Sleepless Nights(83)

Ashley grins but it’s pained. “Like I got shot in the chest,” she tells me, using the remote of her bed to lift her upper body. “What are you doing here? You should be lying down.”

I laugh softly because let’s face it, if I laughed for real I’d probably end up crying like a baby. “Always worried about everyone else. You’ll never change.”

“I should hope not. Seems my husband likes me the way I am.” She looks at me, gauging my reaction, but I don’t give her one. After being shot and knowing there are other kinds of love out there, I feel nothing romantic towards Ashley. I don’t think I have in a long time. I was settling for her when I couldn’t have who I really wanted.

“I remember a time when we shared everything that happened in our lives. Now we are covered in secrets neither of us will ever share.” And I hope one day I have that look of love on my face. The one she has when she talks about her husband. I want that but I know I’ll never have it with Ashley. I should have realized that a decade ago. We were never right for each other.

Ashley looks away from me and I see a tear slip out of her eye. “I don’t think we’ll ever get back to who we were before we got together.”

I limp until I’m right beside her bed. I reach down and grab her hand. “That’s okay Ashes. We don’t belong together. You and I both know that. I don’t think we ever did.”

She nods and squeezes my hand. “I love him more than I ever did you,” she whispers, holding on to my hand hard.

I choke back my feelings and hang on for dear life. “I met someone in Iraq.”

She looks up at me with tears in her eyes. I always hated it when she cried and now I realize it’s because I always made her cry. She thought it made her weak, when in reality those tears were her freedom. She expressed herself when I could never do it. “You love her?”

I nod. “I messed it up though. Think that’s why I wanted you back. I wanted to make up for how I treated you before I went to Iraq.”

She gives me a smile. “What’s her name?”

I swallow hard and look at the door. I see a pair of dark blue eyes looking back at me from the shadows. “Monica.” The eyes go up and down as he nods his head.

“Well, I hope you find what you’re looking for in her,” she tells me.

I look down at her and bend over her bed. I kiss her forehead and cup her face to look at me. “I already did. You keep that biker on his toes, you hear?”

She sobs and I feel my own tears build in my eyes but I would never let them fall. “Is this goodbye?”

I grit my teeth and nod. “You know I can’t come back around. I’ll have too many people after me, your husband included. But I’ll always have a place in my heart meant for you, Ashes. I’ll love you just as much as I always did. And I’ll think of you often and how happy you made me once upon a time.”

“’Bye, Victor.” I place my forehead to hers before I quickly get up and limp out of her room. I pass Rage in the hallway but we don’t speak. We don’t fight. We don’t do anything, because I’m no longer a threat to Ashley.

I’ve never been more free in my life than I am right now.





Epilogue



Ten years later…



Damien



I watch her runnin’ around, that hair flyin’ behind her back. She likes bein’ chased and we like to make her think she won’t be caught. But then we always do and we kiss her rose red cheeks.

Cora Jewel Daniels was born four and a half years ago. You wouldn’t believe the look on Ashley’s face when she ran outta the bathroom with that little stick. I didn’t even know she was thinkin’ it. Lord knows I’d come inside her enough to get her pregnant a hundred times. But out of the blue, she just was.

Rachel offered lots of time to surrogate but Ashley wanted to carry her baby herself. Not that she wouldn’t love a child from someone elses body, it’s just she wanted the whole experience.

Though I think she rethought that when the morning sickness started. Or, after seven hours of labor and one hour of pushing, they had to do a C-section. Thankfully both Momma and baby were fine.

I couldn’t tell you all the joy and happiness inside of my body at seein’ my baby girl for the first time. Her little face looked so much like Ashley but then she opened them eyes and looked right at me. Deep blue sea and that’s why we named her Cora.

I was so happy to be a father. Even after Cora threw up on me tons, or the times she had an explosive diaper while sittin’ in my lap. Not even after she put my bike keys in the toilet when she was two or drew all the people in her family on the walls. That was a bitch to clean up.