Page 7 of Perdition
Things were simpler, easier, back in the beginning…under that red maple….
Back before the stress of twins, deployment, then founding an MC had become common in his life. Back before the ups and downs of marriage—they’d still been babies when they’d taken their vows, with so much hope and so little life experience. Back before life hardened him…and Em.
Back when they’d first started dating, before the pregnancy and wedding, things had been fun, carefree, so fucking easy.
Fuck, I miss that. Miss what life was like before it got so fucking serious.
Back before marriage to Em became…tepid. Lukewarm where it had once been blazing. Common where it had once been precious. Comfortable where it had once been exciting.
His heart jerked in alarm at that thought.
Where the hell had all of that come from? Was that really what he thought? What he wanted? Was he really making an excuse that Sarah was, somehow, Emily’s…what? Replacement? Upgrade? Some kind of embodied time machine that could bring back what he thought was somehow missing?
Again, something coiled in his guts, but this time it burned like a motherfucker.
“You’re trying to pick and choose the bits and pieces you want to enjoy?” Locust asked, his lips curled up in disgust. “Like, you want only the good parts rather than all the parts that make up what you’ve built with Emily—good, bad, painful, and fucking amazing?”
Fuck. Is that what he wanted?
Before he could even utter another flaccidI don’t know, Patriot shifted on his feet, drawing Frost’s attention.
“That’s bullshit, brother,” Patriot remarked, disappointment dripping from his words. “That’s like having the most beautiful, delicious cake right on the table in front of you, but you’restaring longingly at the sugar in the bowl—the part that makes it sweet without any of the other stuff that is necessary to make the fucking cake.”
“What the fuck is it with cake analogies?” Red groused, his face pinched.
Patriot ignored him and kept right on riding Frost’s ass. “You’re wanting easy without the work.”
Tornado piped in, “Pretty sure you got tobeat the eggsto make a cake.”
All the men nodded, like Tornado had just handed down gospel truth.
Maybe you just stopped appreciating what you had. Maybe you just pushed her away because you think she pushed you away first. Maybe it’s pride and not nostalgia.
“Consider this,” Patriot began, “what if the roles were reversed and you walked into Em’s office at the flower shop, and she was cozied up with some other guy, curled into one another, talking all soft and shit, staring into each other’s eyes?—”
“I never crossed the line with Sarah, never!” Frost snapped, making Patriot’s eyes narrow.
“You don’t consider sitting close, in intimate distance, touching another woman, offering another woman comfort, letting her touch you, lean against you as lines crossed?” Red asked, incredulous.
Frost bit back a curse, grinding his teeth together so hard, his jaw ached.
“I never touched her like I’d touch Em, I never kissed her, offered her anything I wouldn’t offer my sister, and I sure as hell haven’t fucked her—so, no, I haven’t crossed any fucking lines with Sarah!”
Muted memories of Sarah, not Em, leaning back against the bark of a red maple tree,his and Em’sred maple tree just the day before, bubbled in his mind.
That coiling in his guts burned hotter, deeper.
Locust snorted, the sound one of disbelief. “What the fuck do you call it, then?”
“We’re just friends, asshole, that’s it,” Frost replied, the words weak even to his own ears.
Locust snorted again. “Friends? Yeah, if I wasthatfriendly with a woman that wasn’t Nadia, you sure as fuck would find me with my heart cut out and my Harley mangled beyond all recognition.” Locust leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms, his gaze frozen—and just as cold—on Frost. “And I can say that same thing for Patriot and Cilla, and Red and Val—none of us would ever let some other woman take up as much time and space in our lives as our women. I mean, fuck, when was the last time you evensawyour wife, Prez?”
Words stalled on his tongue as his mind whirred into action…then ground to a halt. He hadn’t spoken to Em in three days, and he hadn’t seen her in nearly—fuck!—two weeks! How the hell did that happen? How had he gone two fucking weeks without seeing his wife, the woman who owned him, body and soul?
Oh, she owns you? Right, that’s why these assholes are riding you about Sarah, because you’re the devoted husband who only ever thinks about your one and only wife.Fuck, that voice was sharp and snarly as hell.
He could barely get the words out, but he forced them between two suddenly very dry lips. “Two weeks.”