“Before we got together, he was adamant I was going to be his, even followed me to the cafe like some little stalker, and I knew he was going to be stubborn,” Jas reminisces with a wistful smile on her face, and I fuck, anger seers through me.
She took her from me, she left me feeling a-fucking-lone.
“Well, guess you can expect me to be stubborn enough not to forgive you for taking my daughter from me, huh, Jasmine?” I snap, unable to keep my anger at bay, the six years she ensured we lost of each other, of being happy, fuck, of even being married and having more kids flash before me, and she flinches and quickly looks away, and I tense my jaw as Dad winces because of course regret comes in.
Fuck.
I was a dick. I acted out of pain and frustration—not because I wanted to push her away.
I didn’t mean to be mean, I just—fuck—we haven’t hashed everything out yet. We tiptoe around each other, acting polite for Aisling's sake when she’s around otherwise ignoring each other. I’m still hurting—I think I will be for a while—and I don’t know how not to take that resentment out on her.
I didn’t just miss time with my daughter, I missed time with her.
She’s been back in my life for five weeks and in our home, because no matter what she thinks, it’s always been her home for two weeks. The doors stay locked, Dad stays over when I’m working, and things are hard. The pain of what she did, not trusting me, is overwhelming and fuck, I can’t get over that she planned to leave without our daughter, thinking she could just come back and take her later without hurting us all.
The actual fact that she thought I’d just let her leave me is laughable as it is.
I look at her again when I hear a ruffle to see she’s turned away from me, facing the window, and my jaw ticks.
The whole time she lived here, not once had she slept in this room, but after I said what I did two weeks ago, she started, and that just pisses me off. My anger shifts to resentment, doubling toward her.
I know I shouldn’t have mouthed off or called her names. I was angry—she was talking about leaving our daughter and seriously, she can’t really expect me to be alright with her after just a few weeks, especially after learning she knew she was pregnant when she left and didn’t come to me. First, I’m frustrated, then I feel betrayed, then I’m just…hurt and sad.
Honestly, she shouldn’t be the one pissed at me right now. She should be giving me time to process the fucked up month I’ve had instead of sleeping in the spare goddamn bedroom everynight instead of in our bed like I planned before I ran my mouth like a dick.
I should have locked the fucking door to the room.
After Dad spent some time with Aisling two weeks ago, getting to know his granddaughter and Jas stayed out of the way, I listened to Jas reading a story to Aisling from outside her bedroom door, hearing the love she had in her tone towards our daughter and it frustrated me even more that she’d consider leaving. Instead of barging in and confronting her about her fucking decisions, I checked the locks to help me calm down before I went and checked on my little girl, before confronting Jas, only I found Aisling asleep alone.
I returned to our room expecting Jas to be there, ready to continue our argument, but I couldn’t find her. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and started searching every room, already knowing everything was locked so she had to be somewhere in the house before I finally found her here, asleep, and I sat and watched her all night.
Now it’s become a fucking routine.
Unless I’m on a night shift, I kiss our daughter goodnight, search for her mother in here, find her asleep, and hold her until around four in the morning. Then I sit against the wall and watch her until I get messages from Dirty reminding me of my shifts at the garage, just like this morning even though he knows I’m meant to be on a night shift at the hospital tonight but the fucker apparently needs me.
I drop my head back again and silently groan.
Fuck I’m tired, but I can’t sleep past four because if I do, Jasmine might find a way to leave the house—and me—and that thought makes me sick to my stomach, which is why I’m up at four every fucking morning.
I love her, that much hasn’t changed in the six years she’s been gone, but I have. The way I see her now is different.
She’s not the girl I thought she was, yet I can’t let her go. I just can’t and it doesn’t help that the little voice in the back of my head is telling me she is that girl, that she just made wrong decisions believing she was saving me, saving our daughter.
My phone buzzes in my pocket—this time a call and I sigh, check the ID, groan silently before glancing once more at Jas to see she’s still out of it, then slowly rise, walk out, and shut the door behind me as I answer, “Pres?”
“Ha!” he replies, “I knew you still saw yourself as a brother.”
I roll my eyes, “It was a slip of the tongue, Doc. What can I do for you?”
He chuckles, “You’ll be back on runs by next month, I fucking guarantee it, and Axel will be fucking happy to see you. The fucker is already threatening to ride down and kick some sense into you about your cut, I mean, fuck brother, it’s been over a month, we want you back.”
Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?
Axel is the President of the Untamed Hell Fire’s MC, and his old lady is batshit crazy, like, spray painting his bike or pouring glitter glue in his shampoo bottle and hiring male strippers to the clubs he affiliates with, kind of crazy when he pisses her off.
Fuck, before I handed my cut in, a box of vibrators arrived with a glitter cannon and the latest, according to Doc’s old lady Brit, apparently Annie and some other old ladies of the club decided to give lap dances to random guys at their strip joint as punishment when the brothers decided to do some kind of intervention or some shit which is hypocritical of them considering if it was the other way, shit would have hit the fucking fan and they know it. According to Brit, the women also poured hair dye and shit in the shampoo bottles.
They went too far, and I think they know it, or I fucking hope they know it because there is only so much a brother can take, believe me, I fucking know.
