Chaos series by Kristen Ashley

“Yes, I’m seriously going to stand here and tell you just that, Hop,” I shot back.

“So you’re okay, in taking that away from you, taking it away from me.”

My breath pressed out of my lungs on a wheeze and I stared.

Hop continued.

“On the road groupie pu**y. Biker pu**y. Fuckin’ Mitzi. I’ve had a lot and some of the women in there, they were good. Fine women. Sweet women. Excellent lays. But never, not in forty f**kin’ years of life, have I had a woman who I felt about like I feel about you. You tell me you care about me and yet, we both f**k up and hurt each other, you won’t make the effort it takes to forgive and get back on track? In doing that, taking away the only shot I’ve ever had in forty f**kin’ years of being genuinely happy?”

I didn’t say anything because I hadn’t thought of it like that and thinking of it like that made the pain I’d been feeling for nearly two weeks unbearable.

So unbearable, it was a wonder I stayed standing.

Unfortunately, I battled the pain too long. It gave Hopper the time to jump to a conclusion.

And Hop, being Hop, did just that.

“I did not f**k around on you. I did not use you to shield me from bullets. I did not lead you to heartbreak. I did none of that shit, Lanie, and you’re makin’ me pay for all your,” he jabbed a finger at me, “mistakes. You wanna stand with an island between us, not touch me in weeks, not talk to me for days and be done, baby? You got it. We’re done.”

My body listed to the side, preparing to go after him, my mouth opening to call his name but he stopped in the opened sliding glass door, turned to me and landed his last blow.

“You know, this reminds me of Mom and my old man. All this bullshit fighting about f**kin’ nothin’, two people just so shit scared of the love they feel for each other, they’d rather drive each other away than take a risk on feeling the fullness of that feeling.” And if that wasn’t enough, then came the coup de grâce. “So I guess that means I didn’t f**kin’ learn after Mitzi.”

Did Hop just kind of say he loved me?

“You love me?” I breathed.

“You’ll never know,” he replied, turned, slid the door to and walked away.

Chapter Sixteen

The Best

Two weeks and three days later…

I was at the Chaos hog roast, freaking out.

Hop had not yet showed and the longer I was there, the longer I courted running into him.

I had not called, texted or hung out at Chaos for a second chance at a second chance with Hop. Hop’s finale was final. The pain was immense. I couldn’t do it, not again.

I had to let it go. Try to find a way to survive. Not court more pain I wasn’t strong enough to endure.

I had to move on.

I hated it.

I missed him so badly, it was an ache. I fell asleep with it. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling it. I pushed through the day suffering it.

But I had to hope it would dull. Someday.

And maybe it would. In about fifty years.

I had not told Tyra about what happened between Hop and me. Not yet.

I was not procrastinating.

We were gearing up at work for a couple of campaigns going live so work was insanely busy. And I’d found a short-term counselor I liked so I started seeing her.

This was, surprisingly, working, and it had from the very first visit. That was to say, before talking to Tyra and going to the counselor, I didn’t have that dream about Kansas City every night but it came frequently. I hadn’t had it now since talking to Tyra.

So that was one bit of good.

I still wasn’t sleeping well but the reason wasn’t Elliott and Kansas City.

The reason was that Hop wasn’t lying beside me and I ached for him to be close to me.

But, as Hop said, we were done.

Also taking my headspace, Tyra had told Mitch’s wife Mara to get Mitch to give that guy my number and he’d called, four times.

His name was Jed. He had an unbelievably attractive voice and, back in the day when I was the old Lanie, I would have jumped on meeting him for coffee and, if his face or personality equaled the beauty of his voice, I would have hoped he’d jumped on me (and not end up being a jerk).

Alas, I was in love with another man and I felt terrible since I was going through the motions with Jed. I had absolutely no intention of taking it any further but I had to do it for Tyra.

I had a feeling Jed knew I wasn’t into it about two minutes into the first conversation, when getting-to-know-you discussions that might lead to coffee, a date and maybe sex turned into getting-to-know-you discussions that would lead to just getting to know you.

In other words, he didn’t only have a beautiful voice, he seemed like a nice guy who was giving me what I needed to keep my friend happy without putting on any pressure or blowing me off when he could totally do that. He just didn’t. I didn’t know why. I just knew it made him a nice guy.

If that wasn’t enough, I spent a goodly amount of time licking the wounds I’d opened myself by having and then losing Hop.

So there wasn’t time to sit down with Tyra and tell her about Hop.

Therefore, when Ty-Ty called to tell me there was a hog roast, asked me to come and I demurred, since I hadn’t yet told her, I knew just how deeply I’d worried her and I knew she wanted me to live my life, when she pressed me to go, I had no excuse not to.

So here I was.

Though I did tell her I couldn’t stay long.

My out. I went but I intended to leave as soon as it was seemly.

It wasn’t time yet for Hop and me to have moved past what Hop and I were and lapse into distant acquaintances that had to share each other’s space on occasion.

With the number of times I’d turned to wine and Bob Seger the last couple of weeks, torturing myself and barely containing the pain, I knew that would take about seventy-five years.

The good thing about the hog roast was that I got to see Tabby and Shy together for the first time and meet Shy’s good-looking, very nice brother Landon. Tab and Shy were cute together and someone would have to be blind not to see they were over-the-moon in love and happy.

I was thrilled for her. She was so young and still, her road to love had been bumpier than most that had decades on her. But she was Tabby. She had been a good kid who grew into a lovely woman, funny and sweet. She deserved that.

And seeing her happy with Shy, it made it worth coming to the hog roast and possibly seeing Hop, having those festering wounds I was trying and failing to anesthetize with work, wine and the stylings of the Silver Bullet Band open further, spreading the pain, lacerating my heart.