“If you need anything, you can call me, but I’m not going to say a word to Bug. And he’s not going to know that we’ve been together.”
“Good. He’d lose his mind if he knew I’d slept with you.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I guess I’ll get back together with him. I don’t feel like I have any other choice.”
“Well, if that’s what you want, then I wish you the best.”
“It’s not what I want, Luke. I want to be with someone who doesn’t treat me like I’m just a hole to fuck, someone who will actually talk to me. Someone like…” Her voice trailed off.
“Someone like who, Krystal?”
I wanted her to say someone like me. I wanted to be with her, but I wasn’t going to be the one who stepped in between a brother and his old lady. She was going to have to say the words. I wasn’t going to do it.
“Never mind,” she said in a soft voice, full of regret.
I remembered how much I’d enjoyed her — not just the amazing sex, but being with her, and I was so tempted to take her from Bug and damn the consequences, but I couldn’t do it. Maybe I was weak, but I couldn’t do it.
“Well, then, you take care of yourself. Call me if you need me,” I said, feeling like a shit for leaving her in a horrible situation, even if it was her fault.
“Yeah. I guess I’ll see you around.”
She hung up, and I stood outside the clubhouse, trying to get a handle on what I was feeling. After a few minutes, I decided to do what the other Savage Sons would do. I went back inside and ordered a shot of whiskey.
Chapter 26
Krystal
Saturday, June 29, 2013
As soon as I heard Bug’s motorcycle pull away, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. He’d be gone for five whole days, and I couldn’t be happier. I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down at the dining room table — the half of it that I kept clean — and tried to decide how to spend my five delicious days of freedom.
I’d been living with Bug for a couple of weeks so far, and while it hadn’t been unicorns and rainbows, it hadn’t been awful, either. He was kind of like a pet — if I kept him fed and cleaned up after him, then he didn’t whine too much. I’d been trying to keep a low profile while I figured out my long-term plan. I was not going to live with Bug forever.
Reaching into my purse, I pulled out the little notebook that I used for grocery lists and things I wanted to remember. Maybe if I made myself a list — wrote things down — I’d be able to figure out a plan and stick to it.
* Six more classes
* Job
* Apartment
I’d looked at the college’s course catalogue, and I figured that if I could save enough money to take three classes in the fall and three in the spring, that I’d have my degree in about a year. What I wasn’t sure about was whether I could stand to live with Bug for that long. Part of me worried, too, that he was only biding his time and had every intention of getting back at me for taking my money back from him.
“When you least expect it,” I said, repeating his promise from the enraged phone call.
I hoped that he’d gotten over being angry, but I didn’t know for sure. I knew for certain that I couldn’t keep my job and finish school if I moved out. He’d make my life hell, and clearly no one was gonna do a thing about it. Not Luke, anyway. I sighed as I thought about the evening we’d spent together, and I wished that I was a different kind of girl, one who deserved to be with a man like him.
My problem was that I wanted a bad boy. As much as I liked Luke, I was afraid that even if — by some miracle — we did get together that I would find him wishy-washy, too preppy for my taste. A nice body only went so far. If a man wasn’t going to stand up for himself and the people he cared about, I wasn’t sure he deserved the time of day.
Realizing that I really wanted to be the kind of girl who could stand up for herself, I decided right then that I was going to come up with a time frame and an exit strategy for my relationship with Bug. Even if I had to wait a whole, year, one way or another, I was going to shake free of him and make it on my own. I could be strong, and I could be independent. I could — maybe — with a whole lot of work, become the kind of woman who would deserve a man like Luke.
Luke.
The last few weeks had been awkward, hoping that Bug wouldn’t somehow magically figure out that we’d been together, but so far, he didn’t seem to suspect anything. He had been a little more vulgar in public than he typically was, and I was pretty sure that every single member of the Sons had seen my tits the night before when he’d unbuttoned my shirt in the clubhouse. I think he’d been contemplating making me strip completely, but Luke and Joker had started a dart tournament that distracted everyone. I suspected that Luke may have done it on purpose.