Little did she know, the conversation was far from over. She may have thought she won this round, but I was ready to meet her tit for tat. The first week was always the hardest to work through. People just don’t want to move on, and it seemed like Ruby was going to be my hardest client yet. I just hope that God brought me into her path for a reason, because it would fucking kill me if this was all for nothing.
Chapter Eight
Muffled voices and the smell of coffee woke me up. Silence had been my only companion since Chase died. I forgot what it felt like to wake up without the deafening sound of silence in the house. I laid quietly in my bed and listened, not really hearing what was being said, just that at the moment I wasn’t alone. Cap was here. He saved me twice now, three times if you count rescuing me from the hospital.
I rolled over and looked at what used to be Chase’s side of the bed. It was empty, but if I closed my eyes, I could still picture him lying there beside me. It was like I was manifesting him lying there. Dirty blond hair tousled from sleep, framed his thin chiseled face as his hypnotizing, golden brown eyes with hints of green that were the perfect swirl of the two colors, blinked sleepily at me. The corners of his lips lifted into a smile, creating that adorable dimple in his left cheek, and cutest scrunch of his nose that was slightly humped from where he had broken it playing football in high school. I reached out for him, only meeting the cold, cruel air of his absence.
A tear slid down my cheek as I stared across the wide expanse of what was onceourbed. It felt so much larger without him beside me. I slept in one of his old shirts just to feel close to him, even if it was just an illusion. “Why’d you have to leave me?” I whispered, pulling the blankets higher around me. My body felt heavy, and I had no desire to leave the room. Whatever Cap wasdoing outside this room had nothing to do with me. I just wanted to be left alone with my memories and misery.
A knock on my bedroom door startled me, but I didn’t call out. I bit my lip to keep my tears and anger inside. When he knocked again, I finally shouted, “Leave me alone.”
“Ruby, it’s ten in the morning. Either you get up on your own, or I’m going to come in and help you up.”
“I hate you,” I muttered, not quietly enough apparently, because he laughed.
“Yeah. Yeah. I want you dressed and ready to go in ten minutes. The guys are going to start fixing your bathroom door.”
“Guys? What guys?” I rolled up and out of bed. My red hair was a mess and Chase’s shirt hung on me like a dress. I slept in his boxers that were baggy and loose, but I gave no heed to my wardrobe and opened the door.
“Virg and Pincher are going to fix your door and mow your lawn while we are gone.” Cap nodded to the two men that were barely boys standing in my living room. They were both young. One had the All-American jock look to him with large muscles and an athletic frame. The other one had longer hair and was thinner, with lean muscles and a haunted look in his eyes that showed a depth of agony below the surface.
“I can’t ask them to do that.”
Cap scoffed. “I’m not asking them to do it. I’m telling them to. They are prospects for the Celestial Sons. They do the tasks we assign to them without question until we are ready to patch them in fully.”
“I know how prospecting works,” I said begrudgingly, reminding myself of all the memories I wished I could forget from when Chase prospected for the Hell’s Artillery. He would get shit on and calls at all times of the night, and have to go to the clubhouse for God only knows what. I hated it, but he felt he owed it to his friend to stay in and see it all through. It wasn’tuntil I became a target for the assholes, that Chase walked away. They bloodied him up and broke a few ribs, but at least he left with his life and our marriage still intact.
“Your husband was a prospect?” one of the kids asked, looking for confirmation from Cap.
“Not with the Celestial Sons.” I leaned against the door jamb. “Chase prospected for the Hell’s Artillery, but he left before they patched him in.”
I watched the younger kid’s whole demeanor change at the mention of the other club. The disgust on his face spoke volumes about what he thought about the Artillery, and his opinion seemed to be shared by the rest of the bikers in Cap’s club.
“You got lucky.”
I gave the kid a flat look. “Yeah, that’s what they say. I’m just full of luck.”
“Go mow the lawn, Pincher,” Cap barked at him, and he turned to leave. “He didn’t mean that how it sounded. He’s had some bad blood with the Artillery himself.”
I nodded. “I don’t want to go anywhere. You can go wherever it is you need to go and leave your guys here to babysit me.”
“That’s not how this works, Ruby. You can go into your room and get dressed, or you can come with me in your current state, but I'm not letting you out of my sight.” Cap was calm and cool. His voice held authority, and I knew he wasn’t going to give up.
I rolled my eyes and closed my door in his face. “Five minutes left, Ruby. Better get a move on it.”
My teeth clenched as I grabbed jeans and a T-shirt from my drawer. “Fuck you,” I said loud enough, so I knew he could hear me. This man basically invited himself into my life the second he saved me, and I resented the hell out of him for it.
I pulled on one of Chase’s shirts and slipped into a pair of sneakers before he could knock on the door again. If playing along would get him out of the house faster, then I would playhis game. The best way to get through this was to pretend that I was moving past it. That had to start with this trip to wherever we were going.
“You ready, Ruby?”
No.I wanted to growl at him, but instead I took a deep breath and tried to remember the plan. Getting him out of my house and my life as soon as possible. “Yeah.”
Cap and I left the prospects to their tasks and loaded up into his truck. “Until you’re ready to ride, we’ll be taking my cage everywhere.”
“I won’t get on a bike again,” I said quietly, looking out the window to watch the world pass by as he drove through town.
“Did you love it?”
