LeCharles didn’t turn on his bike.
He just sat on the motorcycle, seemingly lost in deep thought. I wasn’t sure if this was an invitation for me to come out and talk to him, but I wasn’t going to play that game anymore. Not after what had just happened. I’d played my part, and now he had to do something.
Pride was playing a part, sure, but also just common sense.
I sipped on my tea quietly. I checked my phone. No new messages, but that was fine. I just needed to kill time.
When I looked up from my phone, LeCharles, much to my shock, was dismounting his bike and coming back inside. He came to my table and stood over me. It was like he was trying to tell himself to intimidate me, but he could no longer bring himself to do it.
“Look, I know you’ve changed,” he said. “I can appreciate that. But please. Just... for both of our sakes. Don’t pursue me any further. Or... ”
He shook his head.
“I’ll have to make you not pursue me.”
I didn’t react. LeCharles didn’t actually mean what he was saying. He still was trying to portray an image of a tough guy, but he wasn’t a tough guy. Well, he might have been to his biker friends, but he wasn’t to me.
Here, he was just softening up. He just hadn’t softened up enough to tell the truth.
LeCharles, a couple seconds later, walked back out, and this time, he really did get on his bike and leave. But by coming in to meet me and giving me a few final words, he had revealed something to me.
Deep within him, underneath all the vitriol and toxicity that he had piled on to his memory of me and our relationship, a part of him still wanted to try and make something work.
I knew that if I wanted that side of him to emerge, I’d have to give him all the space he needed. Rushing him would be like trying to get through a door that had just unlocked but had not yet opened.
I guess I’d just have to wait and see.
Axle
Two Days Later
You’d think that after everything that happened Thursday night, that I would have no desire to see Rose again.
You’d think that after my efforts to try and make sure we didn’t end with me ripping her to shreds, that I would have gotten my peace, and I could have moved forward.
You’d think that I had given Rose what she wanted and that I did not want for anything.
It wasn’t that easy.
Because even though I had deliberately not told Rose in advance I would be late, even though I had come in intending to be an asshole to shove her away, even though I had dodged her question about personal responsibility in the relationship, she had done a remarkable job keeping her cool. And that was what I meant when I said she had changed in a way that I had not expected. I couldn’t speak for how she would be in a relationship.
But I could say that the girl who would mock me, make fun of me, and make my life a living hell had not shown up in the very spot that she once would have.
And that was so confounding to me it made me get off my bike and go up to her, trying to make sense of everything. Just what the hell did she really mean?
It also didn’t help that she didn’t say a word to me after that. I was still of the belief that she would be texting me, begging me to meet again, trying to make sense of what I had done or said. Why wasn’t she? Was she...
Was she stronger than I had anticipated?
I had to laugh at the very thought. Not because it was absurd, but because it might have been right. It might have been the exact way to describe Rose now. Not the weak girl who yelled at anyone the moment things went bad. But a woman who was picking up the pieces of her life and making things better.
Damn!
I guess I had a lot to learn about Rose Wright. I guess I didn’t know her as well as I thought I had.
But such matters would have to wait for a different time because right now, I was on my motorcycle heading to club headquarters.
Not the Black Reapers’ headquarters—the Hovas’.
