Page 19 of Tanner (Dirty Misfits MC 5)
I wondered why the hell she had even been with me in the first place if she thought I was such a bad guy.
Maybe she never even loved me. That might explain things.
I dried my face off and headed back to bed, but the clock on the wall boasted of the fact that it was already two-thirty in the morning. If I was lucky, I’d get three hours of sleep before someone woke me up with intentions to make plans on what we’d do about getting my daughter. But I laid down and tossed my arm over my eyes anyway, trying my best to block out the world around me.
And while darkness didn’t pull me under, my thoughts did.
Shoving memory after memory to the forefront, as if to torture me further.
“Come on, where are you?” I murmured.
As I leaned against my car with the trunk bungee-corded shut, I crossed my arms over my chest. With my head on a swivel, I kept an eye out for the most beautiful woman in the world. She had been cheering me on in the stands at my graduation. She had been by my side for the past three years, making sure I passed my classes and making sure I didn’t get held back. I owed my high school diploma to her, and I had every intention of building a life for us that we could both be proud of.
But the longer I stood there, the more worried I became.
“Come on!” I exclaimed.
I whipped around and punched my car, denting the door before I pressed my hands against the cold, foggy glass. I’d been standing here for over an hour, and she was at least thirty minutes late. I wanted to whisk us off into the sunset. I wanted to take her out of town, get dinner somewhere, and then take her to a little one-bedroom place I found that was perfect for the both of us. I already had it rented out and furnished. All we had to do was arrive at our new home and start looking toward the future.
That was what a life with the Dirty Misfits afforded me. Money. Luxury. A future I couldn’t have ever dreamed for myself.
And yet, Summer was nowhere to be found.
“Summer!” I exclaimed.
I cupped my hands over my mouth a couple of times and called out for her, but nothing shot back at me. Just the echo of my own voice and the cawing of a few birds I had pissed off in the process. Three-thirty, in the parking lot of the stadium where we held our graduation. That was the plan.
So, where the hell was she?
“Maybe I should call her,” I murmured.
I wasn’t a stranger to the shithole of a life she had. I wasn’t a stranger to the insane ideologies of her over-conservative parents. Maybe they had caught her, so she had to wait until sundown before sneaking out with her things. Or maybe she had gotten into an accident trying to get here.
I dialed her number and held the phone to my ear, ready to hear her voice. Ready to hear her reassurance that she was going to be here, but that she had run into some snags.
However, the phone simply rang and rang before going to her voicemail.
“Hi! This is Summer Madson! If you’ve reached my voicemail, that means I’m—”
“Damn it,” I growled.
I hung up the phone and tried again as the sun officially began setting. I turned my back to it, unable to take in its beauty as it blinded me with the reminder that Summer still wasn’t here yet. I called and I called. I called and left at least five voice messages before her phone stopped ringing and went straight to voicemail.
“Is she ignoring me?” I murmured.
The idea was so far-fetched that I wasn’t sure how to process it. And yet, as I turned around and watched the sun set over the stadium that had handed me the rest of my adult future for me to fuck up, the truth stared me right in the face.
“She’s not coming,” I whispered to myself.
My eyes slowly opened as wetness dripped down the sides of my face. The nape of my neck felt cool, yet clammy, and I eased myself up while my joints popped with my movements. I tossed my legs over the bed as an all-over ache swallowed me whole, leaving me breathless and in need of something I couldn’t have.
“Fucking hell, Summer,” I growled.
I pushed myself up from the bed and didn’t bother looking at the clock. I knew it was still the middle of the night. I knew I hadn’t been down more than an hour. I walked back into my bathroom and splashed cold water in my face this time, trying to get the sweating and crying to cease and desist. She didn’t deserve my tears. She didn’t deserve my time. Hell, the only reason why we were interacting was because we had a daughter in the thick of all of this.
