Beard Up(26)

She beamed at me. "I love it!"

Then she was doing something in the closet, and I chose to look at the rest of the room.

The club had gone above and beyond when it came to decorating Sienna's room.

She had everything in here that she could ever want or need.

This was getting weirder and weirder by the minute.

First my countertops, now Sienna's room.

I was, quite honestly, scared to look at the rest of the house.

But that wasn't the hardest part.

No, not seeing the colors that I would've decorated my own house in. Not even the bathroom done up exactly how I'd spoken with Tunnel about doing ours.


      ///
       
         
       
        

The hardest part was lying in the bed later that night, smelling my husband for the first time in forever and crying my heart out. That, my friends, was the worst.





Chapter 13


Marriage: when dating goes too far.

-Meme

Mina

A knock at my door woke me up early that morning, and I shifted in the bed and looked at my daughter.

"Mom?"

I sat up all the way.

"Yeah, baby?"

"This house … it doesn't feel right."

My brows rose, and I looked at the alarm clock on the opposite side of the bed from where I was sleeping, and noted the time.

Six oh six in the morning.

"What do you mean, honey?"

She walked over to the edge of the bed, the side where her father used to sleep next to me, and crawled into it.

She laid her head down on the pillow and stared at me through the lightening dawn.

"This house feels like home, but it's not."

I knew exactly what she meant.

"I like it here, but there's something missing."

There it was. And I got it because I also felt that way, too.

"I know," I agreed.

"I don't remember him."

I rolled over onto my back and looked up at the ceiling.

"Let me tell you about him," I said. "We met when we were very young."

She chuckled. "I know that part. Tell me a funny story. Tell me something that'll make me smile."

I swallowed thickly.

It hurt to think about him. It hurt even more to talk about him.

Here I was, all of these years later, and it still felt like I'd just lost him yesterday.

There was no moving on for me. Tunnel was my everything. He was the man who was my first and my last, and I was okay with that.

I just needed everyone else to be okay with that, too.





***


"This is the clubhouse," Ellen said.

I looked around, noting that it wasn't much different from Tunnel's old chapter's clubhouse. The place, although it looked more like a house than a huge room, was really an enormous man cave. There were huge flat screen televisions hanging on each wall, and on one wall, there were even two.

It was decorated in a muted brown that would be able to hide dirt and grime really well.

And the chairs. Yeah, those were really similar. It was like they'd all went in, sat on some couches, and bought the ones that were the most comfortable. None of them matched, and some of them were even different styles of furniture completely. 

"It's … nice," I grinned.

And it was. It really was nice. Well, as long as you didn't care if shit matched, which I did.

She started to chuckle, and once again I was surprised to find her there.

I'd arrived with Silas just a few minutes ago, and she'd been one of the first people I saw as I walked up the steps.

She was with her husband … who was definitely not the same man that she'd gone out with to the ballgame a week ago.

I hadn't yet seen the other man that I saw her with at the ballgame, but for some reason, I knew he was there. It was as if I could sense him.

"Not to sound rude or anything, but when you went to that ballgame, you were with another man," I whispered quietly. "I don't understand."

Her husband, who was close but not directly at her side, because he was giving us the illusion of privacy, snorted.

Ellen turned to look at him. "Jessie," she indicated to the man who hadn't let her out of his sight. "That's my husband. The other man I was with was Ghost. He's another one of the brothers here, and he didn't want to go to the game by himself. I was the only one free, even though I'm sure he would've preferred to go with anyone other than me. Apparently, I'm a talkative person, and I annoy people while they watch baseball games."

She said that last part staring a hole into the side of her husband's head, and I had to pinch my lips together to keep from laughing.

This couple, I could see. Ellen and that other man? No. No way in hell. He'd been too intense. Too masculine. Too scary.