Scars of Yesterday (Sons of Templar MC #8) - Anne Malcom Page 0,41

couldn’t really make a habit of getting drunk and taking mood stabilizers every night if I wanted my children to be even vaguely well adjusted.

My friends invited me over for wine and food almost daily. Despite the fact I always said no, they kept asking.

I wasn’t ready for that yet. To go back to the life I had inhabited before Ranger died.

Sometimes, I craved all of that. Felt guilty for not giving my kids back some normalcy.

But I couldn’t do it. Even for the kids. Not now, not that I was still processing my rock bottom, who I was down here.

So, after fixing the kids a snack and throwing a ball with Jack for twenty minutes, I settled myself on the sofa with a candle burning and a cup of tea that I wished was beer. My laptop was nestled on my legs as I typed away at the document I wasn’t letting myself call a book. It was an escape. A period of time when I could imagine life was easy with happily ever afters, hot sex and romance with no bumps in the road.

I couldn’t read romance books anymore. None of them were right. They made me mad. I couldn’t relate to anything. Couldn’t escape into anything. So I just wrote what I needed to read. Nothing else. It wouldn’t go anywhere.

I got so into this ‘not’ book, that I lost awareness of my surroundings. Which meant that I didn’t notice someone standing in my living room, watching me for who knew who long before she cleared her throat.

I jumped, turning to see Amy standing behind me, purse in the crook of her elbow, a smile on her face.

“What you doing there?” she asked with faux innocence, the tone telling me she’d been peeking over my shoulder.

Heat crept up my neck, and a little annoyance. This writing and this not book were private. It wasn’t even something I’d talked to Ranger about. He’d see me on my laptop typing things, but he hadn’t asked about it. Not because he didn’t care, but because he knew if I wanted him to know what I was doing I would’ve talked to him about it. We shared almost everything, he supported me in whatever made me happy. I wasn’t sure writing my stories made me happy. They made me... feel whole. It was nice to have something that didn’t have anything to do with being a mother or an Old Lady. Something that was just mine.

And right now, I needed something just mine more than ever.

“Nothing,” I said to Amy, slamming the laptop shut. “What are you doing here?”

She moved to sit on the chair opposite me, placing her purse down beside her and crossing her legs. Every movement was graceful, elegant, sexy down to her snakeskin boots that I would’ve stolen right off her feet if we were the same size. Unfortunately we weren’t. But both her and Gwen knew my weakness for shoes—and Ranger’s liking for them—so every year, for my birthday and Christmas, they bought me shoes that were far too expensive, physically forcing me to take them.

“Jack let me in,” Amy said. “Him and Lily are getting ready, so you should probably stop doing ‘nothing’ and get ready too. You’re totally hot in any outfit, but I don’t know if that shirt with all the holes is the look you want for the party.”

Being Saturday night, the only party she could’ve been talking about was the weekly barbeque the club hosted. Friday nights were party nights, too, but not the child friendly kind. Although I would hazard a guess and say more than a few children were conceived on those nights.

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not going to a party. Neither are the kids. And I don’t appreciate you telling them they were without talking to me.”

Amy didn’t even blink at my tone, which was rather practiced at being sharp. I was an Old Lady, after all. But the problem was, so was Amy. Beyond that, she’d grown up in upper class social circles that I had come to understand had made her all but immune to any kind of bitchy tone. And somewhat of an expert in them.

“Babe, I’d totally be respecting that concept if I didn’t know better,” she explained crossing her arms. “The time on your self-induced club isolation is up. I get you wanting to hide forever. I do. Well, kind of. I don’t think I’ll ever really get it because I’m not