Renegade Reject (27 page)

Just before walking out, Wayne stops and turns to look at me.  “You hurt Daisy again, and I’ll kill you.”

“He’ll pay for taking your girl without talking to you first.  Even if he stays on the straight and narrow, you’ll still get a chance to cause him some pain,” Kidd says, nodding toward Wayne and Holt. 

Timber laughs, slapping me on my back.  “I haven’t whipped your ass in a long time.  I’m going to enjoy this.” 

Chapter Twenty-One

PREACH

I walk into the common room and see Wayne sitting at a table by himself.  By the look on his face, I can tell that he has had his talk with Lula, and that talk didn’t go well.  Pulling out a chair, I take a seat right beside him.  “We need to work this shit out, brother.”

He jerks his eyes toward me, and for the first time in all my years here, I see that Wayne is drunk.  Sure, I’ve seen him have a beer or two, maybe a shot every now and again, but I’ve never seen him have too much.  “You okay, man?”

“Would you be okay, if you just cut your child out of your life?  Would you be alright with leaving your own flesh and blood behind, and having to pretend your life is the same without them?”

My child, the one that Daisy’s carrying right now; there’s no fucking way.  I could never turn my back on my kid. “Fuck, man.  I can’t imagine.”

“I know she’s a bitch.  I’ve known it for years, but when I look at her, all I can see is the little girl that used to call me Daddy.  That’s the girl I love with all my fuckin’ heart.”  He shakes his head, frustration coming off him in waves.  “What the fuck happened to that kid?  How did she turn into such a fuckin’ bitch?”

Wayne and I haven’t seen eye to eye since I fucked up with Daisy the first time, but I still hate seeing him like this.  “I don’t know.  I really don’t think there was anything that you could have done to change how she turned out.”

He’s quiet for a second before switching topics.  “What are you gonna do about Daisy and the baby?  I’m not gonna let you keep stringing her along.”

“I’m done with that shit.  She’s mine, and I’m gonna make sure everyone knows it.”

“Daisy deserves more than you can give her.  She needs a man that doesn’t live for a bottle. She’s had enough of that with her dad.”

He’s right, so fuckin’ right.  “I’m gonna sober up, brother.  Starting right now, I’m gonna get my shit straight.”

“I’ve heard that shit before.  If it’s just empty promises, you need to step your ass back,” he says as his eyes travel across the room and lock on Mary.  “Empty promises can kill a good woman.  She may still breathe, but inside her heart will be dead.  I’m not gonna let that happen to Daisy.”

I can tell there is more to his story than he is willing to tell.  “I’m gonna get sober, and that’s not an empty promise.”

His eyes move back to me.  “I’ll make you a deal.  If you get sober and stay that way, I won’t cause you any issues.  You can brand her, and I’ll keep my damn mouth shut.  But if I see your ass drunk again, I’ll fight the whole fuckin’ club if that’s what it takes to keep her away from you.”

****

I crawl into my bed after another bout of nausea.  Cold chills race up and down my spine as pain assaults my body.  Three days sober, and I'm still sick as fuck.  Shit!  I knew I had a problem, but I had no idea it was this fuckin' bad.  Looking back, I can’t remember the last day I went without a drink.  To be honest, I can’t remember the last night I went to sleep without passing out.  That alone should be a clue to exactly how bad my shit was fucked up.

I'm just pulling the covers over my body when my door opens.  "Feeling any better?"

I watch as Mary walks into my room, and I shake my head.  "Not a fuckin' bit."

She makes her way to my bed and sits down by my feet. "I know it’s hard, but it’s the only way."

"I'm not sure if it's worth it.  Right now, a shot or two sounds really damn good."

Her eyes narrow before she responds.  "Are you saying my Daisy isn't worth it?  Do you not think you put her through a hell of a lot more pain than you're going through right now?  It may not have been physical pain, but let me tell you.  Heartbreak is pure agony.  You've given her more than her fair share of that."

She doesn't have to tell me shit.  I've felt the same pain as Daisy has.  The only difference is I did it to myself.  "I didn't mean it like that."

“Wayne used to drink a lot, a hell of a lot.  He spent more time drunk off his ass than he spent sober, that’s for sure.”

That shocks the shit out of me.  “I didn’t know that.”

She shakes her head.  “I didn’t figure you did.  He cleaned his act up a long time ago.  He’ll drink some, but he rarely gets drunk now.”

I wait for her to continue, but she stays quiet, so lost in her own thoughts that I can watch the emotions play across her face, and those emotions are anything but good.  “What made him change?”

“He lost something very important to him.  He had to get sober to get it back.  But even then, it was never the same.”

I have a feeling I know where this conversation is going, and I’m not sure I’m gonna like it. 

Her body is stiff as she stands up and walks to the window.  “I’ll tell you our story.  I really think it could help put things into perspective for you, but you got to promise not to tell anyone.  Daisy loves her Gramps, and I don’t want her to know how much of a bastard he used to be.”

“You got my word.”

“Wayne and I met in high school.  You know the story; boy meets girl, they fall in love and expect to live happily ever after, but then life gets in the way.”  She turns to stare out the window.  Her body is so taut that she looks like she could snap in two.  “We were supposed to get married, but a few months before the wedding, he joined the Renegades.  After that, our wedding plans got pushed back.”

Damn, that’s a surprise.  For some reason, I just figured that Mary came on as a club girl and met Wayne and Holt here. 

“Before I knew it, Wayne was running with the brothers all the time. I barely saw him at all.  Don’t get me wrong.  He came home to me most nights, but he was usually so drunk, all he did was pass out.”  She leans her head forward, placing her forehead on the cool glass of the window.  “Then one night, I heard the front door open.  It was late, and everything was dark.  I was so used to Wayne coming in that I didn’t even get up to check.  The next thing I know, a man was in our bedroom, and it wasn’t Wayne.  You can guess what happened from there.”

My stomach starts to roll at the thought.  Mary can be hard as hell, but she’s gentle to the core.  The thought of someone hurting her, especially in that way, makes my stomach tie in knots. “I’m so sorry.”

She ignores my sentiment and continues with her story. 

“I woke up in the hospital the next day, and Wayne’s best friend was sitting by my bed.  No one could find Wayne, so Holt stayed with me.  A few days later, Wayne showed up, but it was too late.  By that time, I was starting to fall in love with Holt.  He was there when I needed him, and Wayne wasn’t.”

I can’t imagine coming home to my woman, knowing she was hurt, and knowing I could have protected her if I had been there.  Coming home to discover she had fallen for my brother, fuck; that is something I don’t even want to consider. 

“Instead of doing what he should have done, taking care of me, he ended up spending even more time drinking.  I would go days, sometimes weeks, without seeing him.  During that time, I saw Holt more and more.  The love that started to blossom while I was in the hospital bloomed into something that neither one of us could control.” She turns to look at me, her eyes filled with tears. “Telling Wayne we were over was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but telling him that I was leaving him for his best friend was even worse.  He was so angry, furious.  That young boy I fell in love with had disappeared and was replaced by some bastard I didn’t even recognize.”

Shit!  Her words hit close to home, so similar to the way Daisy probably thinks of me. 

Walking back to the bed, she takes her place by my feet again.  “After that, he did some awful things, truly terrible things, to me.  Those I won’t share with you, but I will tell you that it took him years to make up for what he did.  Sometimes, I feel like he’s still trying to make up for them.  It took him a long time to figure out that the only way he could fix things was to put down the drink.  When he did, I fell in love with him all over again.  People may think things are strange with us and Holt, but it works for us.  Things would have been a lot different if Wayne wouldn’t have sunk so low.  As much as I love Holt, I would’ve been beyond happy to marry Wayne and play the little wife for the rest of my life.”

I don’t even know what to say.  How can you even respond to that shit? “That’s fucked up, completely fucked up.”

“Yes, it is, and that’s where you’re headed if you don’t get your shit together.  I’m not saying you’ll have to share Daisy, because my granddaughter would never go for that, but you are gonna lose her.”

Her words cause a wave of nausea to roll through my body.  I jump from the bed and rush to the bathroom.  On the way, I vow to myself to fight this shit.  I won’t lose Daisy, especially not because I’m too much of a pussy to get sober.

Chapter Twenty-Two

DAISY

Ice, Skittles, and I are out at Chaos Club in Kansas City.  We’re having a girl’s night out. A liquor free girl’s night out for me.  It’s supposed to be one of the hottest clubs in the whole damn state, but I just think being here is a waste of some good sleeping hours.  When Ice approached me with the idea, I told her that it sounded like the stupidest plan I’d ever heard.  That didn’t deter her though.  She just laughed and threw a skimpy little black dress at me, then told me to get dressed.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I spent the first half of the night pouting like a big baby.  Ice and Skittles keep telling me that we don’t need booze to have a good time.  Just being in good company is enough. They’re right, we don’t.  I am enjoying their company, but I’m not having any fun.  In fact, I don’t think doing anything that remotely involves a jam-packed club is fun.  Fun for me would be lying in bed all day, trying to get in as much sleep as possible, while I have the chance. 

Not to mention the fact that every single woman I cross paths with immediately notices my small bump and enjoys telling me all about how they miss having the pregnancy glow, and how amazing their whole nine months were.  Every time anyone approaches me, I just want to scream.  I want to tell every single one of them that my boobs are sore as hell, I’m so tired I could probably sleep standing up, and I’m sick as a damn dog nearly every morning.  Instead, I just smile. 

We’ve been at the club for a little over an hour now, when I notice that Ice hasn’t had anything but water to drink tonight. That is beyond unusual.  Ice can drink most of the boys under the table. “I can be the DD. You can drink all you want.”

“Kidd wants to try for a family, so he’s ‘forbidden’ me from drinking.” She lets out a laugh, air quoting the word forbidden. “I told him the same goes for him.  If I can’t drink, he can’t have any either.”

I can’t picture Kidd giving in to that. I must have said that thought out loud, because she lets out a huge laugh and says, “Hell no, he didn’t, but I told him if he wanted a kid, the same rules applied for him. Trust me, that shut him up, and the sex afterwards was hot enough to seal the deal.” She adds a wink to her statement.

“That’s great, Ice.  I’m happy for you guys.”

“Yeah, I’m excited.  It’s happening so fast.  Just a few weeks ago, he said he wanted to wait before we had kids.  Now that I’m wearing his ring, he’s doing his damnedest to plant a kid in me.”

My eyes immediately jerk to her hand, where a beautiful but simple diamond ring is perched on her finger.  “You’re getting married?”

A shy smile, something I have never seen on Ice, crosses her face. “Yeah, we are.  We’re waiting until September.  I want us to get married on Chipper and Mindy’s anniversary.  I want her to be part of it, even though she can’t be there.”

“That’s beautiful,” Skittles pipes in, an odd look on her face; a look that I don’t understand. 

“Enough talk about me,” Ice says, looking toward Skittles.  “How’re the new girls working out?”

She shrugs.  “There are a few good ones, I think.  Time will tell.”

“It always does.  Not many bitches can hack the lifestyle.” Ice’s words are true.  I grew up as part of the club, and it’s still hard living it every day.

“Callie finally cleared her shit out today.  Now Leah’s the only one of those bitches you eighty-sixed that hasn’t got her things.”

Ice and I share a look, both of us knowing Leah isn’t ever gonna get her shit from the apartments.  I’m still not sure what happened to her, but I know better than to ask.  Ice knows this topic could get messy, so she switches it.  “What’s this I hear about you going on a date with a cop?”

“What?” Skittles shouts as she slams her hands on the table.  “You gotta spill right now.”

I can feel my lips turn up as the thought of Rick crosses my mind.  He’s been to the diner every day this week, while Preach has been MIA.  “It’s not really a date.  He’s just gonna pick me up after work tomorrow and take me to watch some meteor shower through his new telescope.”

Ice scrunches up her nose.  “He sounds like a geek.”

I laugh at her opinion, because it mirrored mine when he first asked.  “I think he is, kinda, but he swears it’s amazing to see.  He promises that if I don’t have fun, he’ll let me pick our next date.”

Skittles leans forward. “I thought you said it wasn’t a date.”

My smile grows as I mutter, “Whatever.”

PREACH

I’m sitting at the clubhouse, shooting the shit with Reese and Chipper, when Timber comes in, looking smug.  I’m still feeling like hell.  It’s the first day I’ve even felt like leaving my room in over a week, and I don’t feel like putting up with his ass today. My eyes narrow at him, knowing he’s going to give me shit.

“You really fucked up, man.  She’s not taking you back this time,” he says as he sits down next to Reese, motioning for the new prospect to get him a beer.