“How does he know where I live?”
“The cabin is still listed. Don’t worry, I called the owner and told him to take it down as it contains the address. He did, but not before Bohdi managed to figure out that’s where you are. I think ... I think you should hear him out, honey. I really do.”
“I don’t want to hear him out,” I say, my voice shaky. “He has a wife and children, Waverly. A family he chose to leave.”
“I think you’ll find he had good reason for that ...”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Just hear him out and make your mind up then. You two had something special—it would be a shame to see you lose that friendship.”
I exhale.
“Don’t panic, it’ll be okay. Listen, we’re going to come up for the weekend tomorrow, if you’re up for visitors this soon. I wouldn’t mind getting away after all the drama the club has had in the last few months.”
“That sounds wonderful. You’ll need to bring something to sleep on, or in ... I don’t have any spare beds.”
“We’ll cover it. See you tomorrow, and honey?”
“Yeah.”
“Hear him out.”
I hang up and turn, staring out the front door. Bohdi is going to be here, any moment, and I’m not sure I’m ready to face him. I’m not sure I want to hear what he has to say. I’m not sure I want to because if it makes sense, then I’m going to be caught in between the drama of him and his wife. Even if he has good reason, that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still here and she is married to him.
She’s not going anywhere, anytime soon.
That means it’s going to hurt for me.
I can’t take any more hurt.
I’ll hear him out, but then, I will let him go.
It’s the only way this will work.
The only way.
BOHDI ARRIVES AN HOUR later. I hear the sound of his bike rumbling down the driveway, disrupting the perfect silence. I’ve had a shower, cleaned until there was nothing else to clean, and grabbed myself a glass of wine and sat on my front swing. The nerves in my stomach are eating me alive. It’s already midafternoon, does he plan on staying? That thought terrifies me. The whole idea of him being here terrifies me.
A moment after his bike stops, he rounds the corner looking so god damned perfect it hurts me to stare at him. He’s a surfer deep down, but a biker on the outside. His long blond hair is swept into a ponytail at the base of his neck. His skin is bronze, making the scar on his cheek more pronounced. I never asked him where he got that scar. His eyes, hazel with specks of blue, are crystal clear and so intense you can’t look at them for any length of time. I’ve never seen eyes quite like his.
He’s wearing his jacket, a pair of blue jeans, and a tight, black tee beneath it. His boots are thick and heavy, and he looks so unique. He is so different to the rest of them. They’re tough and terrifying, Bohdi is terrifying in his own right, but he holds this beauty that shines well beyond the leather. Bohdi is his own person, the kind you rarely find.
“Guessin’ Waverly warned you,” he says when he stops at my front step, putting a booted foot on it.
“Yeah,” I say softly, fingers curling around the cool wine glass.
“I need the chance to talk to you, Merleigh. Know you don’t want to hear it, but I need you to.”
“You told me you had things to work out ...”
“I got it sorted. Can I sit?”
I nod, and he walks up the few steps and takes a seat on a chair that isn’t the same one I’m sitting on, thank god. My heart is racing enough as it is—if he were to sit closer, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate.
“Nice place you got here. Reminds me of the shack I grew up in.”
I don’t say anything.
I’d love to ask him about that shack, and his life, and all the other things he doesn’t share with anyone.
But one thing at a time.
“I’ll tell you the story. If you can listen with an open mind, I’d appreciate that,” he murmurs, low.
I don’t say anything, I just listen.
“Met Isla when I was about seventeen. Lived with my mom, she was an alcoholic and a drunk. She ... passed away. Isla and I were never super close, but she got pregnant. Figured I would do right by her, didn’t want to be like my mother and father, so I married her. She lost that baby. By then, I was already there, so I stayed. Relationship was toxic, she and I didn’t see eye to eye and we fought all the time. I wasn’t a good man back then, I was lost and fuckin’ broken.”
I take a shaky breath. I’ve never heard him say so much before.
Not ever.
Bohdi rarely says more than a few sentences. It does mean a lot to me that he’s willing to change that just so I can hear his story.
“Years went on, our relationship got worse, her family hated me, and I had nobody. She got pregnant again, and our son was born. That helped. Loved that boy. Still do. Her sister, Sherry, came to me after my son was born, telling me that Isla was having an affair with her husband. Didn’t believe her, obviously. We had a son, couldn’t see how she would do something like that, but Sherry was persistent. She wasn’t lettin’ it go, and continued to tell me she would prove it. I was in a dark place, and didn’t give a fuck at that point.”
I swallow.
“Isla got pregnant again, and our second son was born. When he was a few weeks old, Sherry called me, frantically telling me she needed to talk to me. She was hysterical. It was the middle of the night, so I went out there and met up with her. She was raving and ranting about Isla and Daniel, her husband, having an affair. She said she had proof, and there was more—my sons weren’t mine.”
Oh, god.
My heart races.
“She had managed to get DNA and get a paternity test on my oldest son. He wasn’t mine. She was right. My wife had been cheating on me with her sister’s own husband. Not only that, she had gotten pregnant by him. I was already in a fucked up place, and that was all I needed. I didn’t plan on what happened next but ... Sherry was losing it. Wanting all this stuff, saying she couldn’t live without Daniel. She had an addiction. I knew that all too well. The old that took. She threatened to throw herself off the lookout we were on, saying nobody would care.”
I feel sick.
I have a feeling I know where this is going.
“She went to the edge and was crying and screaming. Saying she was going to jump. I think she was drunk, she was hurting. I walked over, tried to grab her back, but she fought me and ... she fell. She fell off the side and plunged into the water.”
I’m going to vomit.
I stare at him with horror.
I have imagined so many scenarios in my head, but none quite as bad as the one he’s telling me right now.
“For so fuckin’ long, I stood there, staring down into the darkness. Wondering where to go from there. Do I call the police? Will they blame me? I was so fuckin’ depressed, and my world had just been turned upside down. My son wasn’t mine, the other one wasn’t likely to be mine either. My sister-in-law had just killed herself. So, I made a choice. I made the choice to disappear, too.”
I stare at him, tears in my eyes. I can’t stop them, hell, no decent person could.