Page 130 of Ruin
A lot of his worries are my fault. I know his trust issues with me are because of me. I know this relationship between us isn’t going to be easy, it’s going to take a lot of work and time, but, fuck… I just want to get to the good stuff. I just want us to enjoy each other and forget the bullshit past. I want to move on, start fresh, and build a life together. I’m just ready to be happy with Kolton and give him everything I’ve promised him and more.
Turning the car off, I take a breath before getting out, leaving everything in the car—I’ll deal with it later. I force a smile,hoping I’m wrong and that everything with him is fine. Maybe he had a bad day. Maybe he’s tired. Maybe he missed me.
He gets to his feet as I move closer, and I see something clenched in his hand. A piece of paper.
“What the fuck is this?” he asks, his voice calm but with an edge of anger to it. He offers the paper to me, and I take it, turning it over to look at it.
My throat gets tight when I see what it is. I wasn’t trying to hide this from him; I didn’t even realize it came in, but I knew this would be an issue when it did. I was hoping we could talk about it first, because it doesn’t need to be an issue.
“Divorce papers,” I answer truthfully.
“Yeah,” he says, huffing out a humorless laugh. “You said you were divorced.”
“No, I didn’t.” I shake my head.
He works his jaw. “You lead me to believe—”
“No, I didn’t,” I say more firmly, stepping closer to him. “I never said Beth and I were divorced. I said we were separated.” His eyes search mine, and I see the anger flaring there, but I won’t sugarcoat this. “You didn’t want to talk about it when I tried to explain,” I add.
His jaw clenches, eyes turning red and watery. “How is it so easy for you to hurt me?” he chokes out.
My heart shatters into a million fucking pieces at those words because if only he knew that hurting him is the worst pain I have ever felt. “Kolton—”
He shoves past me, hops on his bike, and leaves. I run a hand through my hair, turning around to watch him go, the papers still held tightly in my hand.
I should have pushed this harder. I should have made sure he understood. But also… he needs to take accountability too. I can’t baby him forever. He made the decision to not listen to me. I tried. He didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t want to listen. This isn’t fully on me. But I know damn well I’m going to chase him down and fix it because I cannot live without him. And I told him if he wanted me to chase him, I would do it forever.
I quickly bring all the groceries inside, shoving the bags in the fridge so nothing goes bad. When I get back in my car, the first place I check is the park. I knew he wouldn’t be here, not this time because it was too easy, but I had to check, anyway. The next place I think of is the clubhouse, but I decide to stop at his house first because it seems like the last place he would go since his brother is there. Typically, I’d think he wants to be alone, but today feels different.
I see his bike in the driveway and breathe out a sigh of relief, pulling up beside it. I get out and go to the front door that’s already being pulled open.
“Kaison,” I say, sighing.
“He’s going to kill you if you try coming in here.”
“I just want to talk to him.”
“He don’t want to talk to you.”
“Did he tell you whathappened?”
“Nope.”
“And you don’t care because you’re his brother. Fine, I get it.” I run a hand through my hair and look at my car, then back at Kaison. “I love him, Kaison, and I don’t know how you feel about the whole thing, but trust me when I say I love him. I want nothing more than for us to be together.”
“Maybe you should stop pissing him off.”
“Have you met him?” I say loudly.
Kaison smirks, steps outside, and closes the door behind him.
“I’m not going to ask questions because my brother is a private person, but I do know he cares about you, and I imagine you care about him too.”
“I do,” I say firmly.
“Give him the night to cool off. Come by in the morning.”
“I don’t want that, Kaison. I was just gone all weekend. I want to see him now. I want to be with him. I just want him to fucking talk to me about his problems instead of running away all the damn time.”
