Page 61 of The Saviors: Part One
Sean and Kai not being here doesn’t feel right. We’ve been together every day for the past five years, and I’m not sure if we can get what we had back. I understand how Sean and Kai feel, and Kai’s kept in contact with me. I haven’t heard a word from Sean, but he probably thinks I’ll run back and tell Axel. Who I know hasn’t said a word to them—hard-headed bastard.
I watch Nolan get up and storm from the room with a shake of my head. “Why do you have to fuck with him so hard?” I ask Ari.
“Because he gives as good as he gets. Little asshole deserves it for calling me Pops.” Ari kicks back in his chair and props his boots on the table. “I had an interesting conversation with Nolan earlier about Sean and Kai.” He pauses until I look up. “And Chelsea.”
“What about it?”
“I’m going to ask you since you know her better. Do you think she’s the one who told them to leave?”
“Hell no.”
“Are you sure? You haven’t seen her in six years.”
“That doesn’t matter. She’s not that type of person. And you haven’t seen the difference in Sean and Kai because of her. Sean is so fucking happy he floats everywhere. And it’s a real happy. Not the happy he used to pretend to be. And Kai? Jesus, man. He doesn’t look like he’s going to bust out of his skin anymore. She does that for them the same way she used to do for Axel and me. She hasn’t changed.”
“I’m going to be honest and tell you the same thing I told Axel. I don’t get why you guys left her.”
“I don’t either,” I agree. “We were two scared eighteen-year-old kids. We were gone for two weeks, and I was begging him to come back for her. His mind was already set that us leaving was protecting her. He wouldn’t budge.”
“That shouldn’t have stopped you from going back for her.”
“He saved my life, Ari. He put his ass on the line for me.”
Ari slaps me on the back and stands. “Looks like Axel isn’t the only one who needs to stop making excuses. You and Axel are overdue for a real talk.”
He walks away, and my mind drifts to the night we left her. She was standing there in that light blue sundress, crying and begging us not to leave. We kept telling her it was to protect her and gave her the resources to leave the day she turned eighteen, but it wasn’t enough. It will never be enough.
“You leave now, and you’re dead to me.” Those were the last words she said to us, wiping tears from her cheeks. We left an hour later.
We went to work for Charlie per the agreement we made with him for Axel killing my old man. Soon after, we were asshole deep in the life. Something we said we would never do. Six months in, we started weeding out the Charlie loyalists and booted him from the Saviors. That was our final fuck you to him. After that, Axel became the leader, and I was his second-in-command. We were two dumbass teenage boys, in over our heads, leading a group of violent people. We caught on quickly, though, with the help of Ari. We decided to run them fairly, and we stuck by that. Then it all went to hell when his dad finally came out of hiding, and we came back here just to run into her.
From the look on Sean’s face, he more than cares about her, and I have a feeling Kai isn’t far behind. I know how easy it is to fall in love with her. I’ve loved her from the first moment I saw her, blonde pigtails and all. I fell even deeper the night I kissed her for the first time.
Three days before graduation, we went to the town fair they held every year. And we went every time without fail. We were waiting for Axel to show up, so we rode the Ferris wheel. It stopped at the top, and she was laughing at something I said. It took my breath away, and I took my chance. I crushed my lips against hers and waited for her to push me away, but she never did. She melted against me, pulling me closer.
I was going to tell her the next day how I felt, hoping it wouldn’t ruin our friendship. Then my dad pushed me down the stairs for something I don’t remember now, and I snapped. I left him in a puddle of blood and ran to Axel’s, freaked out of my mind knowing when he could that my dad was going to kill me. Axel grabbed one of his dad’s guns, drove back to my house, and put three bullets in him—two in the chest and one in the forehead. We didn’t know that Charlie had heard every word before we left the house. That confrontation with him was the catalyst of the shitshow that’s been the last six years.
Ari’s right. It’s time to talk to Axel. Before I can change my mind, I make my way to the back of the house, where I can hear music blaring from the gym. I push the door open, and I’m assaulted by heavy metal blaring through the speakers. Axel is beating the shit out of a punching bag, oblivious that I just walked in.
I pause the music. “We need to talk.”
“Not now,” he says without stopping.
“Yes. Now. It’s long overdue.”
“If this is about Chelsea, you can fuck off.”
“Why? Because you know we fucked up?”
That gets his attention. He slowly turns to face me. “We didn’t.”
“Same argument. Different day.”
He strips the boxing gloves off. “Yes. Because the answer doesn’t change, we did what we had to do.”
“You did. I admit when all that shit went down, I thought you were right. When Charlie threw out that ultimatum, I thought we had to leave. But you know I kept telling you weeks into it that we needed to go back.”
He throws the gloves down. “Then why didn’t you, Cole?”
