Page 32 of Chaos (Deathstalkers MC)
I stand up next to him clapping my hand on his back. “Yeah, well if you need anything just ask. It’s what we’re here for. Family doesn’t judge.”
He looks up at me. “I appreciate that.”
I walk out of the room, noticing how the empty warehouse is slowly coming to resemble the clubhouse. There is a small makeshift bar, the brothers are hanging out after church while the girls are wandering around waiting to get picked up by a brother.
I drive back to my house, praying that we all make it through this in one piece. War always brings casualties, but at this point I’m hoping we’ve already paid our price. After everything that happened, I made Tracie move in with me. She fought me tooth and nail on it. She even brought up renting a motel room. I told her that there was no way I would leave her alone anywhere. After threatening to chain her to my bed until this shit was all straightened out, she finally agreed. Although, I have to admit, a part of me wanted her to fight me on it so I could come through on that promise.
I open the door to my place, throwing my keys on the counter. I can hear music coming from the bedroom so I follow the sound. Standing in the doorway, I see Tracie putting away laundry while shaking her ass to some stupidass pop song. She’s tossing her hair around and my dick is getting hard watching her ass move back and forth. She turns toward me letting out a yelp when she sees me.
“Jesus! A little warning next time would be nice.” Her hands are resting on her chest as it heaves up and down.
“What fun would that be?” I walk closer to her. My hands find her ass, giving it a squeeze enjoying the giggle it causes. “Speaking of fun.”
“Can I help you with something?” She arches her eyebrow at me.
“Oh, there is a lot that I need your help with.”
I cover her mouth with mine needing to lose myself in her.
Chapter Twenty
Tracie
I wake up reaching for Torch, disappointed to, once again, feel nothing but sheets. I think there may have only been a time or two where he was actually in bed when I’ve woken up. I get up, picking up his discarded T-shirt from last night and toss it on. I find him in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in only a pair of shorts. He reaches to pull me against him but I step back. As much as I want to let him distract me, we need to hash some things out.
“Why are you never in bed when I wake up?” I place my hands on the counter.
“Because I don’t sleep well. I figure instead of lying there I’ll just get up and let you sleep.” He shrugs his shoulders as if it’s nothing.
“Why don’t you sleep? You toss and turn a lot some nights.” He just looks at me. As close as I feel to Torch, I don’t know anything real about him. “I want you to talk to me. I want to know everything about you.”
He walks past me and sits down in the living room. “Trust me when I say some demons are better left buried. All you need to know is that the past is in the past and that you’re my future.”
I smile at his statement. “While I love that you just said that to me, it’s not getting you off the hook. You trusted me enough to claim me, to make me your old lady, to move me into your house. Why can’t you trust me enough to tell me about who you were before you came to the club?”
His head shakes. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. I don’t want to go back to that place. I’ve spent more than a decade running from it.”
I walk over to him sitting on his lap. “Maybe you’re running because you don’t have a way to let it go. Talk to me. I can’t live with ghosts between us.”
“Yeah and what about your ghosts? You so eager to set them free with me?” His eyes meet mine.
My stomach drops. I can’t ask something of him that I wouldn’t do myself. “Yes.” My voice is quiet, the fear I bury completely overtaking me. “You first.”
He sighs. “Fuck. Fine.” His hand moves me off his lap and he walks over to the sink rinsing out his mug. Instead of taking a seat next to me he sits at one of the kitchen stools. “I didn’t have a shit childhood. My parents were fucking amazing. My mom was a teacher and my dad was a pediatrician. I had a younger sister and brother. We lived in a house with a fucking white picket fence. Everything was perfect.”
His elbow rests on the counter as his fingertips rub at his eyes. “I was fourteen and on my way home from baseball tryouts. I practically ran the whole way because I couldn’t wait to tell my dad that they had said I could play second base. Every other year, I had been stuck in the outfield, but we had spent every free minute I had in the offseason practicing my catching. I’ll never forget turning the corner and seeing the fire. Every inch of our house was engulfed in flames. I froze not knowing what to do. I didn’t have a cell phone. I screamed for help, one of my neighbors said she called nine one one. I ran the few more feet until I was in front of the house. That’s when I heard them.” I wait for him to go on but he just sits there.
I want to get up, to wrap my arms around his neck and give him the comfort that I always get from him. Torch stands up and walks out of the living room and I have no idea if I should follow him or not. I decide after a minute to see what he was doing. I find him in the bathroom. His face is dripping with water; his hands grasp the sink tightly while his breathing is labored like he just ran a marathon. My hand lightly touches his back and he jumps as if I just burned him.
“I can’t handle you touching me right now.” He stands up walking past me back into the living room. I follow him crossing my arms over my chest resisting the urge to reach out to him again. He takes a deep breath as I sit where I had been before. “I couldn’t help but scream as I stood in front of the house. They must have been in the front room, at least my little sister was. Her name was Kristen, but we called her Kiki. She must have heard me because she started calling for me, screaming for me to help her. I ran to the back of the house but there was no break in the flames. The fire trucks showed up but by the time they were able to get in the house they couldn’t save them.”
“I lost everyone I loved that day and for years after it, I prayed that something would happen to me. I was too much of a coward to take my own life, but I prayed to die just so I didn’t have to be alone anymore. The cops figured out it was some crazy parent of a kid my dad treated. The little girl had cancer and when she passed away he blamed my dad. He broke in that day and shot my mom and dad. My brother and sister must have been hiding. After he shot them, he doused the entire inside and outside of the house in gas then set it on fire. When Shooter met me, I was an out of control idiot who was walking around starting fires just because I felt like it gave me some sort of control back.”
I try to digest everything he just told me. The way he always plays with that lighter, his name, all those things start to click into place. I feel like at one point Shooter saved us all from self-destruction, that’s why it hurt so much to lose him.
I stand up and walk over to him. His eyes watch me apprehensively I know that he wants to push me away. He feels raw and exposed. I felt the same way when I stood in front of the club and told them about Viper, even though I didn’t go into detail. I raise my hands slowly before wrapping them around him. I pull him against me and the two of us stay like that for the longest time. Men like Torch pride themselves on being the strong ones, the ones who are the pillars in the relationships. This once I want to be his pillar, I want to support him, to hold him up. I pull away from him an inch before pressing my lips against his.
“I’m glad nothing ever happened to you.”
