Chapter 12

12

Piston

As quietly as I can, I tighten the screw on the wall of the dishwasher from my crouched position, my head inside the washing chamber, trying to ignore Bluebell moving in between of my feet.

I noticed Nat handwashing the dishes, so it didn’t take a genius to figure out the thing was broken and, thankfully, it was just some funky wiring.

Grunting, I stand and slowly close the thing, then switch it on. It lights up, and I sigh in relief. I do a quick rinse just to make sure it works before I run my hand down Bluebell’s back. She scampers off into the living area, most likely to stare out the window.

My eyes move around the kitchen. The fridge has hand-drawn pictures held on by small butterfly magnets, pictures, I’m guessing, are from Cooper. Plants sit on her windowsill, which overlooks the small yard with a bunch of flower beds, and a scooter and helmet that leans against the fence.

Fuck, I can’t believe she has a brother, a little one at that.

He’s eight…and I didn’t know.

I squeeze my eyes tight, and I wipe my hands.

Her birth mother left her in a bassinet on her father’s doorstep after she was born.

It’s fucking horrible to know the girl you were basically seeing but didn’t want to admit to seeing was treated so poorly by someone who should have held her, keeping the big bad world away from her.

Swallowing hard, I throw the rag to the side, and head into the living area, my eyes taking everything in.

Nat’s currently helping her brother get ready for bed, and I thought I’d help her out by fixing the dishwasher. I was hoping to get it done before she came down just so I could see exactly how she lives now, and honestly, it’s not that much different from her apartment.

The smell of vanilla and honey lingers in the room. Her slippers are underneath the glass coffee table she used to have at the apartment from college. Her books and magazines are on the shelves along the walls. Bluebell's scratch tree sits near the window. One thing is different, though: the few photos on the shelf above her TV.

I furrow my brows and walk over to it. I see pictures of Cooper and Nat, which make me smile, but my heart pounds as I gently pick up the photo in the silver frame….

“Do you, Natalie Monroe, take Elijah Callum Mathews to be your wedded husband?” the judge asks Natalie, who doesn’t say anything for a moment but stares at our joined hands, and I panic.

Fuck, is she going to say no?

Was I wrong?

Natalie clears her throat, interrupts my panic, looks at me, and mumbles, “I do…”

I swallow hard. In the picture, I’m in my normal tee, cut, and jeans, while Natalie is in her waitress dress, her eyes on my hand placing the plain silver band on her finger. I’m looking at her with a mixture of torture, betrayal, and worst of all…love.

I think I’ve always loved her; I always knew she was meant to be mine, and that’s why I’ve struggled.

On our wedding day, I panicked because I thought I was going to lose her for good. I tried to deny it, but I was relieved when she messaged me that she needed to see me.

I don’t think I was ever going to let her go….

I gently put the photo back, keeping my eyes on it, just as I hear Natalie walking down the stairs. I don’t turn toward her, even when she clears her throat.

I know she is probably hoping I’ll leave, but I can’t; physically, emotionally. I need her, but we also need to talk, something we should have done a very long time ago.

She didn’t even come to me when she was attacked!

“You didn’t get to wear a pretty dress,” I mumble, my eyes moving along the photos, a smile forming when I see one of us at a house party three years ago. We’re in some frat guy’s kitchen, I’m sitting on the counter while Nat is standing between my legs, head back, laughing, my head in the crook of her neck, my arms wrapped around her.

We look like a couple in love, and honestly, I’m starting to understand that we were.

I gently run a finger over the black frame, and she clears her throat, admitting, “Honey took that one.”

I nod and ask, “And how is Honey?”

“She’s good. She and her husband love California, and she’s just given birth to their third kid.”

I hum at her words, my eyes going to the picture of me on my Harley outside Cora’s.

The last day we were supposed to meet up.

I’m looking at her, smirking…. Fuck.

“Piston—” she starts, but I cut her off, looking her way.

"You didn’t get to have your little brother at your own wedding.”

Guilt fills me, and she sighs, moving around the couch, taking a seat, still wearing my shirt.

She gives me a small smile and admits, “I wasn’t allowed near him at that point, so it doesn’t matter.”

I nod. “And why was that, Natalie? Why weren’t you allowed near your own brother? Heck, why didn’t I even know you had a brother, an eight-year-old at that….”

She flinches, pushing the hair that’s fallen out of her clip behind her ear. I sit next to her, grabbing her hand.

“We decided not to discuss anything too personal, remember?” she tries, and I scoff.

"You saying we never did?”

She winces and tries to move her hand from mine, but I grip hers tighter, and she snaps, “You don’t know anything about me, Piston, so why does it matter now?”

I sigh, allowing her to take her hand back as I slouch on the couch. I lean my head back before looking her way. Tears shine in her beautiful, midnight blue eyes.

We’ve been so fucking disconnected for so long that she doesn’t realize how much I truly paid attention to her.

“Your favorite color is teal, not blue, but not turquoise, dark purple in close second.” Her first tear falls, her eyes flicking between mine. I say, “You hate peanut butter but love peanut butter ice cream with a small drop of vanilla extract, which is gross, by the way; I tried it on our wedding day to see what the hype was, and no, Diamond, just no.” She snorts, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. “You hate sleeping on the left side of the bed, putting a pillow there to fill the space if I’m not there, you could only fall asleep if half your body was over mine, your face in my neck, while I gently ran my fingers down your spine. You’re grumpy first thing in the morning, until you have a double shot of expresso with a tablespoon of honey.” I stare intently into her eyes. “You're clumsy, yet your smile lights up the whole world. You hate people who are rude and mean to animals, but can’t stand spiders. You love kids, and art is your passion.”

“Elijah….” She sobs, and I lift my arm, making space for her in my embrace.

She comes willingly, planting her face in my neck, gripping my shirt, and I hold her tight.

“You hate doing dishes by hand, so I fixed your dishwasher, but you love gardening. Any color of flower gets your attention, but daisies are your favorite. Should I go on?” She shakes her head with a sob, and I nod, placing my nose on the top of her head. I mumble, “I don’t know your childhood, Diamond, but that’s the only thing. Everything else about you, from your likes, dislikes, passions, and quirks, I know it all; I know you just like you know everything about me except my childhood. Those topics were the only things we both steered clear of over the years. You said we both agreed not to talk about deeply personal things, but some nights, between all that fucking, we spoke about everything else important to us. If there was ever a problem, I was your first call and, over the years, you’ve lost that faith in me, the faith that I’d be there for you. Diamond, you were attacked, and you never told me. Now, I’m asking you—no, I’m begging you, please speak to me, tell me about your childhood.”

She quiet for a few minutes and I decide to help ease her a little. I remove her clip that’s holding up her hair up, and chuck it on the table before running my fingers through her soft locks the way she likes. She sighs, then finally begins to speak.

“I'm the mistake of a one-night stand with too much drugs and booze,” she admits, and I get myself comfortable. I maneuver myself on my back, my head on the armrest, as I bring Natalie with me, laying her on top of me.

She moves, placing her head over my heart the way she always does when I hold her, and I continue running my fingers through her hair as she speaks, heartbreak lacing her voice.

“Henry and Billy didn’t speak after their night together. Henry married Christy and thought everything with Billy was forgotten. My birth mother didn’t want me, and instead of aborting me or, heck, giving me up for adoption as she should have, she left me with a small blanket in a bassinet on Henry’s doorstep late at night before. After that, she moved to New Jersey, finding her new husband, and having three more kids. Henry and Christy didn’t find me until the next morning.”

I tense, pressing my nose to her head, but I don’t interrupt. Even as I feel my shirt getting wet from her tears, I allow her to speak. I allow her to open up to me like I should have done that day I found her crying in her apartment.

“Growing up, Christy made it clear I wasn’t wanted. She didn’t want children yet, and she certainly didn’t want one that wasn’t hers, a reminder that her husband was a manwhore before her. I never got hugs growing up, never got affection. I did well in school; she’d bring up the fact I didn’t clean the bathroom that morning, and I’d be punished instead of praised.” Nat sighs, gripping my shirt tighter. “When I was six, she locked me in the small cupboard in the pantry for four hours when she had a friend come over, when I was seven, she tore my paintings up when I tried to hang them on the fridge, then split my lip as punishment. Henry turned a blind eye, and went to work.”

Motherfucker….

“All my life, she has belittled me and warned me that, immediately after high school, I’d be homeless. I had to buy my own clothes, my phone, my car—I got a job at eight, walking dogs for the elderly on our street and cleaning their yards until I was old enough to work at the local diner. My father only paid for my school supplies, that was it. If I ate the food in the fridge, Christy would smack me, and put me in the cupboard.”

My heart pounds, sweat beading on my forehead….

“My father, the man who never wanted me, proved it when he sat back and allowed his wife to ‘discipline me’ how she saw fit, which included starving me if I took food in between meals.” Natalie sniffles and I hold her tight. “School plays, graduations, leaving for college, my father was absent. He never celebrated with me, all while his wife smirked because she got his full attention. When Cooper was born, I was warned away from him, that I wasn’t allowed to even look at him. My father doted on him while Christy took over my room for him. By the time I moved out, I only had a bed and a small dresser, that was it.”

Anger strikes me hard.

“One day, Cooper was crying, and Christy had been outside on the phone for over forty minutes. She never came in, so I went against their wishes and went to check on him. I spent two hours trying to keep him occupied, all while she laughed and joked on the phone. I was sixteen, not knowing anything about babies, but I tried, you know. " She sobbed. " My father found us, and hit me….”

He’s dead, he’s fucking dead….

“For the first year after I left home, I didn’t hear anything from him. Nothing. He didn’t ask if I’d settled in or how school was going. God, he refused even to help me move or pay tuition. It was by luck that I got a full scholarship.”

I press my lips against her head, her words swimming in my head, and I whisper, “The day I found you crying?”

She sniffles. “He showed up at the diner with Christy, demanding I watch Cooper for a week. I had no bond with Cooper, then, but because Christy apparently needed a break, and Henry wanted to take her to Europe, it was okay for me to take care of him. Christy neglected Cooper, and he started acting out. I told Henry where to shove it, and he called me selfish, saying Cooper was my brother, so I reminded him exactly how he treated me growing up, and then I told them to leave. Since then, he’s been trying to contact me, and the only reason I speak to him now is because of Cooper, and it is only ever about Cooper. When Cooper showed up here with a split lip, my heart broke, Elijah, it fucking broke, and I knew I had to do something. I didn’t want feeling unloved and unwanted, afraid of relationships…like me….”

Fuck.

Natalie cries into my chest, and I hold her as tight as I can, refusing to let her go.

All these years, I’ve blamed her for trapping me; all these years, I haven’t allowed myself to think that maybe, just fucking maybe, it really was a false positive test, but my anger was overriding me, my fear of hurting her like my father broke my mother, how he hurt me and Acid.

Nat agreed to three years of fucking; she never blew my phone up, demanding to know where I was or who I was with, though she would send me pictures of her adventures in clumsiness. Fuck, I still have the one of her pouting, sitting on the floor at the diner where she used to work, covered in ketchup. She tripped while carrying the refill jugs, and yeah, she was covered .

She never gave me any reason not to trust her.

The image of Angel and Desiree hits me, and guilt overwhelms my emotions. Instead of actually fucking talking to her to see how she was feeling because she looked scared shitless when she told me she was pregnant, I blew up at her.

We married without friends or loved ones—we didn’t even dress up. She never got the dream wedding a girl deserves, though I don’t think she ever wanted one.

All this time, I’ve blamed her for forcing a relationship on me when, in reality, I fucking forced it on us because of club laws, and instead of begging Steal to let us off, knowing the false positive was just an innocent mistake, I held fucking tight to the club law, and I’m beginning to believe my subconsciousness didn’t want to lose her.

What the fuck have I done?

How do I fix it?

I hold my wife as her sobs quiet, her body heavier, and light snores escape her. Even now, I don’t let her go as my mind goes around in circles, two things hitting me hard?—

I am madly and irrevocably in love with my wife.

Our pasts have both ruined us.