Page 9 of Whip’s Wisdom

I pull away from him and he chuckles. I look around the room at everyone’s wary eyes. Peyton looks over at Fang asking her if everything is okay. He replies with a nod and tells her they will talk at the hotel.

I hesitantly walk over to my best friend.

Chapter Four

Whip

“Can we talk, Tan?”

He just looks at me for a minute and nods his head. Normally we would walk outside and talk, but it is fucking freezing out so we walked upstairs to his old room. I think it is amazing that Bulldog and Mama J have kept all their kids' rooms as is in case any of them want to stay the night here. This is the type of family I wish I had. As we walk into the room and Tanner closes the door he turns and walks to sit on his desk chair.

“What do you want to talk about Cooper?”

I sigh and sit down on his fucking bed, “Look Tanner, I’m sorry about everything I said and did last month. It was fucked up, my head has been a mess for months. Everything with my family, everything with Peyton, I fucked up and have been a shitty friend to you Tan. I know you’ve been going through shit too. But I didn’t think about that. I said shit about Lizzy I knew wasn’t true to get you to stop harping on me about everything that was going on with me. I didn’t want to talk about my family and I didn’t want to talk about Peyton. So I pushed you. I didn’t know shit had gone down with Sadie, I thought she finally gave up pestering you. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you. You know you can talk to me, you’re my brother in all the ways that matter.”

He looks at me and you can tell he’s processing everything I said, thinking about what he wants to say next. That is the thing about Tanner, he is a tough guy, he is sensitive, he is trigger happy when mad, but he thinks things through when he needs to. He finally leans forward and places his elbows on his thighs and folds his hands.

“I know what you all think about everything with Lizzy. I know that some of you think she left me because this life got too much, but we were together for so many years. So many years that she was living this life too. She loved all of the brothers, she loved everything about the club, even the dark shit that she didn’t know about she accepted. Something happened when I was on that last run, something made her leave. There is no way that that girl just decided one day she wanted something different. We were doing great, we were happy when I left. Then to have her just disappear off the face of the earth. There is more to all of this. I feel it here.” He says as he pounds his fist on his chest. “She is part of my soul, I can’t go out there and find someone else because there is no one else for me. I know that I will find her one day and when I do I don’t want to have to tell her that I was with other people. I hate that everyone thinks that getting over a relationship that lasted that long and the love was felt so deeply should have happened already. I don’t want anyone else. Sadie, before I left for that run, she had been clingy and weird for months. I can’t really say how long she had been weird. I always knew that she had a crush, I also knew that nothing was ever going to happen with us. I thought she knew it too, she got more aggressive towards Lizzy. Said a lot of messed up stuff to her and that was in front of me. I don’t know what she did behind my back. I’ve thought for a while, especially since after Lizzy left she was pushing that Lizzy cheated on me, that she ran away with another man, I think she had something to do with Lizzy disappearing.”

“That’s a lot. Do you really think Sadie, the girl we grew up with, would do anything to Lizzy?”

“As you’ve seen Coop, this life, the patch makes bitches do some crazy fucking shit. Shit hit the fan at the clubhouse a few months ago. She came in again and caused some scene. She was caught trying to put shit in my drink. Dad saw the footage after it was brought to his attention and he banned her from all club owned property. She still tries to get into the clubhouse, we get calls when she’s at the gate. It’s honestly just a mess. I’m worried. I don’t know if Sadie did something to her, had someone else do something to her or if Sadie told her some bullshit lie that club bitches due that caused her to leave, but something happened. Someone with a lot of power made sure that we could not find her.”

“How would Lizzy have any connections like that? We know that Sadie doesn’t have anyone like that in her pocket. So I think it would be a safe bet to say that Lizzy had someone remove her from everything.”

“Listen, I don’t know a lot about her family. I only knew her aunt. She always said that shit with her parents and siblings was complicated. I never really got more of that. I never pushed because I didn’t need to, I wish I did because maybe I would know where the hell she was now. Maybe if I got more information from her she would not be gone. I don’t know, it’s all so horrible that I’ve had to deal with this shit. I miss her so much and I feel like I can’t breathe without her even though she’s been gone for years at this point. The longer time goes on the worse I feel.”

“I know you have faith you’re going to find her, but Tan maybe it’s time to try and move on. I know you don’t want to and I know it’s hard, but this feels like it should happen. I loved Lizzy too, she was like a sister, but whatever happened it wasn’t your fault.”

“No, it might not have been my fault, but I know some shady shit happened with women and this club. I didn’t protect her from that and I left for three weeks on club business and something happened to spook her. I knew that fucking Sadie was being a bitch, I knew that Peaches was also some bitch from school who was trying to get with me through high school and probably joined the club thinking she stood a chance. But I never did anything. I didn’t tell dad that they needed to get rid of Peaches because she might cause problems and I didn’t tell dad that Sadie was being disrespectful to Lizzy. I didn’t prevent anything.”

“You don’t even know if that is something that happened. I know you’ve worked with Wiz and all her records have been erased. Have you talked to her aunt?”

“I went over there shortly after I realized she was missing and the aunt told me she hadn’t heard from her, but it felt like she was lying. Then any other time I’ve gone over there within the year after that she was not home, then I went back more the next year and she moved. No one, not even Wiz could tell me where she moved to.”

All this is too weird and the fact that not only her, but a family member could just disappear without any sort of hint as to where they went.

“Call Wiz.”

He looks at me confused, “I just told you Wiz couldn’t find anything, what good is calling him going to do.”

“Just call him Tan. I think there is more to this and you need to get him on the phone or I will.”

He pulls out his phone and pulls up Wiz’s number. It takes all of two rings before he answers the phone. I feel bad it’s Thanksgiving.

“Hey brother, what’s up?”

“Hey sorry to bother you on Thanksgiving, but Whip here said I needed to call you because he thinks he figured something out about Lizzy.”

“Well shit, okay. It’s fine we are having a lowkey Thanksgiving since we aren’t doing anything big at the club. Sloane’s making all the fixings though. Pops is working on the turkey with Rick and Robbie. So is Whip with you right now?”

“Yeah he’s here for the holiday.”

“Oh, I bet that’s fun with Peyton and Fang there.”

I sigh, “What the fuck? Does everybody know?”

“People know you’ve got feelings for her. It’s written all over your face, brother. What’s this idea you’ve got about Lizzy. I’ll write it down and run it while I hang out with family.”