Page 72 of The Biker and the Loner
Oh, right. I clamber in and rest my duffel bag at my feet.
Grunt reaches down to snatch up the bag and tosses it on the back seat instead.
"Where's Toni?" I ask once we’re on the move.
"And here I thought you'd be happy to see me."
I snort. "No offense, but you dropped me like hot shit the minute Toni took you back, so...no."
"Per her request,” he clarifies. “She didn't know then what she knows now."
"You were my only friend, Grunt," I say, not meaning to sound as wistful as I do.
"I'm sorry. It was probably a little shitty of me to abandon you the way I did, but..." He tosses me a one-shoulder shrug. "She's my life. Would’ve walked on hot coals if she asked me to."
"It's fine,” I assure him. “I guess I understand. What you two have is beautiful."
“Thanks.” He reaches over and gives my hand a quick, light squeeze. "There's a crisis at Tipsy Scoop and I got off work early today, so that's why I'm here instead of her."
"Okay."
"Are you going back to work?" he asks. "She's been complaining that she lost a bunch of regulars since you left."
I scoff. "You mean my regularharassers?"
He chuckles from the gut. "Yeah, those."
"Nah. I'm…never mind." Grunt was the person I used to talk to about any and everything. He used to be my sounding board and my rant-absorber. He would let me lie in his bed and talk and talk until I fell asleep, since I talked to no one else. I told him a lot, but still never enough.
After he abandoned me, I had issues opening up to anyone again. My friendship with Kendra is different; she's the type that doesn't ask questions, and I'm the type who doesn't offer up information. So while we have a bond and good camaraderie, we don't have a deep-secret-holding kind of relationship.
It's Scratch. He's the one. The one I trust. The one I need. The one I believe in. The one I want to talk to, all the time. To tell everything. All my secrets, all my truths. To lie in his bed, on his chest, and talk, and talk, and talk.
I miss him so much.
I no longer feel a connection to Grunt, which means I can't talk to him about my life anymore, so I don't. And he doesn't push me to follow-up on what I was about to say, so I guess the feeling is mutual.
After a long, long while, he asks in a quiet voice, "Don't know what you were back there for, but I just wanna know… Are you good now? Are you Ley again?"
He doesn't know? I’d figured I would be pillow-talk with him and Toni, or that Cookie would’ve gone off blabbing to everyone.
Huh. I guess they do have my back.
If Grunt doesn't know, then Scratch doesn't know. But while it's none of Grunt's business, I won't be able to hide it from Scratch. The scars are there, both on the inside and the outside. But mostly, I don'twantto hide anything from him anymore. I'm done lying and hiding and faking. I want to give him me, all of me, thebestof me.
"Better," I answer. "Better than the Ley I was before."
~
Grunt ignores my request to be dropped off at Isaac’s and takes me straight to Opal Meadows instead.
Considering I left my X6 with Isaac, I’m surprised to see it parked in the driveway. If I’m to guess, Kendra ripped him a new one for not noticing I was cutting and moved all my stuff from his loft back to Opal Meadows.
Grunt tosses me my keys when I climb out of the truck, then leaves me with a, "Stay safe, Ley."
No sense fighting it anymore, this is my home. Because it's Scratch's home, and wherever he is, that's where I want to be.
Entering the house, I damn near jump out of my skin from the shrieks that come at me.
