Misfit(148)
Day four after the breakup brought overcast skies that matched Stretch’s mood. He couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been to stick with Cash and then to agree to keeping Fee.
Pressing the remote to close the gate behind a woman there to meet with Bunny for whatever, Stretch limped back to the seat Outlaw made an exception for him to have. He rarely manned the gates nowadays, allowing other brothers to take over the responsibility in his stead while he moped about.
In that, Cash had been right. But what did the motherfucker expect him to do? Jump for fucking joy that he’d lived? Forget Hanson’s horrible death? Stretch’s biggest fear was recovering and forgetting the pain and suffering. What would be the point of Hanson’s death then?
What would be the point of his life? If he hadn’t meant anything to anyone else, he’d been something to Stretch.
When he thought about it, life was pointless. He couldn’t take anything with him when he died. Stretch didn’t even know where the fuck he’d go. Heaven? Hell? A black void?
Instead of spouting all her bible verses, his mother should’ve taken the time to explain that to him. No one said a fucking thing that she’d used him to ease her grief, stuck in the land of the dead, while they wanted him to be in the land of the living. His dad, miserable motherfucker that he was, died in his fucking sleep.
Hanson had been murdered.
“Stretch?”
Johnnie’s call broke into his thoughts. He didn’t want to talk to any of the guys, but most especially Johnnie. He was married to Kendall. Alerting her to their secret affair had been the beginning of the end for Stretch, Cash and Fee.
It had been hard enough for Cash to commit without Fee stealing their hearts and ruining Stretch’s life more than it had already been.
“Christopher’s looking for you. He’s been calling you on your phone.”
Stretch left his phone in his room. After the first day with no call from Fee or Cash, he didn’t want to keep the phone with him, hoping it would ring.
“I’m on gate duty.”
“Wrong, motherfucker. If you don’t get the fuck up and walk your ass into the club, Digger will be on death duty. Yours. You should’ve answered your fucking phone.”
“I don’t have it with me, Johnnie.”
Johnnie grabbed Stretch’s cane from the ground and held it out to him. “What’s up with you?”
“What do you mean?” he asked with resentment, grabbing his cane and coming to his feet with no small amount of pain.
“You know what the fuck I’m talking about. What has you in such a shitty mood?”
“Cash,” he grumbled, knowing Johnnie would understand.
“I see.”
They reached the clubhouse door. “What do you see? That Cash is an asshole?”
“I see why Cash hightailed his drunk ass out of town two days ago.”
He’d done what?
Stretch glanced at Cash’s bike, sitting in its usual spot in their line of wheels. He’d thought they were avoiding each other. It hadn’t occurred to him that Cash had left.
“Is he coming back?”
“That’s what Christopher wants to know.”
“How should I know?” Stretch shouted, drawing the attention of patrolling probates.
Johnnie’s eyes glinted. “Strike two, motherfucker. I don’t need to tell you the meaning of strike three.”
“Sorry, John Boy,” he mumbled.
“Christopher is also suspicious that Fee’s devastation has to do with whatever’s going on with you and Cash.”
It didn’t matter. If Outlaw found out, he’d put Stretch out of his misery.
Stretch stepped into the clubhouse, without answering, and headed to Outlaw’s table, where the guys sat, while Meggie cleared away lunch dishes.
At his approach, Meggie smiled at him, her gaze taking him in from head-to-toe, her concern touching him as she scampered away, her hands full.
“Fuck me,” Outlaw growled, and nodded to one of the three empty chairs.
Mort and Val didn’t say a word as both Johnnie and Stretch took their seats.
“What the fuck goin’ on, Stretch?”
Stretch lowered his gaze. Fee wouldn’t want him to bitch out and commit suicide by Outlaw. Wait a fucking minute. He didn’t give a fuck what she wanted. Right? “It’s over between Cash and me.”
“It’s always over between you two motherfuckers,” Val pointed out.
“Yeah, Stretch,” Outlaw agreed. “What the fuck different now?”
Fee.
“Everything,” he snapped, missing her as much or more than Cash. She’d given him the respect he hadn’t felt he deserved in months, if ever. “Cash is an asshole.”