Wrench (The Club Girl Diaries Book 6) Page 8

  That’s what I hated most.

  The noise.

  It clouded my senses, driving me to the point of insanity.

  But as I looked across the room at Wrench, his fists clenched as though he would leap off the floor at any moment to beat the demons back, protect me like he promised, that was when I realized… there was no noise.

  The room was silent, so silent all I could hear was his heavy breathing and the way he was grinding his teeth together. I could hear the squeak of his leather cut when he moved. He wanted to reach out to me, I could feel and see just how much he was struggling to hold himself back.

  This was different, an experience I’d never felt before. For once, I wasn’t fighting this alone.

  During these times, it would usually be the pills that would comfort me, chase the shadows away and bring back the color to the world. They were my ally. But as he sat there, in silence, his overpowering strength, his words of protection playing over and over in my head, I could see the shadows sinking away.

  The sun began to shine through the window, lighting up the room again. Maybe it had always been there, maybe my mind had simply blocked it out, but either way, the darkness was slowly being forced back into the corners of the room.

  My lungs expanded further, taking in deeper breaths, urgently filling my deprived lungs and brain. My body continued to shudder and shake, but I held onto Wrench’s gaze. He didn’t have to speak, or touch me, or try to comfort me with words. To be honest, if he had, it would have only made things worse.

  It was like he knew that his presence would be enough, the silent unspoken look in his eyes speaking a thousand words that he couldn’t say. The sunlight moved across the floor of the bedroom. I felt like time was moving quickly, but in reality, I knew that hours were passing by. My body continued to shake, even as my racing heart changed from a fast beating hum to a slow thud. When my fingers began to heat, I finally looked down. The sunlight was touching my hand, warming my skin, casting its light on me.

  I licked my lips. “You think I’m crazy.”

  “I’ve been sitting here for three hours, not saying a word, but that’s what you think you heard?” he answered calmly.

  “I…” I struggled to find a reply.

  “I’m gonna run you a bath,” he said softly. “Is that okay?”

  I looked down at my leg, the wooden steps that led up to my front door had torn it up when I’d tripped. Blood was smeared over both my arms and droplets had settled on the carpet beside my foot. The pain was slowly feeding back into my senses, and I shuddered.

  “Yeah… that would be okay.”

  He pushed to his feet as he moved toward the door but my eyes began to blur again. “Wrench,” I gasped.

  He spun to face me, his eyes alert. “Yeah…”

  “Can… can I come with you.” I didn’t want to be alone. Even if he wasn’t touching me, just having him there, knowing I was safe, knowing he would fight for me, it made me feel calm.

  He came forward, holding out his hand to me. I placed my blood stained fingers in his, only realizing then that there was another graze across my palm. He held it gingerly as he pulled me onto my shaky legs.

  “Can I pick you up?” he asked, keeping his distance. Maybe he thought I’d run, or maybe he was scared that I could break down again at any moment, and he didn’t want to put up with me for another three hours as I tried to calm down.

  I cleared my throat. “Yeah.”

  He placed one hand on my back, bent down and hooked his arm under my knees. Lifting me off the floor, he cradled me against his body and I curled in toward his chest. The smell of his leather, the sound of his beating heart, it all crowded around me like a protective and supportive cloak.

  He’d seen me break down and lose my mind, yet here he was, and he wasn’t running for the hills. He wasn’t calling someone like Optimus to come and deal with me, and so far, I’d not even seen a flash of judgment in his eyes.

  It would be nice to say he’d seen me at my worst and was still willing to stand by me.

  That would be a lie.

  This was bad, even I’ll admit that, but the worst was yet to come.

  He hadn’t seen anything just yet.

  I placed the lid down on the toilet before sitting Sugar down on top of it. She didn’t say anything, her whole body was still shaking and I could tell her mind was somewhere else even as her eyes followed me around the tiny bathroom. After setting the bath to run, I moved back to her, stripping my club cut off and hanging it on the back of the door. My shirt followed, and I tossed it on the floor by the door so it wouldn’t get wet.

  I didn’t really know what I was doing.

  I had a million questions running through my brain.

  What the hell happened?

  Should I call Op and let him know?

  Did I need back up?

  Even as I contemplated all these things, the one thing that stood out above the rest was that I just needed to be there, to comfort her, to help her get through whatever it was that she was struggling with. I’d dealt with my fair share of panic attacks over the years, my mom suffering from them every other day after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

  While whatever it was that Sugar had going on was on the more extreme end of the scale, I knew that busting in and demanding answers wouldn’t make it any better. She needed room to breathe.

  “What are you doing?” she asked in a whisper as I reached for the buckle on my belt.

  “We’re going to have a bath,” I answered without looking over at her. Instead, I continued to shuck my jeans and kick them over with my T-shirt.

  She looked away as I turned around. A blush spread over her cheeks and I smiled, shaking my head. “I’m not trying to get in your pants. We can sit at opposite ends of the bath if you like, but I’m gonna get in with you and clean up those scratches.”

  She licked her lips, and wrapped her arms around her body, folding in on herself as she watched me test the water until it was just the right temperature and then turn off the taps.

  I held out my hand, and even as she took it she continued to look away. “You’re gonna need to get those clothes off, sweetness.”

  I caught a small smile turn up on the corner of her mouth. “Nice to see you’re still at it with the ridiculous nicknames,” she said in a hushed tone.

  I pulled her to her feet, moving slowly as I dragged her camisole off over her head. “Don’t you worry, candy cane, I’ll find one that suits you.”

  She allowed me to peel off her clothing and underwear, we moved at a snail’s pace but I didn’t mind. This wasn’t sexual, it wasn’t about getting my dick wet or fucking those thoughts out of her head. This was about comfort and intimacy, and sharing your flaws with another person and having them not judge you. I wanted to know what made her tick, I wanted to hear about every single little piece of her including pieces like these—the broken ones. My feelings for her were strong, I needed her to know I saw her for who she was and I was still here for her, no matter how fucking crazy shit would get.

  Had seeing her like that scared the fucking shit out of me?

  Yes. A million times, yes.

  But I instantly wanted to do whatever the hell I could do to take away whatever pain, or anxiety, or panic she was feeling. And if that meant sitting on the floor with her for fucking hours on end, with my mouth shut because she needed to know someone was there, then that’s what I’d do.

  I stepped into the tub first. Luckily, it was large enough to accommodate my body as well as hers pretty comfortably. She followed, her body sinking down into the water. With both of us in it, facing each other, the water level was close to spilling over the edge. But I didn’t fucking care.

  She was my priority.

  I picked up a washcloth from beside the bath and held out my hand. She lifted her leg out of the water, placing her ankle in my palm. I focused to the graze, even after being in the water for just a few minutes, it already looked a lot better. Wi
th some of the blood washed away, I could tell it looked sore but was nowhere as bad as I’d first imagined.

  “I think I hooked it on one of the nails that’s sticking up out of the steps,” she explained. “I was moving too fast and I tripped.”

  I nodded, the injuries making more sense now, with the matching marks on her hand where she would have tried to catch herself. “It’s not too deep,” I told her as I dabbed at it softly, removing the dried blood.

  She took the soap from its caddy and begun washing away the smudges of blood on her arms. If I was hurting her, she played it cool pretty well because not once did she flinch.

  “I’ll put a bandage on it when we get out.”

  She hummed in agreement before tucking her knees in close to her chest and sliding down further into the water, so it sat level with her chin.

  We relaxed in silence for a while, my aching ass thankful for the hot water given that I’d just been sitting on the floor for over three hours. How I’d managed to stay there that long I have no fucking idea, it was a miracle really. But I’d been scared that one movement would send her right back to where she started.

  “Thank you,” she finally whispered as she sat a little taller. “Thanks for not freaking out and for not touching me.”

  I shrugged. “You told me not to.”

  She played with her hair under the water. “Yeah, sometimes people don’t listen, though. Sometimes they think they know best.”

  I tapped my fingers on the edge of the bath. “You have those often?”

  She shook her head. “Not for a really long time. I’m usually pretty good at… controlling them, I can tell when they’re coming. That one just hit me like a Mac truck.”

  I splashed some water on my face and then wiped it away. “My mom, she used to have panic attacks quite often. I used to sit with her, she said that made her feel better.”

  Mom always used to say that she needed support, but she didn’t need me to sit there and cuddle her and tell her that ‘everything would be okay.’ Because when someone is in that state of mind—where the world feels like it’s crumbling down around them—the last thing they want is to feel like you’re down playing their emotions.

  “Why did she have panic attacks?” Sugar asked curiously.

  “When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was only like eleven. My sister was just leaving for college, and she was already working two jobs to support us,” I told her as my hand dipped below the water and skimmed across the soft skin of her calf. “Mom started to get anxious. My sister had been working for a year to help pay the bills, and now, although there would be one less mouth to fill, with Mom’s mounting medical bills, it was also going to be a strain losing my sister’s little bit of income.”

  “Oh wow,” Sugar said in awe. “That would have been so hard.”

  My finger trailed lazily over her leg and I sunk deeper into the water, lying my head back on the edge of the bath.

  “Yeah, Dani tried to stay but my mom refused to let her give up her education, saying we’d make do. And we did, despite her having anxiety attacks more than once a week.” I smiled as I remembered my mom, and just how tough she was. “She battled through. We made it work. She went into remission for a while, and things were looking up, she was working and making enough for us to live comfortably. Then one day, the cancer came back with a vengeance, and she just couldn’t fight it.”

  Sugar came forward, her hand reaching for mine under the water, the movement causing the bath water to slosh over the sides. “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely, and I smiled.

  “She was pretty cool. One of those moms who you knew you couldn’t get away with shit around, but that still did fun stuff like prank your older sister with you, and high fived you when you figured out how to crack bank accounts… as long as you didn’t steal any money.” I chuckled and shook my head, enjoying the memories that I had of one of the most amazing women in the world.

  Sugar’s face brightened, and I noticed that the color was coming back to her cheeks. “I hope when Harlyn gets older that she describes me as a cool mom.”

  “You’re already the best kind of mom. Young, sexy, successful and a little bit badass. When she gets older, all her guy friends are gonna wanna come round for study groups just so they can perve on you,” I told her, my laughter echoing in the bathroom.

  Suddenly a splash of water hit me in the face and I was blinded.

  “That’s not even funny,” she protested as I wiped away the droplets from my eyes.

  “It was a compliment…” I snickered. “Not that I would let it happen. I’d probably end up doing time for beating the shit out of some high schooler who tried to touch your boob.”

  A gentle smile came across her lips. “You plan on being around that long, huh?”

  “Plan on being around as long as fucking possible,” I answered honestly, looking her directly in the eyes.

  She cleared her throat, obvious emotion choking her up. “I… uh… suddenly feel kinda bad for splashing you,” she said with a weak smile.

  I lifted my hand out of the water, and while it was still dripping, I flicked it at her.

  She gasped in shock for a second before narrowing her eyes at me. “This is war.”

  “Bring it on, jelly bean.”

  “Hey kid,” I said, ruffling over Harlyn’s hair with my hand as I walked by. “What’s going on?”

  “Homework,” she replied, the tone of her voice low and full of frustration.

  I leaned over the bar, grabbing two bottles of cold water from the fridge on the other side before heading back to the table where she was sitting, staring blankly at a workbook in front of her.

  The clubhouse was pretty empty. Blizzard had his hands full looking after Jayla and trying to avoid the clubhouse at any cost due to Rose’s return. I had to admit, that girl had balls the size of a small country. Because of her, Chelsea had almost lost her life and Blizzard had been shot after falling head over heels for a woman who was essentially the enemy. Yet, she’d walked back in here with her heart on her sleeve, begging to make amends for the shitstorm she’d been a part of creating a couple months ago. Not caring that she could have been killed on sight and it would have been—in my mind—completely justified.

  She had guts, I had to give her that much.

  Things had been calm for a while, business as usual you might say. But with Blizzard’s mom coming in and asking the club for help, I could already feel the change brewing in the air.

  Trouble was coming.

  “You having issues?” I asked, handing Harlyn one of the bottles before dragging out a chair and sitting down with her.

  She took the cold bottle and started drawing on the condensation that had gathered on the side of it, clearly avoiding looking up at me. “Did you like school?”

  I snorted. “Yeah, I guess I did. I was pretty good at it.” She swiftly moved her hand, grabbing the book in front of her and slamming it shut. “Hey!” I said in surprise, grabbing her hand in mine and stopping her from picking it up and tossing it on the floor for good measure.

  “School sucks! They’re all stuck up rich kids,” she sneered, glaring at the offending object.

  “Woah there Rambo,” I teased, tugging on her hand and pulling her around the table. Harlyn had been suspended for a few days a week or so ago, for punching a kid in the stomach when he’d said some bad shit about the club. “What the hell is going on?” I spread my legs so she could stand between them putting us at the same eye level.

  “I just don’t like it, Wrench.” She sighed, the fight leaving her. “I don’t know why I can’t just go to another school.”

  “Because your mom wants you to get a good education. Sometimes we have to do things that we don’t want to do if we know that in the end, it’s gonna benefit us.” I countered, supporting Sugar’s choice to send Harlyn to the local private school instead of public, even though I didn’t entirely agree with it.

  She wasn’t my kid, I didn’
t have a say, and I knew that Sugar was just trying to do what she thought was best.

  Things had been up and down with us since the day I’d found her in her room, in the brink of a mental breakdown. She never really offered me any kind of explanation of how she ended up that way, but after a few hours of us just hanging around her house, unpacking and laughing together, she seemed to bounce back pretty quickly. By bounced back, I really mean bounced.

  Some days it was like nothing else existed but us. Others, the only glimpse I got of her was as she was running through the clubhouse yelling over her shoulder that she’d gotten a new idea and she needed to draw it before it disappeared. She’d been full of determination, her focus shifting to this new shop she planned on opening. It was good to see her so passionate, the beautiful broken girl I saw curled into a ball in her bedroom was like a bad memory that she’d left behind. One that neither of us wanted to remember, but that we couldn’t quite forget. It was just good to see her fucking happy again, even if she was too busy for me.

  “It didn’t used to be like this at my old school because they didn't know who my daddy was.”

  My gut sunk, it made sense now. “It’s that bad, huh?”

  She looked away, and I instantly knew I was right. I caught her chin in my hand and turned her face to look at me. “Ain’t nothing those kids have to say is important, Har. They don’t know you. They don’t actually know your dad, and they don’t know the club. You think any of them have this many people ready to beat the shit out of anyone who spoke down about them?”

  She shook her head.

  “You think any of them get to ride on the back of a motorbike like you do with your dad, or have their mom make them fucking awesome one of a kind clothing like your mom?” I asked her, knowing full well none of those rich little shits would come close to the family that Harlyn has.

  She laughed softly. “No. You should see the parents’ faces when Daddy picks me up.”

  I grinned. “Exactly kid. You have so much more than they do. So don’t let their silly words get to you. You’re better than that.”