mascara is all smeared, and she wipes more tears away. “I didn’t mean to worry you, I just needed to be on my own right now.”

“Hey,” I say catching Luisa’s gaze. “What’s happened again?”

“Don’t worry about me, it’s your wedding day. I’ll be fine. It’s time for you to go, Quill is going to be furious,” she says as she leans in and cries against my shoulder.

“I’m not leaving you like this, Lu. I can’t. Is it Hawke? Where is he?”

“He’s gone,” she says, the pain she’s feeling evident in her voice.

“Where has he gone?”

“To her!” she replies and covers her face with her hands, unable to control her crying.

“No,” I say, stunned. “He wouldn’t do that, not again.”

Before we flew to Tennessee for the wedding, Hawke saw his ex Josie at Quill’s bachelor party. Hawke had been engaged before, but she cheated on him and Hawke broke it off. It had been a while since he’d seen her, and when Hawke saw her stripping at the strip club he was shocked. When he’d been involved with her she’d had a successful career, and would never have done anything like that. When he found her out the back after her performance, he caught her doing drugs as well. She was high as a kite, so he drove her home. According to Hawke Josie had admitted that she still loved Hawke, and then he’d done the most unforgiving thing: he kissed Josie. He says he wasn’t the one who instigated the kiss, and maybe he wasn’t.

That’s not the problem here, though. The problem is that he lied to Lu regarding his whereabouts that night. But to add to that, he never told Lu he’d been engaged before. The next day Lu found a message on his phone from Josie, thanking him for that night and saying that she will always love him. Lu wanted to give Hawke the benefit of the doubt about what had happened, and when he finally got the chance to explain, and also told her that he loved her, she forgave him.

Now here we are on my wedding day and she’s crying, saying it’s happening all over again.

“Wouldn’t he?” she states, her voice low and tight, wiping away more tears with the back of her hand. “He told me she was in trouble, and that he had to go and help her. She’s always going to be there, Jazz. She’ll always be between us. I can’t compete with her—she was his first love, and he was going to marry her. I can’t, I just can’t.”

“Oh, Lu.” I hug her once again and say, “I’m so sorry.”

“What’s going on in here?” a deep, husky voice says from behind us. I know that voice. Luisa and I both look up and see Quill standing there, arms crossed and his eyebrows pinched together.

His eyes exude warmth, then deepen with obvious lust when he focuses on me. My heart flutters as his gaze licks my skin. I can never get enough of this man, and he’s all mine.

He walks into the room when his eyes take in Lu. He leans down when he reaches us, and I kiss his lips briefly before he gives Luisa his attention.

“What happened? Where’s Hawke?” he asks.

Luisa begins to sob again, and I rub her back trying to shush her, whispering that everything will be okay. “He’s gone, Quill, he just left,” I explain, repeating what Lu said earlier.

“What do you mean he left? Hawke wouldn’t leave on my wedding day without telling me.”

I go to comfort Quill, reaching for his hand, but he steps away from us and snatches his phone out of the inside of his jacket, pressing buttons rapidly. “I’ll see what the fuck’s going on,” he murmurs.

Quill starts pacing, looking down at his phone before lifting it back to his ear. “Hawke, where the fuck are you, brother? Call me.”

“He’s with his whore!” Luisa shouts when Quill ends the call. I look closely at my friend and realize just how hurt she is by all this. She’s a mess.

“He’s what? Who the fuck is his whore?” Quill questions, his jaw clenching tightly.

“Josie. You know his ex-fiancée, don’t you?” Lu spits out.

Quill sighs and rubs a hand over the back of his neck. Is it bad of me to want him so much while my friend is in pain? I can’t help it, my biker husband in a suit does things to me. And I know what’s beneath that suit: firm and sculpted muscles, a body that should be worshiped.

Quill stops pacing and walks closer to the bed where Luisa and I are seated. “Tell me exactly what he said,” he orders, his voice low and demanding, like he’s on the verge of losing his shit.

Lu jolts in her seat at his request, and visibly swallows. She wraps her arms around her waist. “Hawke and I were dancing… until his phone rang. He said he had to take the call, so he left and went outside of the marquee. I went to check on Jasmine and noticed he’d been gone a while, so I went searching for him and found him talking on his phone. He disconnected when I approached, and then told me he was going to have to leave, on club business apparently.”

“Club business?” Quill repeats.

Luisa nods and continues. “When I asked how he could leave at a time like this, he said Josie was in trouble, and that he had to go make sure she’s okay.”

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