Watching Chloe board that bus was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. And my final blow to her wasn't something I'd planned. I felt like a total bastard. But in reality, it was for the best. I had known all along that I wasn't worthy of her. But seeing her leave caused an ache deep inside me like nothing I've ever experienced. I'd never been in love so I didn't know what the hell it felt like, but if this was anything close then I didn't fucking want any part of it.
♥♥♥
Thankfully Melody's funeral happened peacefully. Loki's Legion showed some respect, at least for the day. It was the most heart-breaking scene. Bikers from CoSMiC's neighboring state charters attended and took part in the funeral cortège. “Set Fire to the Third Bar” by Snow Patrol, Melody's favorite band, was played inside the church and I had to hold Cain up to stop him from collapsing with grief. The haunting words stuck in my head and in my selfish moments I could relate them to my own situation.
But this wasn't about me.
Rosa tried hard to console her big brother, but Cain was changed irrevocably by Melody's death. He became so bitter...understandably. I really felt for the poor kid and stepped into the role of big brother again temporarily when she needed me. She cried on me many times and my heart broke for her. It was like she wasn't only grieving for Melody but for Cain too.
After the service, he spent hours sitting at Mel's graveside drinking himself unconscious and talking to her. He was walking a fine line between sanity and the abyss and try as I might I couldn't seem to ease his pain. Colt had tried to get me to convince him to leave town, just as I'd convinced Chloe, but no matter what I said to Cain he wouldn't co-operate. He insisted that he was staying put and that vengeance was at the top of his list of priorities. He was planning all manner of gruesome retaliations and both Colt and I knew he was dumb enough to carry them out. He didn't care if he lived or died. But thankfully the club did.
Only a matter of days after the funeral, both Cain and Rosa were taken by Loki's Legion. Cain was beaten to within an inch of his life and when we managed to locate them we were lucky that they both weren't dead. Rosa was so traumatized after what she had witnessed the bastards doing to Cain that everyone was worried she'd have a fucking breakdown.
Loki's Legion had made it clear that the 'war' wasn't over and this had been a taste of what was to come and so Colt had made some very difficult decisions. I won't bore you with the details right now but suffice it to say that shit got a helluva lot worse before it even began to get better.
For weeks I played “Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns” over and over on repeat until I just about drove the whole club insane. And yes, looking back I was acting like a fucking love-sick teenager. In the end I resorted to an iPod so they'd all quit their moaning and I'd sit there in the bar surrounded by people but feeling about as alone as any man possibly could.
But such was my life. I'd made it that way.
At one point I had even tried to step down from my role as VP of CoSMiC, but Colt had somehow managed to convince me that I was needed. That I was an essential link in the chain or some other fucking dumb-ass metaphorical cliché bullshit.
Club girls were constantly trying to turn me on by walking around the damn place half naked. Rubbing their tits in my face and always dropping stuff on the floor in front of me so they had to bend and pick them up. Oh yeah, I had lots of asses and tits in my face. But they weren't the ass or tits that I wanted. For some stupid reason Dee had a chrome pole installed in the bar area of the place. For parties so she told me. She seemed to think that my avoidance of The Fox Hub was connected to the Loki's Legion situation, but she was so wrong.
On the first of the so called party nights—that were a feeble attempt to take our minds of the real hell that was going on—I got so drunk I could hardly stand. One of the girls, Selena, got up and started to cavort around the damn pole...badly. Her bleach blonde hair was like straw and her tits were fake. And to top it off she couldn't fucking dance a step. After putting up with the continuous encouragement from the guys to get 'Nina' out of my system and fuck some other women, I snapped.
Shoving off the advances of yet another bitch who promised to rock my world and make me feel sooo good, I stood and threw my beer bottle at the wall causing it to shatter into tiny fragments just like my damn patience. “Would you all just butt the fuck out of my life.” The music stopped and the whole room fell silent. I pointed at the poor Nina substitute. “She is nothing like her. You hear me? Nothing! Chloe is fucking gone, okay?” I smacked myself in the head a little too hard. “I mean Nina. Nina is gone. Aww shit. She's fucking gone and none of these bitches will ever take her place, you hearing me? Now leave me the fuck alone.”
I staggered up the stairs to the end room and virtually dragged Weasel and his two sluts out of there—how the hell the ugly fucker got so many women I just don't know—before slamming the door and collapsing onto the bed.
My dreams were plagued with visions of Chloe beneath me, and the way her soft body yielded to me as her chocolate brown irises locked on mine. My own mind was intent on torturing me to the point where I awoke on more than one occasion with the taste of her on my tongue.
I visited Hank's coffee shop and discovered that the redhead I'd seen leaving Chloe's apartment worked there. She was Ellie. On my third visit I decided to bite the bullet and ask where Chloe had ended up, and if she was okay. Understandably Ellie wasn't forthcoming with any information. Couldn't blame her, but I wasn't happy about it. It served me right. After all I had told Chloe not to contact me. That I didn't want to know where she was.
Idiot.
She was my first waking thought and my last before I slept.
I was obsessed.
And it was a very unhealthy obsession that showed no sign of abating.