Page 34 of Property of Shotgun

All valid points. Still, I grit my teeth, my fingers tightening around the bottle so hard, it’s no wonder it doesn’t shatter in my hand.

“Bella,” I fire back. “You can talk to Bella.”

“Why so she can pity me?” She scoffs. “The girl is off living her best life, and I’m…” Her voice trails as she drags her fingers through her long, brown hair, trying to find the words to convey whatever she’s thinking. A sighs slips past her lips and she lowers her hand to her lap, peering at me from under the fringe of her long lashes.

“…I don’t know what I am. Stagnant is the word that comes to mind.” She sets the wine glass on the table between u and turns in her chair so she’s fully facing me. “I feel like I’m living life on pause if that makes any sense. Like is this it? Am I never supposed to have another person’s lips on mine? Am I never supposed to hold someone else’s hand or fall asleep next to another man. Bella’s life is just beginning, and mine feels like it’s already ended.”

I place my beer on the table and release a heavy breath. Needing something to hold onto so I don’t reach for her, my fingers curl around the armrests. Biggie warned me there would be a day when Jade decided she was ready to move. Maybe that day is now.

“Your life isn’t over,” I say softly.

“Isn’t it though? I wanted more kids, Shotgun, and not because I wanted to keep trying for a little girl, but because I loved being pregnant. But even more than that, I love being a mom.” Never seen anyone do it better, and don’t think I ever will. She was born to be a mother, that I’m sure of. “It’s hard for me to accept that I’ll never experience that again. That I’ll never have any of it again. No man to love me. No man to hold me. No man to fuck me so hard I can’t walk the next day.”

I love you.

My arms are dying to hold you.

And I’d fuck you harder than you’ve ever been fucked before.

“No man to give me more babies. No man to walk through life with. Irish died and he took the rest of my life with him.”

I’ll give you all the babies you want.

Walk through hell to hold your hand through life if you let me.

“You can still have those things, Jade. He wanted you to move on. Heard him say it with my own ears. It was one of the last things he said to me.”

“This isn’t about Irish,” she snaps. “This is about me.” She smacks her hand against her chest, emphasizing those words. “I loved him with everything I had, but I don’t need his blessing to move on with my life. I know he wouldn’t want me to rot here. He loved me too much to want that.”

My pulse quickens as Biggie’s words ring inside my head. If this is the part where she pushes me away to make room for someone else, I’m not ready.

I’m not fucking ready to step back into the shadows and watch her love another man.

“So what’s the problem?” I ask hoarsely.

She tears her gaze away from me, and stares back at the fire. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin to find someone. I’m a mom of three. I don’t go bar hopping, and the thought of online dating scares the hell out of me. Then there’s the club. I’ve given you all hell since Irish died, but you’re my family. Club life is the only life I know. Can you imagine me bringing around an accountant to one of Biggie’s cookouts?”

They wouldn’t care so long as she was happy, but it’d tear me to shreds.

“It’d take some time getting used to, but everyone wants to see you happy again.”

What I really want to tell her is that she doesn’t have to go to a bar to find someone to give her all those things. I’m sitting right beside her and have been wanting to give them to her since I was sixteen years old.

She glances back at me, a small smile playing on her lips. “You guys would torture the shit out of him.” Pausing, she waves a hand, dismissively. “That’s besides the point, though. It’d never get that far. I’d have to get passed all my fears and schedule a mommy makeover first.”

“What the fuck is a mommy makeover?”

“A tummy tuck and a breast lift. The c-section really messed up my stomach,” she says, lifting her camisole to reveal her belly to me. My eyes immediately lower to the span of skin, searching for any imperfections that would require the fix she’s suggesting. But all I see are the faint lines growing her babies left behind, and there isn’t a fucking thing about those lines that needs fixin’. They’re beautiful, and any man that would tell her otherwise, or make her feel like less for having them should shoot himself in the dick.

“There’s nothing wrong with your stomach,” I growl, lifting my eyes back to hers. I hold her stare for a beat, then glance down at her tits, specifically her nipples that are poking through the fabric. “And there isn’t a goddamn thing wrong with your tits.”

“I nursed three babies.”

“I’m aware.” I had a front row seat to the last.

“You don’t get it,” she sighs.

“No, I definitely don’t.”

---