Everlasting - Christine Michelle Page 0,4
men standing around me all nodded their heads before they took off to the room where they held their club meetings. It’s funny that they called it church, because suddenly, I found myself praying to whatever god would listen. It was something I never did, and yet, I had this bubble of dread brewing in my belly telling me that only divine intervention would bring my man back to me this time.
Chapter 3
The First
Lucy
Instead of going backwards through CJ’s letters to me, I quickly sorted through the boxes and found the first. Then I dug down to find where it all started. I had no clue that he had been feeling the same way about me that I had about him. Not for the first time, I cursed the boy I had grown up with because his lies had kept CJ and I apart for years, and then tore us apart a second time too. I still didn’t know why a person would stoop to ruining another’s happiness like that. Jealousy was a strong motivator, I supposed. Not that it mattered. CJ and I had a lifetime together, despite the bumps in the road. That was what mattered in the end.
Lucy,
After I dropped you off that night, I went back to the clubhouse and crawled in bed with thoughts of you swimming in my head. I wanted nothing more than to wake up and go make you mine. The rules about ages be damned. We’re not that far apart. Everything about you captivates me. Your beauty, for sure, but your heart and the way you see the world around you is something else entirely. Never before have I found myself just wanting to dive into another person and never come up for air. Does that sound crazy? I’m sure it does.
The crazier thing was seeing you packing your stuff and leaving me behind without a word. What happened to send you away from me? What did I do? Was it even me? I know we haven’t been in one another’s lives very long but there’s this insane connection we share, and I felt like I lost a piece of myself as I watched you leave.
I will get to the bottom of this and I will bring you back to me. I’m embracing the crazy, baby. There’s no one else I want to spend my life wrapped around. It’s you. I knew that from the moment I saw you with your little grease-stained nose as you were tinkering around with my bike. Please, come back to me!
Yours,
Double-D
My heart ached after reading the very first letter my love had ever written for me. I wished he shared his letters with me sooner. It might have helped solidify our relationship earlier, and then maybe he would have been there to help me bring Toby into the world. I almost felt ashamed of myself for the thought, because I knew better than anyone else that we couldn’t wish the past to be different. If I did, then I was basically wishing Ever away and I couldn’t do that. She may not have been my daughter by blood, but she was mine in every other way that counted. I just had to keep reminding myself that inevitably, the bumps in mine and CJ’s road brought her into our lives. Without them, she wouldn’t be here, and I couldn’t imagine a world where she didn’t exist, or my grandbabies, for that matter.
Chapter 4
Waking Up
Deck
Everything hurt and felt disconnected all at once as I managed to get my eyes to peel apart for the first time since… Hell, I didn’t know what “since” meant.
“Finally!” Someone hissed as I managed to open them and attempted to adjust to the low light in the room. The walls appeared to be made of wood and the acrid smell of burning wood along with something I couldn’t quite place clung heavily on the air. “Thought we were going to have to dispose of you.”
“Where am I?” I managed to croak out.
“Where doesn’t really matter,” the voice spoke again. “Why is the better question. The Trinity Group isn’t quite finished with the Aces High MC just yet, and in specific, they’re not finished with you either.”
“Me?” The one-word question left my mouth on a gasp as I struggled to move so that I could see who was speaking to me, rather than carrying on a conversation with a disembodied voice. “I’ve barely had any part in this,” I finally added when I