Creed’s Honor by Simone Nicholls
I was drinking at the bar, and it was barely fucking two in the afternoon. But I didn’t give a flying fuck. I couldn’t take it any more. I didn’t even last a few minutes handling the emotions. Instead, I walked from the garage to the bar and grabbed a bottle—not a glass—intending to drown her out.
“You all right, mate?” Kobra questioned, pulling up a stool next to me.
My eyes were locked on the burning cigarette between my fingers.
“Just fuck off, Kobra,” I said. I wasn’t in a mood to be nice. I needed to drown out these feelings. I lived a life at one speed, fast—accelerating through most of it.
“Noticed my sister disappeared.” He didn’t fuck off as I had wanted.
Putting the cigarette to my mouth, I took a drag and didn’t say anything.
“So you gonna tell me what happened, or you going to drown yer sorrows with a bottle like a baby?”
My eyes flash to him, glaring. “Fuck off, Kobra.” If he were smart, he’d listen.
He cracked a smirk. “Did my sister have her wicked way with ya?” He had a cockiness to his tone.
I scoffed. “She hates me. She even said I needed to pray to save my soul. Listed my every fuck-up, and you know what?” I glanced back at him. “She’s right. I am toxic.”
I don’t know why, but my words caused his expression to drop off his face. He stared at me as if I had just killed a woman or something.
“Wait, she didn’t fuck you?”
“No, Kobra! She doesn’t want anything to do with me. She didn’t even really let me have it. She didn’t yell at me as if she loved me. No, she made it clear that I was some dead thing to her, that she wanted nothing to do with ever.” I scoffed. “Fuck, if you asked her, she would say the devil wouldn’t even want me.”
He cursed. “Great. My sisters are fucking addicted to no good men.”
“You not hearing me? She hates me.” I turned to look at him fully. “She doesn’t even feel hate for me, Kobra. She made it clear.”
Kobra pulled out his cigarettes, tapping them on the bar, looking like he was having a meltdown.
“She’s scared.” He said two words that confused me. “I know ’cos I’ve felt it. See, us Kincaids, we are fucking backwards. When we feel love, we panic. I think we get it from the old man.” He pulled out a cigarette. “Do you know what scared her?” He glanced at me.
I just stared at him, completely lost.
“She thought that when she confronted you, and you argued, that it would end the feeling inside. You know, confirm to her that she was right, she doesn’t love ya.” He lit up a cigarette. “Instead, she felt something, and it scared her.”
“How the fuck would you know. You weren’t there, and you aren’t her.”
Kobra remained quiet. He cursed under his breath as if he was having this debate with himself. He glanced at me. “I’ve always had a problem with doing the right thing. Part of me always leans for the wrong decision. So…I’m gonna say this and then I ain’t ever mentioning it again.”
I continued to stare at him. Half wondering if I’d had too much to drink and that was why I thought I saw Kobra looking like he was in pain.
“You need to decide if you love her, Creed.” His eyes flashed off the pack of smokes to me. “I’m not saying this ’cos I like you. I’m not saying this ’cos I want her with you. I’m saying this ’cos I love my sister, and I’ll always put her happiness before my own.” He inhaled sharply and then shook his head. “And she fucking loves you so much it scares her. So if you want her, you need to patch back, or you need to get the fuck out of town and let her try to find something or someone else without being suffocated by feelings for you, who ain’t gonna love her back.” He pushed the bar stool back. “And for the record. When you leave and let her go, that feeling you’ll feel when you ride in the opposite direction of her, it won’t ever leave ya, and the what-ifs, they don’t ever go away. Take it from me, being a fucking coward weighs heavy on a soul at midnight.”
Kobra was as hard as his father—if not harder. When it came to expressing his emotions, even Hades loved. Kobra, he didn’t love anyone that didn’t have to love him in return. In those short moments, Kobra Kincaid showed me that he had regret, and as I watched him storm off, I wondered what her name was.
But before I could spend any more time thinking about Kobra’s regret, thoughts of Holly—and if Kobra was right—overpowered my mind. Did Holly still love me? But more importantly, was I willing to stick around to see if she did or didn’t?
I looked down at the whiskey bottle.
Should I be a coward, and as Kobra said, was I prepared for the sleepless nights and lying awake at midnight, wondering what if I had fought for her? What if I stayed and fought her to make her face her feelings for me? Or if she felt nothing for me, what if I fought till she felt something for me again?
Should I leave?
Should I stay?
Should I fight for her?
In the end, my decision was made. When I pictured her, married with kids to another bloke— Yeah, fuck that. So I pushed the whiskey bottle away, got up, and headed for the clubhouse door.
I didn’t know if deep down, she loved me or if I was fighting a losing battle. All I knew was she made me question everything. She had flooded my body with emotions that sure as fuck weren’t natural. Because it couldn’t be natural to feel the love I felt for this woman, even after not seeing her for two years.
She drove my mind and my body close to insanity, and as I stormed towards her family’s house, a part of me knew, this right here, was stupidity.
I loved her, and I was prepared for her to burn me, leave me to be nothing but ashes. I was willing to risk that because there was a chance that she would love me back, that she would fearlessly face a chaotic future beside me. And the thought of her beside me for the rest of my life made me take up the odds and, just like that, I took a life gamble.