And I’ll keep this one piece of him, the one thing he’ll never know about.Because I’m not going back.Not ever.
The baby starts to show before I’m ready for it.
It’s not much, just a soft curve that doesn’t go away no matter how I stand.But it’s enough to make my apron fit different, enough to make strangers smile when they notice.Pine City is the kind of town that minds its own business, but even here, people talk in glances.
I’ve been here almost three months.I know the rhythm of the bakery now, the hum of the mixer, the warmth of ovens breathing life into dough.Mornings are still dark when I start, but they don’t feel lonely anymore.I hum sometimes, quiet, low, like muscle memory, but never the songs I used to.Christmas music still feels like a bruise.
The baby kicks for the first time in the middle of icing a cake.Just one soft flutter, like a secret.I stop what I’m doing, hand on my belly, heart trembling.It’s the smallest miracle I’ve ever felt.I whisper, “Hey, little one,” and for a second, I swear everything else disappears, the noise, the guilt, the ghosts.
Then the bell over the door rings.
I look up, expecting the morning regular or the old man with the newspaper.Instead, the temperature drops a million degrees.
Humbug.
He’s standing there, older somehow, rougher.His beard’s a little longer, his eyes darker.He looks like he’s been living on the road and whiskey.His cut’s dusty, leather cracked where his fists probably hit things.
For a second, I can’t move.My pulse stumbles.I think I might drop the icing bag.
Chapter 19
Humbug
Scowling at WHORE scrawled on her building, I knock on Carol’s door, and no one answers.Immediately, I know something’s wrong.Not the kind of wrong you fix with words or whiskey.The kind that leaves a hole where your pulse should be.
I do what any biker would, I break down the damn door.
The apartment isn’t empty.Her scent, peppermint, still clings to the air, faint but fresh enough to haunt me.I stand there too long, listening to the silence, waiting for her voice, the sound of her humming.
Nothing.
I call Sugar.She won’t talk, just confirms my hunch, “Carol’s gone.Leave her be, Jack.”
Like hell I will.
The club calls it running.Trina calls it karma.I call it my fault.
So, I ride.
I run the highways thin, two lanes and truck-stop coffee, the kind that scalds and never wakes you up.Small towns.Diners with pie glassed in like a museum exhibit.Motels exuding the scent of aged smoke and bleach.I sleep in fits.Every brunette with a red coat yanks my heart sideways.Every time it ain’t her, I tell myself good.She’s safer without me.That lie gets harder to swallow mile by mile.
Evervale keeps spinning its music box in my head.The square.The spruce.Carol’s peppermint flavored lips when she says the word, hope, like it still belongs to people like me.I want her back, but I’m also ashamed of what I did to lose her.
Back at the clubhouse, I don’t stay long.I can’t.Every wall has ears.Every brother has questions.Prez, too.I don’t have answers I like.
Trina finds me behind my shop, the dark where men go to think and screw up.She leans on my bike like it’s hers.Hell, she might win it in the divorce.Her eyes are black and bright with the kind of trouble that comes cheap and costs everything.
“You think she wants you back?”she asks.“That little Christmas girl?She’s moved on, Jack.You should too.”
I don’t answer.She reads it anyway.The way her words bounce off me like rain off chrome.
She pushes.She always was good at that.Shows up drunk another night, lip gloss smeared, tears right where the lighting will catch them.Talks about old times like those were holy days.Says we could start over.Says she misses the way I used to look at her.
Trina’s on my lap before I can protest, close, warm.She grinds down against my cock.It springs to life, remembering the fun we once had.
I almost give in.Not because I want her.I don’t.Because numb is easy, and I’ve been sharp enough to bleed for weeks.Nevertheless, as she moves nearer, I see Carol's features, tender eyes, messy hair… the aroma of peppermint on her skin.My hand comes up like instinct, a flat stop at Trina’s sternum.
“Don’t,” I say.
