“So I wanted ice cream. No big deal.”
“Except you didn’t get any.”
I’ve been staring at him hard this entire time. He hasn’t glanced my way since the first time he asked if I needed something. But now he looks. And there’s guilt on his face. For him? Me? I’m not sure.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“With what? Diana? Think there’s a problem going out with my former nurse?” I raise my eyebrows at his words. Could that hurt her career? Not something I want to do at all, but I’m not sure if I can stay away now.
Not after that kiss. Not after how she responded to my lips on her. All but claiming her.
I might have taken charge of it from the start, but she was an eager participant who did everything I could ever want or ask for. She followed my lead, and when her tongue traced over mine, I couldn’t help but imagine her doing that to my dick. Still can’t.
He shakes his head. “No, hospital has no issues with that. Only thing is if you come in and need help, she can’t provide direct care to anyone she has a close personal relationship with. It’s a professional boundary violation. But that’s not what I’m referring to.”
“Then what?”
When he says nothing, I give him options.
“Is it the kid or the wife?”
General flinches at my words and shakes his head. “You can’t even say their names. Yeah, it’s about Ruby. And Special K, Katrina, your wife.”
“She’s dead.” I don’t soften it.
He nods and rolls his lips in as if trying to keep from shouting something. “Doesn’t mean her memory is.”
“Am I meant to stay alone for the rest of my life? Is that what club life is all about nowadays?”
He scrubs his face with both hands, and I see the red marks left behind from the force of it. “No,” he grits out. “No one is expecting you to do that. It’s just that… well….”
“I used to.”
He nods. “Yeah. You were okay with that. You always said you fell for her the second you saw her, and no one else was ever good enough to match that energy. That it was enough to keep you going through the long nights and into the days.”
I stare down at my bottle of beer and spin it around a bit before looking back at him. “Can’t that part have died when I coded? Not my love for her and what she meant to me—well, the old me—but the part that was happy with being alone? Could that part have been erased because of the memory loss? Like I’ve lived it long enough, and now it’s time to start new? Fresh?Allowedto move on?”
He lets out a deep breath, a sigh of defeat, as he nods and then looks up at me. “Yeah, man, it makes sense. Sorry.” He shakes his head on a deep inhale. “It’s just going to take some time.”
“Tell me about it. You only have to deal with the changes I’m making, not feel the weight of the club and everyone else thinking what you’re doing is wrong as you try to remember something, someone, that isn’t there.” I knock my knuckles against my head a few times.
I wish it were that simple. That I could just knock everything back into place. But it doesn’t work like that.
And what might be worse, or not—I haven’t really decided, and I’m not sure if I want to—is that going back means remembering, sure, but it also means letting Diana go. It’s early between us, but I already know that having her out of my life right now isn’t something I want.
“Sorry, man. You have a head injury. It’s not something you did on purpose or are even pretending about. It’s a medical thing. I should get that more than most.”
“How do you know I ain’t pretending?”
General smiles, but it’s sad, as he shakes his head. “No way you could pretend to not know your little girl. You might have kept her out of shit to keep her safe, but you were never cruel. You cherished that girl like nothing else before. She might not have always seen it—you had to hide a bit of it to keep her safe and keep a target off her back—but the club knew. When she wasn’t around and the drinks were flowing, it wasn’t Special K you were saying you loved but your little girl and how proud you were of her.”
I feel something at his words. It’s a heavy feeling that sits on my chest, but that’s about it. Still not a glimmer of recognition beyond remembering her from her visits in the hospital after I woke up.
“She still lost?”
He runs his hand through his hair. “Yeah. Been about ten days now.”
Ten days. Meaning it happened on the day of the shooting at the hospital. No one told me anything besides that Atom got hit and a girl with the Crazy Eights was killed. The remorse on his face lets me know the entire club kept that part away from me.
