9. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Tripp

My gut twisted again, like it did the day I ran into June at the bank the first time. Maybe it was an ill omen, or perhaps just nerves over going out on a pseudo-date with my ex-girlfriend from high school. Again. Maybe it was because she was also a married woman. Maybe it was because of the last time we tried this. What happened after. The night I couldn't forget. The night that belonged to a different woman, one I hadn't seen in months.

"Fuck!" I breathed the word out quietly, thinking no one would overhear me until the sound of her chuckles reached my ears. I turned and grinned as she stood near the back of my pickup truck. I brought the truck, since my Harley was being worked on.

"Since you weren't even looking in my direction, I'm going to guess that was about nerves and not that I blew you away with my appearance," she teased.

I gave her a full-body once over and had to admit she looked great, though still a bit too prim, proper, and buttoned-up business class for my taste. "You look great. Just nerves, I guess. We've had our ups and downs, June.

She nodded thoughtfully. "Haven't you dated at all since…" The ‘since your wife died' was left hanging in the air between us and again my gut clenched with the feeling like I was betraying my wife.

"No," I admitted. "Haven't been a saint in the years since, but never took anyone seriously." My gut clenched for a different reason then. There had been that one someone I wanted to take seriously, but it felt like there were too many obstacles in the way to make it work.

"I meant since the last time we tried this." She was fishing for information to see if I had been with anyone else.

"Not gone out on a date since then either," I stated. She could read between the lines, considering I hadn't said that I haven't been with anyone else. Not that it mattered. I hadn't been intimate with June since high school.

June pursed her lips and blinked away whatever thought creased her brows momentarily. As she took me in, her eyes lit up and down and my body with a fire she had no business possessing just yet. I was wearing my typical jeans, a t-shirt underneath a button-up, and my motorcycle boots. My cut was left behind, since I wasn't riding.

"I thought you might be on your motorcycle."

"It's in the shop right now," I told her. That much was true of one of my bikes, but not all of them. The same one that gave me the problems with shifting gears the day I met June was once again being a pain in the ass with a too stiff clutch and routine maintenance.

"You only have one?" She asked, and seemed as though she already knew the answer.

"No, I have more, but the truck seemed like the way to go." June, for whatever reason didn't seem happy about that.

"Oh, I thought we might go for a ride after…" She hinted at something that definitely wouldn't be happening.

"Only two women allowed on the back of my bike," I informed her. "My daughter and whoever I might take as my next old lady, if that ever happens again."

"I see," June stated with a bit of a pinched face.

"You're still married," I reminded her. "We're here to catch up, as old friends."

"We were more than friends once upon a time, and I apologized for the misunderstanding last time." she argued before pulling her temper back into check. Her whole demeanor made me wary of being there with her.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Sometimes, the past should stay buried. Our last attempt was likely a good warning."

She grinned at that, as if there was something amusing in what I'd said, before schooling her features and tipping her head to the side.

"I think the past has been buried for long enough. Let's go have a drink and if we get over the awkward stage eventually, maybe we can add dinner to the list, too."

I nodded my head and then pushed a hand out in front of me in invitation for her to head into the bistro restaurant after I reached to pull the door open. The little buzz of anxiousness gave me another jolt, telling me that this wasn't okay. I had to squash it, though. Even if June and I didn't end up doing anything more than this one outing where we got to catch up again, things were changing.

I was tired of being alone and lonely. Seeing my brother-in-law, Mack, and his wife, Viv, as they planned and prayed while she was going through her cancer treatments reminded me that life was short. It also reminded me what it was like to love someone that much and to have them return that feeling back to you. I missed it. I missed Kim, but she was no longer an option and I had to finally, really, let her go so I could grab onto a little happiness again. My mind strayed to Vina again too. I wondered where she was and if she found her happiness. That thought wasn't one I ever allowed to linger though. If it did, I'd have half a mind to chase her down and find out.

That was why I accepted this meet-up with June again. I couldn't get Vina off my mind. Fuck, it was probably a dumb idea, but I needed the distraction.

"I'm sorry if something I said messed us up tonight. It's honestly not as easy as I thought it would be to reconnect with you. The expectation is to fall back into a place where we were once upon a time-" I interrupted before she could finish her rose-colored glasses dip back into our history.

"Stop." I shook my head when June startled and attempted to ask me what was wrong now. "If we were truly starting from where we ended – and I'm talking about before anything happened between Kim and me – then we would be in a not-so-great place. It's one thing to think about the earlier times we were together, June. Yeah, at one point, what we had was fantastic, but it was also full of youthful folly and promises of the future that we were both too na?ve to accept as not being realistic."

The waitress came up to our table and stopped me from barreling on into a topic that would probably end up upsetting us both and ending the night well before it started. Once she took our orders and left, I pulled June's hands into my own in the middle of the table. The shiver that ran up her arms was not reciprocated on my part, but I wouldn't ignore it either.

"It's obvious that you still have a strong attraction to me, but we aren't the same people we were back then. If you want to get to know the man I am today, then you need to put aside the boy you once dated. He doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for a very long time."

She nodded her head. "Trust me, I know. I'm not the same girl you knew either. Maybe it's harder to turn off the past for a woman."

"Don't give me that shit," I tossed out on a chuckle. "Men have feelings about things too, even if we don't share them openly or as often. Look, the girl I once knew was a beautiful part of my past. I'd prefer to get to know the woman she is today, though. If we can start from here, then maybe things will head in the direction you're hoping for. I refuse to look at us possibly hooking up again as a second chance. We took our chance back then and it ended when it needed to. This is an entirely different set of circumstances, not the least of which is the fact that you are still married – no matter how that came about or what you feel for the man.

"I'm not going to cuckhold some other dude. That's not a kink of mine, and if it's yours, then you need to find someone else. Most guys in the club would just take from you what you're offering and disregard the heart you wear on your sleeve. We can work on getting to know one another and being friends. If and when the time comes that you decide to end your marriage, we'll talk about what's next. When it's finished, we can become something more than friends, assuming things don't fizzle out before that happens."

"Tripp," she sighed. "I already told you my marriage isn't like that. In fact, Barry most likely won't make it home from his date with his mistress tonight."

"That is between you, Barry, and his mistress. What's between you and me is something entirely different. If you can live with that, then we can work on getting to know one another. If not, this will be the last time we meet."

"We can go at your pace." June tried to hide her sly grin behind her glass of wine the waitress put in front of her. Once she swallowed, she cast a sideways glance my way before chuckling lightly. "I think you might have forgotten how easily a divorce is obtained in Georgia."

"I've never known how easy it is to get a divorce in this state as I never thought about obtaining one."

That took her aback, and she dabbed her lips with a napkin in an attempt to hide her frown. "Sorry, I forgot that you embraced your marriage with the… With Kim."

I wasn't sure what she was about to call my late wife, but there was no way in hell I would tolerate anything less than respect.

"Sorry. Anna – you remember my cousin? Well, she and I have often referred to her as ‘the homewrecker' over the years. It's inappropriate and childish. That should have never come out of my mouth, or even attempted to."

I allowed her apology to placate that anger that simmered just under the surface, and not for the first time tonight, I wondered what the hell I was doing here.

Then the thought of where I'd be, if not out with June, smacked me in the face. There was a part of me that tired of watching everyone else live their lives. The night spent with Davina back in October before she left was the last one I'd spent with a woman. There was plenty of pussy at the club, but it wasn't the same as having someone to come home to.

The night I'd spent with Davina had been half spent just talking about our days as we lie there together after some of the best sex I'd had in ages. Unfortunately, no one had heard from Vina. She never kept in touch. Even if she had, a relationship between us would never be an option for all the reasons that made me talk myself out of going there before. Nothing had changed. I'd walked away before starting something more with her for good reasons.

"The past needs to be kept in the past." I managed to say to June as she continued to sip her wine and wait on me. "I won't keep rehashing it. If that's a problem for you, then we can both walk away now."

"It won't be a problem, I promise."

I nodded and we finished our food. Instead of talking about Kim, my kids, the club, or June's husband, we spoke about the little things in between those giant obstacles.

Eventually, the night came to an end, and I took June back to get her car and before she leaned down to get inside, she stood on tip toes and tried to plant a kiss on my lips. Her efforts were thwarted with a quick turn of my head. Instead of the open-mouthed kiss she had been going for, June ended up with a mouthful of my stubble for her troubles.

"You are still married. I was serious about what I said earlier."

She blushed, from what was clearly embarrassment, and then climbed into her car and took off. There was a part of me that wondered if I'd even hear from her again. The nagging feeling in my gut made me believe that would probably be for the best anyway.