Roman

3 - Did I forget to mention...

Marley

I look at my life sometimes, and I wonder what the hell I’ve done with myself. I work in a shitty restaurant, earning shitty money, and I live in a shitty apartment with shitty furniture. I could have returned to my cabin, but I knew Roman would find me immediately if I did. I miss it though, my cabin; I was comfortable there.

I’m alone in the world now, and by that, I mean entirely. Okay, I was totally alone for two years before this, but somehow, I feel so much more alone now than I ever have. I only have two friends in the whole world, and I’ve only seen one of them a handful of times since I left the clubhouse and came here to Cedar Hill. Bardsville isn’t all that far, but just enough distance for me to be away from the MC and Roman.

My life may be shitty, but I need to get my life together; I don’t have much time left. Hell. I didn’t even realize how fast time goes by. However, it’s been eight months since my night with Roman. God, that incredible night.

It’s been eight months since Roman told me that I was his. Eight months since I said that I needed him and wanted to be his. I shouldn’t have told him that when I wasn’t ready for anything more. I know I hurt him. I can feel it in my gut. I also know that he hates me for leaving the way I did, and I have no idea how I would ever be able to make him understand.

Roman has no doubt been doing the biker thing, fuckin.g everything with a cunt between its legs. Not that it’s any of my business; I was the one who walked away. It just hurts to think about it because he should’ve been mine. He would’ve been mine had I not run.

But I had to run. I needed to sort myself out before I could even think about a relationship with anyone, let alone Roman.

How could I have given my all to Roman if I wasn’t ready?

I miss him so much. I’d fallen in love with him over the time he’d been coming to see me. Roman made me laugh and feel safe; I hadn’t felt safe in a very long time.

I saw a future with Roman right by my side. I even saw us as man and wife.

Crazy, huh?

However, it was a dream I allowed myself to have when I was alone in my cabin home. I would dance around, hug myself, and smile so wide. I hadn’t felt so happy in years.

When Roman would come to visit me, we’d eat the food he brought – food I hadn’t eaten in a long time since I’d been hiding away from the world for so long. I mostly ate what I sourced myself.

Roman would watch me eat, a smile on his face. It would initially make me nervous, but he took those nerves away with his encouraging words. He even danced with me a couple of times. He pulled me against his big body and wrapped his arms around my waist. I leaned against Roman’s powerful chest and let him guide me.

Roman and I would even sit on my porch and watch the sunset. Roman would hold me and tell me how I deserved to be happy, how I deserved to be somebody’s everything. I began to believe he could be my someone.

I hated it when he left me there alone. I wanted him to stay with me, but I knew I couldn’t allow it. I knew what he’d expect to happen, and I just wasn’t ready for that. Not even with the man I was slowly falling in love with.

It’s kind of lonely here. I’ve given myself a solitary life, much like when I was at the cabin, only now I don’t have Roman to take my mind off it all.

When I’m not working, I’m at home. I don’t feel safe anywhere. Even in a town this small, with just a little over three hundred people, I still feel like someone is out to get me, which is crazy when the threat is gone from my life.

Whenever Elie calls, she tells me that nothing can hurt me now, but I don’t believe it. I want to, God, do I want to, and maybe I will in time, but everything is still too raw. I suppose being alone all the time doesn’t help when I have nothing else to do but think about things.

A knock at the door pulls me out of silly thoughts of the past and the man I left behind.

“Coming!” I yell.

It will be Elie and the baby. No one else ever visits me. That and she called me this morning to let me know she’d be here at lunchtime.

I open the door, and baby Kaleb instantly squeals and holds his arms out to me. I take him from his mother and hold him close to my body. Kaleb is eight months old, beautiful, and always happy to see me. Kaleb was born two weeks early, but he was healthy, which was a blessing when Elie lost Kaleb’s twin brother, Joshua, at five months. The grief of thinking she’d lost the man she loved to murder caused her to have a traumatic miscarriage. One baby died, and one survived. Elie didn’t even know she was carrying twins at the time.

Wrench called me the day Elie went into labor. He said she was asking for me, which hurt more than I could tell you. We’d quickly become best friends. The fact she was in premature labor was frightening for her, and she needed me. Wrench and her parents were there with her, but she wanted me also.

I couldn’t stop myself from crying because I knew I couldn’t go to her, not when I knew Roman would be in the waiting room with Hawk and Brooke, Taylor, and BlackJack. Elie and Wrench’s family.

Wrench understood, but he hated lying to his cousin, the man he classed as his brother. It hurt me to think I was the one who’d made him lie. In the end, I asked Wrench to give Elie the phone so that I could talk to her. I needed to explain that even though I couldn’t be there with her, I was there in spirit.

She cried the second she heard my voice. I’ve never had a friend who needed me so much. Hell, I had no friends for years after I was given to Bulldog. Elie was and is my only friend, apart from Wrench, of course.

How crazy is it that my best friend is the daughter of the man who tortured me for years?

But she is and always will be. The sins of the father are not that of his daughter. Besides, a rapist sperm donor is not a father.

I told Elie everything would be just fine, that Kaleb couldn’t wait any longer to meet his beautiful Mommy and Daddy, and how nothing would happen to that little boy because his big brother was looking down on them, protecting them both.

Elie sobbed and made me promise that I would never leave her, that I’d always be her best friend, her big sister. My heart was so full of love for her that day. I’m six years older than Elie and only seven years younger than her mother, but they both, in some way, feel like my sisters.

Is that crazy?

Coral was so good to me on the phone that day. After I told Elie that I loved her and would always be there for her and that as soon as Kaleb was born, Wrench would collect me, and I’d come to see her, she calmed down and handed the phone to her mother.

I had no intention of going there unless it was late and everyone else had gone home. Coral told me how thankful she was to me for calming her daughter. Elie was now smiling and willing to give birth to her son instead of screaming about how he couldn’t be born yet. Yes, it was too soon, but there’s no stopping labor when it hits. Besides, the baby was only coming a couple of weeks early, not months. The poor girl had been through so much losing Joshua that she was scared, as any mother would have been.

Coral told me that should I ever need anything, all I had to do was call her, and she’d be there. She also promised not to mention to Roman that she’d heard from me. I could tell it pained her to say that, but I was grateful.

Of course, Wrench called me just an hour later to let me know Kaleb had been born safe and well. Elie was doing fine, but she was again asking to see me. Wrench offered to come and collect me, but I told him I’d drive down and call him once I arrived to make sure no one was there. I didn’t want anyone telling Roman.

When I arrived, Elie was sleeping, and Wrench was holding his tiny son and telling him all the things they were going to do together. I couldn’t help smiling at him. As if she sensed me there, Elie opened her eyes and called my name. I held her tightly and told her how proud I was of her. I told her I loved her and would never be so far away that I couldn’t get to her.

Then I held Kaleb and fell so deeply in love with him that I knew I’d never be the same again. We have a special bond, Kaleb and I. We might not see each other every day, but he never forgets me.

I move aside for Elie to enter before closing the door behind her. She goes to the living room with Kaleb while I make some decaf tea for us. I sit on my couch and place a cup of tea on the coffee table in front of Elie.

“How are you feeling?” She asks me.

“Scared,” I tell her honestly.

“That’s totally normal. Trust me.” She smiles. “I was like that the whole way through.”

“With good reason, Elie.”

“True.” She smiles at Kaleb, who is now asleep in my arms. It doesn’t take this boy long to drop off. “You need to speak with Roman. You can’t put this off any longer, Marley. He needs to know. He has rights, and I can’t keep this secret forever. When Roman finds out that I’ve known where you’ve been this whole time, he will be angry with us both. Not to mention Wrench and the fact he knew. It will cause all sorts of trouble between them, which will cause trouble with the MC.”

“I know, and I’m sorry.”

I should never have put this on Elie and Wrench. I never intended to. I planned to leave and never contact anyone again, but Jett urged me to keep in touch with Elie after he brought me here. He told me a person never knew when they’d need a friend, and I did need one. Elie only be twenty-one, but she’s more mature than most thirty-year-olds. I’ve been selfish in making her keep this secret.

Oh, did I forget to mention?

I’m eight months pregnant with an outlaw’s baby.

Lucky me, right?

I am terrified of telling Roman because I know he won’t be happy. I’m scared of what will happen when he finds out that Jett, Wrench, Elie, and Coral have known where I was the whole time. He’ll feel betrayed by his MC family and never trust them again.

“I just don’t know what to do, Elie. Whenever I think I’ve found the courage to call him, I lose my bottle seconds later. What if he won’t see me? Or doesn’t believe the baby is his?”

“Sweetheart, the what-ifs will drive you crazy. You have to tell him. No more stalling. I will be with you if that’s what you want, and I won’t leave you even for a second, but you have to do this for the baby, for you, and Roman.”

I nod my head because I know she’s right.

Please don’t hate me, Roman. I need you so badly right now, even if you don’t need me.