Crave Me (The Good Ol' Boys #4) (36 page)

I gazed deep into her eyes. “Shhh… I’m sorry. I love you. I made a mistake. I promise I’ll call my sponsor. I’ll tell him what happened. I’ll go to more meetings. I won’t do this to you again. Please believe me.”

Without a word she looked at me one last time, turned and left. I let her go because it was the right thing to do. Even though it felt so fucking wrong. The damage was already done. There was no going back.

Only forward.

It had been a year since Briggs miscarried our baby. So much had fucking changed, nothing in our lives was the same after that day. I worked all the time, leaving Briggs alone a lot. It was easier to get lost in my art than it was to face reality. At first she used to come in with me and work, both of us needing the distraction, but as the months passed, the less frequent her hours became.

She usually just worked a few hours a week and hired Mason, Lucas’s son and Alex’s stepson to work the front desk on the weekends and after school. He was fifteen and a punk ass kid who reminded me a lot of Lucas at that age. A smartass mouth that would get him in trouble one day and stubborn as shit.

“Hey, Mom,” Mason announced as Alex walked through the door.

“Mason… your dad is going to kill you. Your report card—”

“Because he loved school so much? I want to go into the military. I don’t need school to be a Marine.”

She sighed, and I resisted the urge to chuckle. Instead I just smiled and shook my head.

“What’s so amusing over there?” Alex called out, catching me.

I shrugged, sitting in my chair sketching up some designs for clients.

“The kid wants to fight for our country, Half-Pint. It’s not like he’s saying he wants to join the circus.”

“Mason, can you go get me a coffee next door please?” Alex ordered.

“Mom, I’m not eight anymore. I know you’re going to sit here and talk about me. I don’t need to leave. At least this way I can defend myself. Am I wrong?”

“Mason…” she warned in her Half-Pint/mom way.

Mason was well over six feet tall already, towering over Alex.

“This is bullshit,” he murmured under his breath, grabbing her money and walking to the door.

“Mason Ryder!”

“Love you, Mom,” he said over his shoulder, walking out of the shop.

I started laughing my ass off. I couldn’t help it. Lucas to a fucking T right there.

“What am I going to do with that kid? Lucas is seriously ready to strangle him,” she stated, turning her attention back to me.  

“Look, Half-Pint, his balls dropped. He’s going to step up to Lucas eventually. It’s a right of passage for every boy.” I couldn’t stop laughing. “And… karma is a fucking bitch.”

“God and I still have to go through this with Bo?”

“At least you have your baby girl.” I looked over to her with a smirk.

“Who is five, going on eighteen. She will not leave her brothers alone. All she does is follow them around and nags them.”

“Sounds familiar.” I smiled.

“I was never that annoying though.”

“Debatable,” I chuckled.

Her eyes widened. “At least it’s good to see you smiling and laughing, Austin. Even if it’s at my expense, I’ll take it.”

I looked back down at my drawings, the smile fading fast. She was right. I couldn’t even remember the last time I truly smiled or laughed for that matter.

“What’s going on with you? Are you and Briggs okay? You didn’t seem okay at the barbeque a few weeks ago.”

I ignored her, continuing to draw as she made her way over to me. Pulling up a chair beside mine.

“Hey…” She placed her hand on top of mine, stopping me. “What’s up?”

“Alex, what do you want me to say?”

“I love Briggs, and she won’t tell me anything either. She’s actually much harder to get something out of than you are. Which is hard to believe, the way you keep your feelings bottled up.”

“We’re just going through some shit. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

I cocked my head to the side.

“Oh, come on. I can keep a secret. You should know that more than anyone. I never told a soul that you kissed me. Not even Lucas knows. It’s no one’s business, but ours.”

“Half-Pint, you know why you didn’t tell him and that’s not the reason.”

“It was part of it. It didn’t mean anything, and you knew that when it happened.”

We locked eyes.

“You know?”

She smiled. “You’ve always been the rebel, Austin. It’s who you are. And because of that you isolate yourself a lot. You still do. It’s the way you cope with things, and it’s never been healthy. To keep that all bottled up inside, waiting for it to erupt like a volcano. I think that’s why you confused your love and our friendship for something you’ve always wanted. But you and I both know it was never me. I was just the only girl in your life that made sense. That’s why I never told Lucas or anyone else.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, taking in what she was saying and knowing that it was the truth. Every last word of it, I remembered when I told Briggs that exact same thing.

“The way you look at Briggs is so devastatingly beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone look at someone the way you look at her. I know that you’ve gone through a lot by yourself, and I’m sure even more with her. But you can’t just shutdown, Austin. It will only—”

The bell from the door rang. Mason walked back in with the coffee, and I couldn’t have been more grateful for the distraction. I had no desire to continue this fucking conversation.

There wasn’t anything left for me to say. I had used my excuses all up. It was easier this way. To pretend like everything was okay rather than face the reality of what happened to our relationship since the miscarriage.

The guilt alone was too much to bear.

“Austin.” Alex stopped on her way out the door, pulling me away from my plaguing thoughts and feelings. “We all lost you once. I believe in my heart that she helped you find your way back. You need to remember that when you feel lost again.” She turned and left.

I spent the rest of the afternoon thinking of what she said. Silently praying that when I realized that.

It wouldn’t be too late.

The more Austin pulled away from me, the worse I felt. The more I died inside. It had been a year and a half since my miscarriage, and I asked him at least twice a month if he was using again. That’s what our relationship had come to. He swore on everything that he had ever loved and promised me that he wasn’t using, that he hadn’t relapsed since that night. The only problem was he acted like he was.

The sad thing about it, I couldn’t tell if he was using or not. It had been too long or maybe I was just too blind. Too emotionally exhausted to think otherwise. The tattooed sleeves on his arms made it nearly impossible to see any track marks.

He was still going to his NA meetings and talking to his sponsor often. Doing everything he did before he relapsed, maybe even more so now. But the way he acted. It wasn’t
my
Austin, and that’s what confused me the most.  

The air was so thick between us that some days he would hide out in the room that was supposed to be our baby’s. I hated going in there, and I think he knew that. It was his safe place to get away from me, away from real life.

Away from us.

I found some support groups online with women who had miscarriages, and a lot of them said that their relationships with their husbands or boyfriends suffered because of the tragic loss. That sometimes their partners blamed them, causing an even bigger rift and turmoil in their already shattered relationship from the miscarriage itself.

“It’s not me I’m blaming.”

Those five words haunted me everyday.

Which was why I let him be. I believed every word that came out of his mouth because he’d never lied to me. I trusted him because I loved him. I lost myself more and more every day during that year-and-a-half, the reason being that. I didn’t recognize the woman staring back at me in the mirror. Most days I tried avoiding my reflection, not wanting to accept what was happening.

Austin was all I’d ever known. I went from my uncle’s fucked up grasp, to his. There was no middle ground. I didn’t know how to be anyone else but his girl.

And that scared me more than anything.

I started going to some NA meetings without him knowing about it. Trying to understand the way his mind worked. How an addict’s mind worked. Hoping that I could gain some insight on how to proceed, how to help him. I learned that addicts are very selfish people and that their addiction becomes so consuming that they don’t even realize it. I heard the words “rock bottom” come out of so many damn stories, and it made me question if Austin had truly hit his.

Enough for him to change.

I wondered if he ever stood up and told his story to a bunch of strangers that were all united and tied together by drugs. Their addiction. I wondered if his story included me, what he said, what he feared. What he wanted out of life. I used to think it was me. Love. Happiness. A family.

I didn’t know that anymore.

I began to question if I ever knew it at all.

“Baby…” Austin groaned from behind me, pulling me into his embrace.

He kissed all along the back of my neck, and I leaned into his affection. There were times like this where he would show me the love that I knew was still in there, even though we were both hurting. We would make love for hours, and he would hold me and tell me he loved me. He would call me his girl. With the snap of a finger, the next day he would go back to ignoring me.

Pushing me away.

I couldn’t keep up anymore. His emotions were causing me whiplash, and after all these years, I finally felt the havoc it brought upon me. We never discussed trying for another baby. It wasn’t an option. I went back on the pill and that was the end of it. Austin all of a sudden started to pull out when we had sex. There were very few times he actually came inside me anymore.

He didn’t want to try again, and I guess I couldn’t blame him. Neither one of us could survive the heartbreak of losing another life.

There was so much blood on my hands that I could barely see them.

The entire time I was pregnant, all we talked about was our wedding, marriage, and our future together. I knew he was going to ask me to marry him, I just didn’t know when. Now, I couldn’t tell you if that was even in the cards anymore.

One thing was for sure. We couldn’t go on like this.

I
couldn’t go on like this.

“You smell so fucking good, Daisy.”

I loved it when he was this way with me.

Mine.

“I have to go in to the shop for a few hours. I have a client I have to finish up. I’ll stop by Half-Pint’s restaurant on the way home to get some dinner and that chocolate cake you love. I’ll bring you home the whole fucking cake, baby. You just have to smile for me.” He turned me around to look deep into my eyes. “Just give me that goddamn smile.”

I did. He caught it and placed it near his heart. Kissing me. Long, hard, and deep.

“I love you, baby. I know it’s been a cluster fuck lately, and I’ve been an asshole. I just…” he breathed out, peering down at the ground while rubbing the back of his head. “I would never intentionally hurt you, Briggs. Please, tell me you still believe that. Tell me you still know that.”

“Yes,” I honestly spoke, making him immediately look back up at me. Surprised by my answer.

“Everything is going to be different from now on. I swear. You’re all I need. We will get through this and be stronger because of it. I promise you.”

I nodded with every fiber of my being. Wanting to believe him, needing to believe him.

“I’ll see you soon.” He kissed me one last time and walked out the door.

I spent the rest of that afternoon happy. At peace even. Which should have been the best feeling in the world, but it wasn’t. Not even close. After it got dark out and the night took over, I couldn’t calm the anxiety that I felt so deep in my fucking bones. Etching and burrowing in, making itself at home. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do to get it to go away.

I paced the hallway nervously twirling my hair around my fingers. My heart was pounding, echoing off the narrow walls. My head was reeling with what ifs. What if he's lying? What if he's using?

What if...

What if...

What if...

Over and over again, playing out in my mind.

Something else I learned from the meetings. Addicts lied. They lied so much they couldn’t tell the difference between the two anymore.

Austin was different, right?

I walked past the room that was going to be our baby’s, probably a hundred times in a few hours. Debating on going in there, the intuition to walk into the bedroom along with the voice in the back of my head hammering at me to go in there wouldn’t stop.

As much as I wanted it to.

As much as I tried.

I opened the door and turned on the lamp that was sitting on the nightstand. Taking in everything immediately as if it were about to disappear any second. Everything appeared the way it should be. Nothing seemed out of place even though Austin spent a lot of time in there.

I walked around the room. My fingers lightly touched along the walls.

“I think we should do a soft yellow color on the walls in this room.”

“A soft pink. It’s a girl, Briggs, I know it.”

My feet softly skimmed the wooden floors.

“We need to have Lucas install carpet in here.”

“Austin, the floor doesn’t need to get replaced.”

He kissed the tip of my nose. “I protect what’s mine.”

I looked around the closet, still picturing the baby clothes that Austin surprised me with that I had to hang up the same afternoon he gave them to me.

“Not that one, baby.” He grabbed the “You’re all we ever wanted” onesie out of my hands. “This is the one we will take her home in,” he rasped, getting down on his knees to kiss my belly.

A few weeks after the miscarriage, I’d found myself in the baby’s room, crying for what felt like the millionth time. Skimming my fingers over the onesies that Austin was so excited to show me. All of it was just a painful reminder of what we would never be bringing home. I decided it was best for the both of us if I took all the baby stuff and store it back in the same box Austin had given me. Placing it back on the exact shelf where it was in the closet. Except this time, it wasn’t empty anymore. It now held all of our hopes and dreams inside of it.

All of our sadness and despair.  

It was one of the last times I ever stepped foot back into that room. I held the box firmly in my sweaty hands, slowly walking toward the bed, each step bringing me closer to our truths. I sat down on the soft place that contained all our happy memories of the baby we lost.

My heart was pounding out my chest, my ears ringing, echoing all around the room. I placed the box in my lap and closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. Preparing myself for I don’t know what or maybe I did know and didn’t want to come to grips with it. I removed the lid off the box and placed it beside me. Trying like hell to ease the fear I felt in my heart. The anxiety I couldn’t ignore for the last year and a half. Something led me there, and I had a feeling I knew exactly what that something was.

“He doesn’t lie to you, Briggs, he has never lied to you,” I reassured myself, opening my eyes.

Seeing for the first time, exactly how many fucking lies he told me, and I believed him.

Every. Last. One.