No one said anything.
“Want to open the presents?”
“Open without Polly?” Unc said. “No. In fact, if you can ever convince her to come back I’m upgrading her present.”
They all mumbled in agreement, and we sunk into silence again.
How many beers had I had?
Had I finished that second six-pack on my own?
I drank until the background was blurred and foggy.
And it still didn’t work.
I still missed Polly as much as if I was stone-cold sober. It was like a wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding, like an injury draining blood from my body. I felt like a fucking saggy testicle dragging along the ground.
One by one, everyone drifted off to their own rooms until I was the last one left, sitting by the window looking out at the barren trees.
I’d been the Legends MC Prez for a long damn time.
Had won it from my father and then maintained and expanded the boundaries of our territory. And for a long time, that zeal to surpass what my father had done had sustained me.
Now? I had stagnated. The boundaries were well-maintained. Challenges were dealt with without mercy. Womenwere all the same. To be fucked when I wanted and put away when I wanted. I didn’t have anything to fight for.
Until Polly.
Somehow this damn woman had wiggled herself into every crack and smidgen of my life with—and I wanted more.
There. I wasdone.
I unfurled the quilt, my fingers chasing each of the many squares I’d sewn back together.
Would Polly see this as proof I knew I fucked up? And was trying to fix it?
Oh, wait.
What the hell? I’d sewn in some of these last squaresbackwards.
I’d have to carefully rip the seams out and re-do it.
Grim despair gripped me. I needed another cigarette. Then I’d try it again.
I stood up, unsteadily, and the room swam around me. Clusters of light popped and fizzled in the corner of my vision and then everything went blurry.
Ishouldeat something.
Ishouldgo to bed.
But I wanted to get this done. What if I found Polly tomorrow?
Then it was like I slumped to the ground in slow motion and everything seemed to go blank.
And from a great distance away, I heard sirens.
CHAPTER 16
Abraham
