More Than Miles (A Lost Kings MC Novel) (18 page)

I
t’s dark and I’m sprawled out on the couch. I should have left. Gone back to my brother’s apartment, but I’m mad at him, too. If there’s a chance of working this out with Axel, I need to do that before I tell my brother I’m pregnant.

My hand settles over my stomach. Even if Axel never comes back, this baby’s mine. And at least I know when we made it, we loved each other.

I wonder if my mother ever thinks of me. Wonders if I’m okay? Stupid. I’m pretty sure I know the answer to those questions.

Much later that night, Axel returns to the apartment.

He closes the door quietly and stares at me for a minute. I scramble to sit up, pulling the blanket up to my chin. He sighs and drops down to the opposite end of the couch.

“What do you want to do?”

“Axel—”

“What do you want to do?” he asks a little harsher this time.

“It’s our
child
.”

He leans forward putting his head in his hands and curses under his breath. After a minute, he picks his head up and stares at me. “Explain it. How does this make sense for us, Heidi?”

I sit up, tucking my feet under me. “I know it doesn’t…make sense. It’s the wrong time, but”—my hand settles over my stomach—“I have this little person inside me who I want to know. I want to give her all the things I didn’t have—”

One corner of his mouth lifts in a smile. “Her?”

“It’s a feeling.”

He cradles his head in his hands, staring at the floor for a few minutes before speaking. “We should get married then,” he mumbles.

The shift in the direction of our conversation makes my head spin. “
What
?”

Finally, he picks his head up and looks at me “I don’t want—we should get married.”

“Earlier you wanted me to get an abortion. Now you want to get married?”

He lifts his shoulders. A quick, jerky movement. “At least maybe then your brother won’t kill me.”

His attempt at a joke sucks. When I don’t say anything, he walks into his bedroom and returns with a red velvet box. “I was planning to give this to you after graduation anyway.”

“What is it?” Stupid question. Obviously, it’s a ring. He confirms it by opening the box and plucking out a delicate white gold ring that sparkles with tiny diamonds surrounding one larger diamond. There are scrolls and filigrees, giving it an antique look.

“It was my grandmother’s,” he explains after pushing it on my finger.

“It’s beautiful. Your parents won’t mind?”

His shoulders lift. “My grandmother left it to me, to give to my future wife.”

“And you were planning to give it to me?”

“Yeah.” His mouth turns up in a sad imitation of a smile. “When the time was right.”

T
hings settle down at the club after Axel leaves. No one talks about it. Hoot and Birch don’t ask any questions about where their buddy went. Axel’s out. No further conversations need to happen.

Well, one conversation needs to happen, but Heidi won’t speak to me. Won’t answer my calls or texts. Nothing.

Teller finds me in the garage a couple afternoons later and stops to watch what I’m working on. Although I talk to him every day, we haven’t talked about Heidi or the vote.

“You hear from her?” he asks while I’m sifting through my toolbox.

Asking which “her” he’s referring to isn’t necessary. “No.”

“Fuck. Me, either.”

I finally stop my search and motion him outside. “Where’s she staying?”

“Must be with him. All her shit’s gone from the apartment.”

Guilt because of the rift I caused between Marcel and Heidi settles in my gut. “Stop by his place?”

“Not yet. I’m afraid I’ll kill him.”

“Did you talk to Hope? Bet you Heidi’s spoken to her.”

His mouth twists down. “No.”

“What’s your deal with Hope, anyway? You said some dickish things about her during that fiasco.”

“I shouldn’t have said what I did. I was just so pissed.” My best friend shrugs and turns toward the woods. “I don’t know. Been a lot of changes since she got here.”

Maybe a joke will pull him out of his funk. “What’s the matter? You mad ‘cause Trinity caught monogamy from Hope?”

He glares at me. Guess it’s too soon to rib him about Trinity.

“That was obviously never gonna happen,” he says.

“No shit.”

Teller keeps pining away over Trinity like this, Wrath’s gonna straight up murder him one of these days, so I return to our first topic. “Rock’s happier than he’s ever been. Hope’s good to everyone. What else you want?”

“Christ, keep it up, I’ll think
you’re
in love with her.”

Now it’s my turn to look away. “You know who I’m in love with.”

“Don’t go there, bro.”

“She’s been like a mother to Heidi.”

At the word
mother
he turns and glares at me. “Yeah. And I don’t want Heidi getting hurt when Hope decides she’s had enough and takes off.”

Whoa
. We’ve been closer than brothers for years. Have seen and done everything together. There’s nothing we don’t know about each other. But it’s not like we sit around discussin’ our mommy abandonment issues. All that shit’s in the past. At least for me it is. “Bro,” I say gently so he doesn’t take my head off. “She’s
not
Heidi’s mother. If she didn’t leave when Rock was in jail, she’s not going anywhere. Besides, even when she and Rock
were
apart, she didn’t abandon Heidi. Took her shopping and all that other shit.”

His fists open and close. “Yeah, I know.”

I love him like a brother, but Teller can be a dick. He’s also loyal to his core and protective of people he cares about. So I know he probably already feels like shit for disrespecting Rock, and figure I should drop it.

We’re interrupted by Z riding in. He’d taken off right after the Axel clusterfuck and no one had seen him since. He parks his bike in the garage and joins us.

“Where you been, fucker?” Teller asks Z.

Z’s mouth slides into a smirk. “Here and there.”

We each get a brotherly hand-grab and hearty backslap.

“You need me to look at the ol’ gray ghost?” I ask, nodding at the garage.

“Nah, I’ll take care of it later. What’re you two doing out here?”

I don’t get to answer, because Hope jogs into the parking area from the woods. She’s dressed to work out and smiles brightly when she sees us.

“What’re you doing here, First Lady?” I call out. I’m dying to talk to her. But I want to do it alone. Not in front of Teller and certainly not in front of Z, who can’t be serious for five seconds.

“Oh, geez. You’re all here.” She reaches up and gives Z a quick hug. “Where’ve you been?”

“Around.”

Teller nods at her. “What’s up?”

“We’re going to use the yoga room for actual yoga,” she teases. We turned the room—a room the hippie cult who owned our compound before us used for a yoga studio—into a champagne room, complete with shiny stripper poles and all. More often than not, it ends up being an orgy room. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her to wipe down any surface she plans to touch first, but Z interrupts.

“Who’s we?”

“Swan, Trinity, and me. Swan’s finishing her hours to become a certified instructor, and Trinity and I volunteered for the free classes. Win-win.”

None of us know what to say to that. I’m pretty sure all three of us know Swan—intimately. But I doubt one of us knows fuck-all about what she does when she leaves the MC.

Hope shakes her head, as if she’s thinking the same thing I am and finds it pathetic. For the first time in my life, I kind of agree with her.

I keep that to myself.

“I’m still allowed to visit, right?” she asks.

“I think you just miss us,” I tease, and she grins.

“Maybe a little. And I miss the gym.”

“Surprised prez hasn’t put a gym in your basement,” Teller says.

For some reason, Hope’s cheeks turn a little pinker, but she doesn’t have a chance to respond.

“Nah, they put a sex room in the basement. No room for a gym.” Z chuckles and takes two steps back from Hope, who blushes even redder.

“Who told you that?” she demands.

“Who do you think installed the keypad?”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “You don’t have to blab about it.”

“Ew, it’s true? Fuck, I don’t need to know what Mom and Dad are doing in their basement.” I rumble with laughter and next to me, Teller does as well.

Hope turns her glare on me. “I am
not
old enough to be your mother.”

“Thank fuck, otherwise his crush on you would be extra weird,” Teller mutters loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Fuck you, asshole.” My fist lands solidly in his bicep and he falls over, laughing. At least he’s not being a moody prick anymore.

“All righty then. This has been…fun.” Hope draws the word out, letting us know it’s been anything but. “Now, I have a date with two hot chicks.”

Z watches her walk away in a manner that would get his ass kicked if Rock were here to witness it. I lash my foot out, kicking him in the calf. “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

His head snaps back my way. “What?”

“Why you picking on her? Rock’s gonna kill you.”

His shoulders lift and he grins like an idiot. “Nah, she knows I’m only messin’ with her.”

Teller leans over and fake-whispers. “He’s being a passive-aggressive fuckwad, because he’s pissed Lilly won’t return any of his calls.”

“Ohhh.” I exaggerate the word, nodding like a goof. “That makes more sense.”

“Fuck both of you,” Z grumbles.

“Dude, she was way too classy for you.” I get a smack upside the head for that one, but it was totally worth it.

The front door bangs shut, and before Z knows what hit him, Wrath charges, lifting Z off the ground in a bear-hug style hold.

“Jesus Christ, you’re gonna fucking kill me,” Z wheezes when Wrath sets him down. “I think you cracked a rib.”

“Stop being a little bitch. Where you been?”

“Hi, Z!” Trinity calls out. She joins us, giving Z a quick hug then tucks herself against Wrath’s side.

“Where’ve you been?” she asks Z.

“What the fuck. Why’s everyone tryin’ to keep tabs on me?”

Wrath reaches over and punches Z’s arm. “Quit your bitchin’. I’m pissed ‘cause my girl had to take care of your dogs while you were off chasing wind.”

“I don’t mind,” Trinity protests.

“
I
mind. She lets them sleep in the bed.”

Z’s face breaks into a grin. “Just set them on the floor if you want to…” He does a few hip thrusts, making Trinity laugh and Wrath look like he’s gonna punch Z again. “
You know.
”

Next to me, Teller stiffens, and I notice he’s taken an interest in his shoes all of a sudden. I give him a subtle elbow to the ribs, and he picks his head up. “Have Mariella watch the dogs.”

“She did,” Trinity says. “Really, it was fine, Z. They’re the club’s dogs. It’s no big deal.”

I lift my chin at the clubhouse. “Your yoga buddy’s looking for you.”

Trinity chuckles. “Yeah, I saw her. Came out to say hi to Z.” She and Z wave and make goofy faces at each other for a few seconds before she wraps her arms around Wrath and lifts up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss. It’s awkward for a minute, but then he lets her go and it’s just the four of us. Wrath eyes each of us. “What?”