Revolution (The Lone Riders MC Series Book 1) (24 page)

‘We’d better get inside,’ she said, kissing him slowly before climbing off him. She quickly retrieved her shorts from the wet ground, pulling them on, not caring that they were damp and dirty. She’d go change them once they were back in the clubhouse. ‘Coby?’

He opened his eyes, looking straight at her. ‘Call Charlie. I want my son here, Lexi. I want him here.’

She sat down next to him, taking his cut and bruised hand in hers. ‘Not tonight, baby. Everything’s too confused, too raw.’

He reached out to touch her face, gently stroking her cheek with his thumb. ‘I want him here, darlin’.’

She leant forward, kissing him slowly. ‘I know, baby. I know. We’ll start making plans in the morning, okay?’

‘Aye,’ he sighed. ‘Okay.’

‘Come on. Let’s go clean you up.’ She took his hand, pulling him to his feet, slipping her arm around his waist, his arm lying loosely across her shoulders as they finally made their way into the clubhouse.

‘What the fuck happened to
you
?’ Luca asked, looking Lexi’s rain soaked body up and down as they walked past him.

She turned her head and threw him a knowing smile. ‘Soldier boy here needed a bit of mommy medicine.’

‘Jesus, Lex. You handing that out on prescription?’

Coby gave Luca the finger without even turning around, pulling Lexi even closer to him as they moved further inside.

Jesse was sitting up now, his arm in a sling, a beer in his other hand just as Coby had predicted, while Angie tried to clean him up with a bowl of water and some towels.

‘Told you he’d be okay,’ Coby whispered into her ear, and she squeezed his waist, the relief sweeping over her. ‘I’d better go check on him.’

Lexi reluctantly let him go, watching as he playfully messed up Jesse’s hair, saying something to him she couldn’t catch, but whatever it was it seemed to amuse the rest of the guys as laughter filled the clubhouse.

‘Guess you don’t feel much like laughing, huh, darlin’?’ Angie stood next to Lexi, her hand sliding into her daughters, giving it a brief squeeze.

‘I don’t find any of this remotely funny,’ Lexi replied, her eyes still very much on Coby, who was now sitting down on the arm of the couch, swigging from Jesse’s bottle of beer.

Angie stayed silent for a moment or two, watching her daughter as she watched the man she was now inextricably connected to. The father of her child. ‘Is this still what you want, Lexi?’

Lexi turned to look at her mum. ‘
He’s
what I want, Mum. And if this is the price I have to pay to be with him, then so be it.’

‘And Ozzie?’

She turned to look back at Coby, who was still smiling, still laughing, despite the things he’d been through tonight. Things Lexi wasn’t sure she wanted to know about. ‘His dad will teach him good. He’ll keep him safe.’

Angie sighed, letting go of Lexi’s hand.

‘You okay?’
Tay
asked, walking over to them, quickly kissing Angie.

‘Yeah. I’m fine. I’d better go sort out the bathroom in the apartment. There are a few people around here who look like they could do with a good wash.’

Tay
waited until Angie had left before he spoke to Lexi. ‘And what about you? Are
you
all right?’

‘I’m just glad you’re all alive. How I feel doesn’t come into it.’

Tay
looked down into his beer. ‘All of this, it was my fault.’

‘Yeah. I know it was.’

‘And I don’t expect you to forgive me or even…’

Lexi looked right at him, leaning back against the pool table. ‘Whatever happened tonight, it’s over. Done. Okay?’

‘I’m sorry, Lexi. For everything. For all the shit we caused you, all the pain and the years your mom lost with you. The years
I
lost with you. For the fact…’

She held up a hand. ‘Stop talking,
Tay
. Just, stop talking. Please.’

His eyes stayed on her, and for the first time in a long time Lexi could see an honesty, a sincerity in those eyes that she didn’t think she’d ever seen before. Or maybe, for all those years, she’d just refused to look hard enough.

‘You really love my mum, don’t you?’

‘Baby, you know I do. And I’m sorry for doing what we did to your daddy, but…’

‘He understands. Now.
I
understand. Now.’

He smiled, a small, almost nervous smile. ‘I only ever wanted you to love me, Lexi. I only ever wanted to take care of you, to make sure I did right by you.’

‘And I let you down. I let my mum down. I wasn’t the easiest of people to be around,
Tay
. I was angry and upset at mum and dad splitting up. And I know Kip was almost eighteen when it all happened, so his coming over here to the
US
was completely his own decision, but I was still a kid, I was given no choice in the matter. And I was angry that I’d been uprooted from the country I’d grown up in, taken away from the people I loved, the club – my family. And I took most of that out on you. And even when I’d begun to love this place, to finally call Paradise my home, to love
this
club like I’d loved the Newcastle chapter, I still couldn’t bring myself to love
you
. Because I still blamed you – I blamed you for things that didn’t even matter anymore, things I couldn’t even remember. I just needed someone to hit out at.’

‘I didn’t try hard enough, Lex.’

‘You tried harder than anyone should have had to,
Tay
. Thinking back, I wouldn’t have blamed you for turning your back on me completely. Because once I stopped blaming only you and started blaming this club for any shit I got myself into, that was when I should’ve listened to you. Instead of moving further away from it all. And then all the crap with Jesse…’

‘We all messed-up, kiddo. But maybe now it’s time to stop talking about blame, and make that new start we all need. The new start this club needs.’

‘Coby wants me to call Charlie. Start making arrangements for Ozzie to come over to
Paradise
.’

‘Yeah,’
Tay
sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. ‘Maybe he’s right.’ He looked at her again, his dark eyes kind. Warm. And if she’d maybe just given him that chance she might have realized they’d always been that way. ‘You ready to put the truth out there?’

She nodded, looking over at Coby. ‘I think it’s best we start doing that as soon as we can,’ she whispered. ‘If we really do want this club to have a new start.’

‘Do you want
me
to talk to Charlie?’
Tay
asked.

She shook her head. ‘I’ll call him tomorrow.’

‘You gonna be okay, sweetheart?’

She nodded again, holding out her arms, suddenly wanting to hug this man who’d tried to be a dad to her when her own father couldn’t be, through no fault of his own. Why did it always take something frightening and serious to make people realize what was important?

Tay stepped forward, pulling her into his arms, holding her close, and she closed her eyes, feeling his tears spill out on to her shoulder, something which only served to make her cry, too. ‘I do love you,
Tay
.’

‘Hey, I know you do, kiddo. I know you do.’ He pulled back slightly, sniffing loudly, wiping his tattooed forearm across his eyes, throwing his head back briefly. ‘Jesus! What a fucking night!’

‘Go see my mum, go on. She might come across as this hard-faced biker bitch sometimes, but she needs you. More than she’ll ever let on.’

Tay
smiled, leaning forward to kiss her quickly. ‘You really did grow up good, Lexi Hart.’

‘Yeah. Eventually.’

She watched him walk back across the clubhouse to the bar, reaching over to get himself another beer from under the counter.

‘
Can
we be friends?’

Lexi turned around to see Deena standing there, mascara streaming down her tearstained face. ‘We can try,’ Lexi said, gently wiping the black streaks from Deena’s cheeks with her thumbs. ‘I guess you’re still getting used to all this shit, huh?’

Deena nodded. ‘Does it ever get any easier?’

‘You were with Jesse for five years. You’re a bone fide old lady, so if you’re not used to it yet then you better start learning fast. If you really want to be with him.’

Deena turned her head to look at Jesse, who was talking to Luca, Blake and Kip, all of them still dirty, rain soaked and blood stained, and none of them seemed in any real hurry to change that. ‘They don’t seem all that bothered,’ she said quietly, turning back to face Lexi. ‘About what happened tonight, I mean.’

‘They’ll be bothered.’ Lexi smiled, handing Deena a tissue. ‘They just won’t ever show it. Not in front of us, anyway.’

Deena tried to smile back, running the tissue over her face, drying her eyes. ‘I think me and you, we got off on the wrong foot.’

‘Yeah. I think we probably did. Look, I… I really am sorry, for hitting you. A lot of crap’s been going down – personal crap – since I got back here… It’s a long story… and I guess I need to break that habit I have of taking my shit out on people whose fault it really isn’t.’

‘Well, I probably shouldn’t have called you a whore.’

‘Water off a duck’s back, sweetheart.’ Lexi shrugged, turning to head off down the corridor that led to the apartment. She really needed those clean, dry clothes now.

‘Lexi?’

She swung back around to look at Deena. ‘Yeah?’

‘I’ll look after him. I promise.’

Lexi smiled. ‘I know you will. But you need to make sure
he
looks after
you
, too, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘See you around.’ She finally made her way towards the apartment, kicking the door shut and stepping out of her wet shorts the second she was inside, finding a pair of her own skinny jeans in the drawer of the dressing table. She was just glad she kept some spare clothes in the clubhouse otherwise heaven knows what she’d have had to change into. None of the guys owned anything she was particularly keen to borrow.

She’d just pulled on the jeans and was scraping her damp hair back into a ponytail when Kip walked in, hands in his pockets, his dirty blonde hair all messed up and wet. She turned around, throwing him a small smile. ‘Your turn for the shower, huh?’

‘Coby’s looking for you.’

‘I’ll go find him in a minute.’

‘What’s going on, Lex? With you and Coby, I mean.’

‘Not tonight, Kip. Please.’

‘It isn’t just as simple as you turning up back here and suddenly the two of you are ridiculously in love, is it?’

She looked down at her fingers gripping the edge of the dressing table. ‘No. It isn’t.’

‘Jesse, he… he says he was talking to Coby tonight… well, not talking, exactly, but… he says Coby said something that just didn’t add up.’

Lexi raised her head, her eyes meeting her brother’s. ‘Like what? What did he say?’

‘He said that – he said it had taken him years to know that he loved you.’

Lexi frowned. ‘Coby said that?’

Kip nodded, sitting down on the edge of the bed. ‘According to Jesse. But when Jesse tried to push him on the subject Coby just shut him down, and then all this shit kicked off…’

Lexi walked over to the bed, sitting down next to Kip. ‘Well, maybe Jesse’s timing was just a bit off tonight, huh?’

‘You’re not telling me everything, are you?’

‘Me and you, we’re just getting that whole brother/sister thing back, don’t you think?’

‘Yeah. I think we are.’

‘I never wanted to lose it, Kip. You have to know that. I just wasn’t thinking…’

‘Jesse explained a lot of stuff to me, Lex. About what went on with you guys before… He told me how he deliberately pushed you away…’

‘I wasn’t completely blameless. My head was all over the place back then. I didn’t really know
what
I wanted.’ She looked down at her hand, watching as her fingers gripped the sheet underneath them. ‘I didn’t even know if I really wanted Jesse. All I could do was bitch about how much I hated this place, rebel against Mum like some ridiculously childish twenty-something teenager; blame
Tay
for any shit that bothered me. I needed to grow up. So, you know, maybe what happened… maybe it was for the best. Maybe that was exactly what I needed because… because things…’ She looked at Kip, her eyes meeting his, holding his gaze, ‘… things have happened that have given me one hell of a reality check, Kip. Things have happened that meant I had no choice but to grow up. Fast.’

Kip frowned, his eyes searching her face, looking for answers. ‘I don’t understand… do you…? Something to do with Shane?’

Lexi turned away from him, bowing her head. ‘He wasn’t the only reason.’

‘Jesus, Lexi, come on. You’re scaring me now.’

She raised her head to look at him again, her eyes boring into his. Her brother. Her one-time best friend. ‘I don’t think tonight is the right time…’ She turned away once more, knowing she’d said too much. ‘Not tonight, okay?’

‘Can we just forget about the club for a minute, Lex? Please?’