Chapter 6
Ashley – Current Day
“Why can’t I just stay with you this weekend?” Cole complains as I scan through a customer’s items who thankfully is busy on her phone to take notice of my whining son, and I side-eye him.
He’s sitting near me, his math homework out in front of him, a scowl that is so much like his father's on his face, yet again putting up a fight about going to his dad's like he does every single weekend.
He may have my physical features, right down to my green eyes, but his facial expressions and body language are all his dad's, whom he currently hates with every fiber of his being. Every day it is getting harder to convince him to go to his father's and not just because he’ll spend time with his father and see the love he has for him, but also because the club is getting biggerand growing up in it, I don’t want him to feel pushed out all because his father couldn’t keep it in his pants.
My stomach churns at the thought yet again, my chest aching but I try and swallow it down as I scan a few more items, placing them in the brown paper bag.
Ty and I have been legally separated for roughly eight and a half months, and each day, it gets harder and harder to breathe. He was my home, my family. He tore that away, along with everyone else I thought was my family.
Doc has fallen in love, and so has Stone. Both finding themselves with women who have given them not only their hearts, despite their past mistakes, but also children. Both brothers went through hell and back to keep their loves and now they’re holding onto them tightly, adamant to keep knocking them up or so Olive explains every time she sees me hoping I’ll long to be a part of a big family again.
The club is expanding, and it isn’t fair for Cole to miss out, especially when they are his only family.
I chose him. I decided on Ty over my parents, and I won’t let my son experience the emptiness I feel every day, being alone, especially since I thought the club was my family too which clearly I was wrong about. They all sat back and watched my husband have a full-blown affair for a whole year, allowing him to convince them I was sleeping with someone else.
They broke me, and I refuse for my son to be broken.
“Sweetheart, Granny and Grandpa want to spend time with you, your dad misses you during the week,” I try as I press the payment amount on the screen and say, “That’ll be $42.36,” to my customer and I grab her paper bag, putting it on the counter.
She scans her card which beeps to state it’s been accepted and I hand her the receipt before she leaves, and Cole snorts, shaking his head, making me flinch.
While Ty and I have been in therapy for six months, me trying to end this marriage, him trying to, I don’t even know anymore, Olive and Scar have been the in between. The are the ones picking up and dropping Cole off between our two different homes and a few months ago when Cole came home from school with tears in his eyes asking questions I never wanted him to ask, questions I tried so hard to keep away from him but failed, I was ready to tear the world apart.
“Thank you for picking him up, Olive,” I say politely, and she gives me a soft smile, one I am not used to, and replies, “Anytime, though he’s been a little quiet today…”
I furrow my brows as I turn my head towards my son, who so far hasn’t said much with us living in a different home than his father's, or the fact that it’s a rundown apartment. I explained his daddy and I have decided we would be better parents living apart, something Ty was pissed at.
He’s been upbeat, seeing it as an adventure, but the look that he’s giving me right now, my stomach drops.
Tears shine in his bright green eyes as he asks, “Mama, is it true Dad had an affair?”
Oh god no...
I look at Olive sharply, terror and pain pulling me, and her eyes tear up as she defends, “I didn’t tell him.”
“So it is true?!” he demands with such force for a ten-year-old, and my mouth opens and closes, not knowing what to say.
I never wanted him to find out.
I swallow hard and go to defend his father, something he doesn’t deserve, but Cole opens his mouth again and tears my world apart as he cries, “That means he really didn’t want me, that I was a mistake!”
No, no, no, no.
He runs off crying, the door to his room slamming, and I choke, “What-what just happened? P-please tell me he hasn’t been told everything?!”
“Oh god,” Olive whispers before I hear, “Honey, I-I, you need to tell Tyler that Cole knows, someone told him at school today.”
“He doesn’t want me, Mama,” Cole says with a matter-of-fact tone, and I sigh.
“He does, sweetheart,” I say softly, “He was a teenager when we had you…”
Cole looks at me and unhelpfully reminds me, “So were you! You lost everything for Dad, only for him to cheat on you, and growing up, he wasn’t around!”
“Because he was working for the club, ready to take over the role of Sargent, Cole, you know this. Now your father has made some real mistakes, I’m not defending him, but where you are concerned, he loves you,” I state firmly, knowing Ty does love his son, he just went through a ‘I’m a jackass phase’.
