Neither one of them looked my way. They were too engrossed in one another. Harry was no doubt begging him to find another way. Sutton was no doubt telling him my future was fucked.
I decided to look back down at my feet again and try to focus on something else. Someone else. I pictured her face on a morning. I pictured her sleepy eyes as she woke too early and hurled whispers of abuse at me for looking too good while she assumed she looked like shit. I imagined all the ways she touched me before she let me crawl out of bed. I imagined her naked body pressed against mine. I imagined her warm lips kissing me, devouring me, and whispering all the things no other woman had ever whispered.
And I almost smiled.
Almost.
But the sound of the car door opening caught my attention before Harry slid into the back seat beside me, slamming the door shut and blowing out a breath as he leaned back into the chair and gave me a smile.
“Harry?” I frowned.
“What are you doing, son?” he asked softly.
“Taking a quick vacation to Cuba.”
“Don’t get smart with me.”
“What the hell does it look like I’m doing?”
Harry sighed and pressed his lips together to form a sad smile. I had no idea what the fuck he was trying to achieve. Delaying the inevitable had never been our style, and he had to know that by doing this to me, by coming to me, he was going to make it so much harder for me to leave.
“Please, Harry,” I begged him quietly. “Don’t give me this speech. I know what I’m doing. This is for the club.”
Harry stared forward, running his hands over the thighs of his jeans.
“I know someone has to pay,” he acknowledged, nodding his head to no one in particular as he watched the sun come up. “I know someone has to represent the club.”
“Then get out of here.”
“Can’t do that, son.” He smiled flatly.
“You don’t have a choice, Rogers. I’m the pres, remember? I call the shots.”
He huffed out a laugh, a laugh that caught in his throat like usual and forced him into a small coughing fit. Harry smacked his fist against his chest in his usual manner, rolling his eyes at the delay in conversation.
“We always have a choice,” he eventually pushed out, hisvoice rough and gravelly.
I stared at him, unmoving. “What’s going on?”
“I need you to listen and listen real good.”
“Why?”
“There’s something I haven’t told you. Any of you.”
Harry’s eyes filled with a small pool of unshed tears as he stared out the front of Sutton’s car.
“What haven’t you told me?” I dared myself to ask.
He bobbed his head from side to side, weighing up the taste of his next words. “I’ve got the cancer.”
I blinked, not able to say anything.
“Yep.” He sighed heavily as if confirming it to himself.
The air suddenly poured from my lungs in one long stream of disbelief as my blood ran cold.
“In case you didn’t hear that,” he said quietly. “I said I’ve got that dreaded old cancer.”
