Ryker by Jeneveir Evans
Chapter 18
She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you’ll know loss the rest of your life.
~Junot Diaz~
Ryker
October 17th, 1999
Laughter rang out around the table as I visited for a couple hours with Dog and some of the Brothers. I had shot off a quick text to Bane letting him know that I was at the Clubhouse talking to Dog. I told him that he and the boys could join me if they wanted, but Bane declined. He said he was taking his brothers to the gym for a workout. That had made my heart swell with emotion. That's what I wanted for my sons, the chance to become close. They’d all be able to have that if things went well with my battle with King.
I finally decided to head back to Bane’s. I left through the kitchen door. As soon as I stepped outside, I heard squeals and laughter of children playing. I glanced over to the playground and I swear my feet froze to the concrete. Deb was there with three children. A boy around seven or eight was swinging as high as he could go and Deb was pushing the other two children in safety swings. The younger two couldn’t have been more than three or four.
She was half turned from me so I couldn’t see her clearly, but I would know that laughter from anywhere. An agonizing pain ripped across my heart. From the day I had seen her riding off behind another man, I’d missed her so much that I had physically ached with it.
Until her, I’d never met a woman who made me feel anything other than brief lust or disgust. Yet as soon as I’d seen her the first time, the pure joy on her face had spoken to me. I don’t even remember walking across the bar toward her. All I remember is standing in front of her, grabbing her beer and taking a drink. The next thing I knew I was kissing her and life as I had known it had never been the same.
‘Fuck,’ I mentally groaned. ‘You jackass. You let her go because you were thrown for a loop by King’s threats. Look at what you sent away.’ There she stood, the woman who still held my heart in her hands, only she didn’t know it.
Just like that day in the bar, I never felt my feet move. The next thing I knew I was within fifteen feet of her. Christ, this shit hurt. I wanted to run to her, take her in my arms and make her mine again. If I thought she’d welcome it, that is exactly what I would do too. Only I knew otherwise. She didn’t want me and I couldn’t blame her. I was the one who had tossed her aside. I’d fucking regret that until the day I died.
“Sunshine,” I said hoarsely.
Her laughter died and she froze when she heard my voice. She slowly turned her head to look at me. Jesus, she didn’t look like she had aged at all. I felt myself stagger back a step in disbelief. This was still the same girl who had shown me what living really was. The girl who had given me sunshine and laughter. Rainbows and dancing in the rain. Joy in the sound of her whispered words of need. She’d become the air I breathed and I don’t think I’ve really breathed since then. Damn, this was torture. To be so close to her and to know I was so far away.
I saw the shock on her face, the joy, the pain, then her face went completely emotionless.
“Hello, Ryker.”
“God, Sunshine. You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Don’t call me that. You gave up the right to do that the day your Old Lady walked into that tent and told me to leave. That I wasn’t needed anymore. That she could take care of her Old Man.”
“Sunshine, give me the chance to explain.”
‘I told you not to call me that,” she spit out angrily.
“Deb, please. Baby, give me the chance to talk to you.”
“I’m not your baby and I never will be,” she snapped.
Then she turned to the kids and spoke, “It’s time to head home you three. It’s lunchtime. Then we’ll read a story before nap time. What do you want me to read to you?”
And just like that, she shut me out. She ignored me completely. She gathered the three children and walked over to a Mule and loaded the kids into it. I watched as she buckled them up, then she got in, started it and took off. She never once looked back. I didn’t take my eyes off her until she was out of sight. Then I went to the ground, my knees hitting hard.
I dropped my head as my ass hit the back of my heels. My shoulders shook with grief as I realized that all of her anger, all of her pain, all of her torment, lay squarely on my shoulders. I was the one who had ended us.
Me.
And, fuck, I wasn’t sure how to live with the knowledge that had slapped me in the face with every single word she had spoken.
But I had to find a way, because if I survived my coming battle, I was coming here and patching over so I could get to know my oldest son. I had a feeling I only thought I’d known what hell on earth was.
~*~
Deb
I felt like a robot as I carried the kids home. Brax was up and around and he told me he’d take over watching the kids. I knew he could tell something was wrong with me, but there was no way I could tell him what had just gone on. I was afraid once I gave way to the emotions of what had just happened, that I’d completely break down. I helped him get lunch despite his protest, then I headed for the gazebo in the backyard. It was far enough away from the house that I didn’t think anyone could hear me.
I sank down onto one of the huge wicker chairs and let my flip-flops fall off my feet as I drew my legs up to my chest. I wrapped my arms around my legs and rocked back and forth as I thought about what had just happened. I’d vaguely noticed someone walking toward us at the playground, but I hadn’t paid any mind to them. That is not until I heard him speak, then I thought I’d lose it.
God, his voice sounded the same. Hearing him call me Sunshine was playing on repeat in my mind. From the very first day we’d met, he’d called me that. I remember teasing him about it like it was yesterday.
“I bet you only call me Sunshine because you can’t remember my real name,” I smarted sassily to him.
He stared at me intently as he cupped my face in his large hands and said softly, “I know your real name is Deb, but to me you’ll always be my Sunshine.”
I tilted my head toward him curiously. “Why?”
“Because from the very first moment I saw you, that was when the sun started shining for me.”
It had been a good thing we’d been alone when I asked that. We’d both gotten naked so fast it was almost embarrassing. That had been the first time we’d made love and the second time we hadn’t used a condom. Before when we’d come together, it had been raw, intense, and I’d burned hotter than the sun. That day he’d taken it slow and worshipped every inch of me and still we’d scorched the ground beneath us.
Earlier, I’d turned toward him when his rough voice had called out his pet name for me.
I knew he was on the compound but, foolishly, I thought I wouldn’t encounter him. I’d been so stupid thinking I could take the kids to the playground without running into him. Oddly enough, he was the only one I had seen the entire time we had been there.
The girl in me had been shocked to see him, I’d felt joy at seeing the man I’d loved for so long, then the pain had hit. A pain I never wanted to go through again. That’s when the woman in me stepped up. I wiped all emotion for him off my face.
“Hello, Ryker,” my voice came out monotone. I’d mentally given myself a high-five for not letting him hear how much agony I was in.
“God, Sunshine. You haven’t changed a bit.”
Fury at hearing him say that had washed over me. I felt my insides shake with anger. I’d lashed out at him. I’d told him not to call me that and told him that he’d given up the right the day he’d let his Old Lady walk into the tent and told me to leave.
A tent that he and I slept in for two nights. A tent where we’d fucked like rabbits because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. A tent where I’d conceived Leigh. I’d been so sore after the last time he took me that I wasn’t sure I could have done it again, yet my body had still craved his. My spirit had been willing but my body had collapsed on top of his in sleep. I’d slept so hard I never even noticed when he got up and left the tent the next morning.
I’d heard the anguish in his voice when he said, “Sunshine, give me the chance to explain.”
He’d pleaded with me to give him a chance to explain. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. There was no way I could have listened to him, not then, not there. The way I was feeling right then and right now, I don’t believe I will ever be able to listen to his excuses.
I couldn’t afford to lose myself like I had the day I was forced out of his life. It had taken everything I had inside me to come back from the incredible torment I had been dealt. If it hadn’t been for Bane and Leigh, I’m not sure I would have been able to.
Knowing he was standing close, after so many years, had left me barely hanging on by a thread. All I knew was I had to get the kids and go.
Somehow I had found the strength to turn away from him, let the kids know we were going, load them up and leave. Mentally fighting with myself, I was able to drive away and not look back.
~***~