Bad Apple (The Uncertain Saints MC #4) (9 page)

He pointed down the stairs.

“There’s a bar in the lobby that you missed since you came in through the back door,” he informed me.

“Okay,” I breathed, shivering slightly.

He grinned.

“Get up to the room,” he ordered.

I nodded again.

When neither one of us moved, he started up the steps until his face was even with mine.

“I think you need to go,” he said. “Or I’ll have to take you right in this stairwell.”

I shivered again.

“They have cameras,” I pointed to the cameras that were in the corners of the stairs.

He grinned.

“I don’t mind if you don’t,” he teased.

I blinked slowly, then smiled.

Leaning down, I pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Hurry.”

His eyes flared.

“I’ll see what I can accomplish,” he said.

I nodded and turned, but his grip on my hips had me halting.

“Did I tell you how fucking hot you looked in this?” He asked.

My head dropped to my chest.

“No,” I told him breathily, my nipples beading into sharp little points.

But before I could act on the need that was exploding through my body, he was gone, and I was left alone in a cold stairwell with only the smell of him to keep me company.

“Holy shit,” I breathed. “The man’s going to be the death of me.”

I’m trying to cut down on my fucking swearing. Let’s fucking see how the fuck that fucking goes. Fuck.

-Text from Kitt to Ridley

Apple

“Well, you got us,” Mig said as he took another shot. “Are you ever going to grow a pair and tell us why we’re all here getting drunk, instead of out with our women?”

I was getting to that.

I just needed another drink first.

I held my finger up to the bartender, and he brought me my eighth shot.

“You’re going to die of alcohol poisoning. How
are we going to get your bike home without you to drive it?” Ridley
sighed in exasperation.

I took the shot the moment the bartender sat it down on the bar top in front of me.

“It’d be helpful as fuck if you didn’t push me,” I said, bringing the beer that the bartender followed up with up to my lips and took a long swallow.

I wasn’t even tasting it at this point.

I nearly chickened out and that was about the point where I started ordering the shots.

“Come on, boy,” Peek said thickly, finishing the last of his beer. “I got a hot, warm, willing woman in my bed. If you don’t spit it out, I’m just going to assume you’re not going to and get to her.”

I downed the rest of the beer, not stopping until the only thing left was the foam.

“Fine,” I ground out, looking around the bar.

There was no one there, which worked well.

I wasn’t about to tell them my deepest, darkest secret with other people around.

It was one thing to tell them, men I knew I could trust to carry my secret to the grave.

Others that weren’t in the same lifestyle…who didn’t know how fucking hard it could be for a combat veteran to acclimate to regular life after they’d done so much time in combat.

Normal people just didn’t understand.

These men in front of me, though, did.

“I met my best friend in the Army when I was eighteen. We stayed with each other all through boot camp, training and then later, the Army Rangers,” I started.

I saw Peek wince when he realized that something bad was about to unfold.

A man didn’t have to drink eight shots of whiskey to tell a story unless it was bad.

“He got hurt,” I continued. “We both did, but he was worse. We both came home, both of us fucked up as hell. Me with a head injury. My arm and back fucked. And him...”

I took a deep breath.

“He couldn’t walk. Couldn’t piss by himself, and he had seizures nearly once a week.” I didn’t look at Ridley when I said that. If I did, I would see the sympathy there, and I couldn’t handle that right then. “He couldn’t even get out of bed because both of his arms and one leg were blown off. He refused any and all treatment and help in getting his health and his life on track again after all that,” I blew out a breath. “I started out better. Got a job on the Los Angeles police force once my head was deemed ‘okay’ and my arm healed. My head had supposedly healed, but the emotional damage wasn’t healing, not at all. So, I lied. The longer I was home, the worse I got. I was violent. I got into
fights and then blacked out and couldn’t remember what I did the previous day.” I shook my head
. “It kept getting worse and worse until one day I made a deal with Stephen. One that was his idea, but I went along with it, and I shouldn’t have.”

My voice cracked as I said those last few words.

I needed another drink.

“It’s okay, son,” Peek said in his lilting Irish accent.

I closed my eyes.

Then reopened them and stared Peek in the eyes when I said what I had to say next.

“We both hated ourselves so much that we knew something had to be done. We made a deal. We shoot each other, that way it’s not a suicide. Our parents would get our life insurance, and that’d be the end of it.”

“But he didn’t follow through,” Peek guessed.

I gasped in a ragged breath, my chest so tight it hurt to breathe.

“Yeah,” I choked. “That was one of those days that I could barely remember. I only know those few facts. That’s all.”

“So what happened?”
Mig asked, having stayed silent this whole time, I’d nearly forgotten about him. I’d nearly forgotten about all of them being at my back.

“They thought I’d shot him out of self-defense,” I explained. “I was still in uniform. I’d come to see him during my lunch while on shift.”

“Damn,” Ridley said.

I was sure he was thinking better of asking me to tell Peek now.

It was something that no man would ever want to divulge.

Not that he wanted to kill himself.

Not that he planned it out, and it would have happened if his friend had played his part and not chickened out when pulling the trigger.

I couldn’t say the same for me.

I’d done my job. I’d pulled the trigger.

And I’d pay for that decision for the rest of my life.

Stephen haunted me in my dreams. In my waking moments.

There was never a time that Stephen
wasn’t
there.

Until a certain lady had come into my life and had gone about changing my outlook on everything.

“So,
how are you better right now?” Casten chimed in
. “You’re sitting here, not getting into a fights. What changed?”

I lowered my head and removed my hat.

The hat that I always wore, no matter what.

“Surgery,” I twisted to the side and moved my hair out of the way. “After I quit my job, the next day, blaming it on the job, I went in to see a doc about my episodes. He ran a CT scan and then saw the blood. It was a bleed so fine that it was missed by everyone but me. I knew something was wrong. I just wasn’t willing to admit it.”

“Fucking sucks, man,” Peek rumbled. “Glad you told us.”

He gestured to the bartender.

The bartender stopped in front of us once again, and Peek said, “Give me the bottle.”

The bartender handed him the rest of the bottle of whiskey and walked to the end of the bar once again where the cute little redhead waitress was talking and flirting with him.

Peek poured me another shot.

“You still think about killing yourself?” Ridley
asked bluntly.

I turned my gaze to his.

Then picked up the shot and downed it.

Fire burned down my throat as I shrugged.

“Not in the last two weeks,” I told him honestly.

A slight gasp had me turning to see Kitt standing there, a look of shock covering her beautiful face.

And my belly sank.

Fuck me.

I’d never wanted her to hear that story.

Hell, I never wanted anyone to hear that story, but definitely not her.

And I could tell that she’d definitely put the timeline together.

It’d been exactly two weeks since I’d met her.

Two weeks and eight hours to be exact.

And it was the truth.

I hadn’t once thought about killing myself in the last two weeks.

Everybody else heard the gasp as well as me, and they turned to see Kitt’s ashen face.

“You need help to your room
?” Ridley asked.

She bit her lip.

“No.”

She wouldn’t look me in the eyes, and studiously avoided them, letting me know clearly what she thought.

Ridley growled.

“You know better, Kitt,” Ridley said through clenched teeth.

Kitt shrugged.

I turned around and presented Kitt with my back, shame pouring off of me in waves.

And somehow I knew that I just had a setback.

I was fucked, and not in a good way.

Needless to say, I didn’t follow her back to the room.

Two hours later, I was about ten sheets to the wind and barely making it up to my room.

I fiddled with the door for about two minutes before a bleary-eyed woman opened it.

“You forget how to work your card?” Kitt asked with amusement.

I didn’t answer her, only walked into the room and collapsed onto the bed.

“You want me to help you off with your boots and pants?” She asked laughingly.

I rolled over.

“Do your worst,” I ordered.

My voice sounded rough. Way rougher than normal.

And I couldn’t feel my face.

“You can’t feel your face because you’re drunk off your ass,” Kitt said with a smile on her beautiful lips.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?” I asked.

“For calling me beautiful,” she whispered. “It’s nice to hear it.”

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life,” I growled. “And don’t ever let anyone tell you differently.”

She blushed and that’s when I realized all the lights were on.

“Why are all the lights blazing this late?” I asked, closing my eyes and letting her take my boots off.

“Because I was waiting for you. I wanted to tell you I understand.”

She pulled my boots off, and they fell to the floor with a soft thump.

The hotel had excellent carpeting. Carpet that was so thick that it could possibly pass for a fucking extra bed—comfortably—if worse came to worst.

“You have a gun on your ankle,” she whispered.

I wiggled my foot.

“I do,” I looked at it, sounding surprised.

She giggled.

The Velcro on my ankle holster loosened and I smiled.

“You don’t like guns?” I asked.

“No,” she bit her lip. “It’s not that. I just didn’t realize you had them, that’s all.”

“Hmmmm,” I drawled. “Interesting.”

When she moved up the bed and started working on my pants, my cock instantly hardened.

“I want you to fuck me,” I told her. “Hop on my cock and fuck the hell out of me. Make me forget this shitty day.”

I didn’t see her face fall at the mention of my shitty day because I was already passed the hell out. If I had, I would’ve reassured her that it wasn’t because of her.

Then I would’ve made love to her for hours afterwards.

Because that was exactly how the next couple of months went.

Misunderstanding after misunderstanding.

Look me in the beard when I’m talking to you.

-T-shirt

Kitt

He was gone the next morning when my eyes finally opened.

I ate breakfast by myself, too, seeing as all my medication had to be taken with food.

Even my brother slept in.

The next two days I barely saw Apple.

Each time I tried to stop him and talk, he ignored me, made up an excuse, or plain old left without listening to anything I had to say.

The drive back was terrible.

Where before I’d enjoyed the entire time, albeit being uncomfortable, now I couldn’t help but know with absolute certainty that Apple didn’t want me riding with him.

But he’d brought me here, and he wouldn’t leave me to find my own way home.

Ridley also didn’t have the seat on the back of his bike that would allow me to ride with him; so, here I was, stuck in between a rock and a hard place.

The moment we pulled up in front of my house, he stopped only long enough to make sure Ridley and I didn’t need anything, and then left without another word or glance back.

“Give him some time,” Ridley said, drawing my attention away from Apple’s tail lights.

I looked over at my brother, and then I gave him the time he needed.

The first day I saw him, once we’d gotten back, was at a birthday party.

He was working the keg, as well as the grill, and he was laughing and joking around with Mig and Annie like he’d not just ripped my heart out.

Not intentionally, I was sure.

But he’d done it, nonetheless.

No, he hadn’t said anything mean to me.

What he had done, though, was look through me as if I didn’t exist.

And when I tried to talk to him about what had happened, he looked at me, let me explain that I didn’t judge him, and then walked away without another word.

So I was wondering what I was doing here.

I’d hoped by giving him a week to cool down and to think about what had happened, he’d be able to think rationally about this, and us.

But I was wrong.

It was exceptionally apparent that he wanted nothing to do with me, especially when he wrapped his arm around some girl that I’d never seen before.

He laughed at something she said and then leaned his head down to whisper something in her ear.

And that was enough for me.

Dropping my drink into the trash still-full, I walked out the back door and around the side of the house.

I’d have gone out the front, but that was where the party was being held since it had a bigger lawn than the back.

And there was a bounce house.
For the adults.

So yes, they needed the room.

But it also meant I wouldn’t be able to leave for a while.