Chapter Twenty-Eight
Piper
“Okay,” Dr. Brewer says, her voice chipper like we all haven’t been describing the worst experiences of our lives for the past hour as she gazes around the group. Her eyes land on Lillian in the chair next to me and she smiles. “I think we have time for one more, Lillian, and it’s been a while since you shared anything with the group. Why don’t you go?”
Lillian shakes her head, her gaze firmly rooted to her lap. “No, I’m good.”
“I know it can be hard to talk about but you’ll never get better if you don’t push yourself a little bit and this is a safe space. Isn’t that why you come to these meetings? To overcome the trauma in your past?”
Every eye in the room is trained on Lillian, waiting for her answer and my heart aches fiercely for her. My friend is sweet and soft-spoken but I know her quiet nature harbors more pain than she knows what to do with. It’s hard to get up and talk about your past under normal circumstances but when you are put on the spot like this, it feels impossible and all you want to do is go back to being invisible. When she still doesn’t say anything, I nudge her arm with my elbow and as she peeks over at me, I flash her an encouraging smile.
“You’ve got this.”
She stares at me for a second before sucking in a nervous breath and wringing her hands together in her lap. “My fiancé was killed three years ago.”
“How?” Dr. Brewer asks, her face pinched in concentration as she focuses on Lillian and I’m mentally cheering her on in my mind, hoping that she can find the courage to speak her truth. I know Lillian needs to talk about this, needs get it all out, and I get the feeling that she doesn’t talk much during her regular appointments with Dr. Brewer so she has no other way to try and help her.
“It was summertime and we were driving to get dinner with his parents to tell them the news. He had just proposed to me two days before.”
Dr. Brewer nods. “And how did he die?”
“Someone ran us off the road,” she answers, her voice cracking as tears shine in her eyes.
Come on, Lil.
You can do this.
“What do you remember from the accident?”
Lillian shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“I know you can do this, Lillian,” Dr. Brewer says, encouraging her with an eager expression on her face. “Is there anything you’d like to share about that night? Anything at all? It doesn’t matter how little or insignificant it seems.”
Lillian clamps her mouth shut, her lips pressing into a thin line as she shakes her head and refuses to look up. After a second, Dr. Brewer sighs.
“All right. I think that is all for this evening. I’ll see you all next week.”
As everyone else starts standing up and taking their chairs to the wall, I nudge Lillian again and she meets my eyes.
“You okay?”
She shakes her head and stands up. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
As she walks away from me, I turn and watch her practically run out of the building. Worry eating away at me, I stand up and gather both of our chairs before taking them over to the wall. I glance over at the door Lillian just marched out of. I can’t help but remember when I was in her position and thought things would never change. It feels like an endless black hole but I just hope she will keep fighting. I prop our chairs up against the wall and turn when I hear a growl behind me. Tate is staring down at her phone with a look that honestly scares me a little but I’m quickly learning that’s just Tate. She’s passionate and intense but I have no doubt, she would jump in front of a bullet for the ones she loves.
“Everything okay?” I ask her and her head pops up. Her snarl falls away as her eyes land on me and she nods, glancing back down at her phone as she starts typing so fast that I swear her fingers blur.
“Yeah. I’m just about to murder my husband if he doesn’t back the fuck off.”
I laugh as we start walking toward the door. “Oh, him, too, huh?”
“Girl,” she quips, meeting my gaze as she tucks her phone into her pocket. “All of them. Like I get it, the club is under attack and all that but Lincoln damn well knows that I’m capable of defending myself.”
I nod as we step outside and stop to talk. “Yeah. Wyatt bought me a gun.”
“Shit, is that all? Then, you’re lucky. Storm has been following Ali around like a puppy and then, if anyone looks at her too long, he turns into a damn pit bull. She threatened to cut his junk clean off if he didn’t let her breathe.”
“Goddamn,” I whisper with a laugh and she nods, smiling.
“You know what we should do, we should teach these damn boys a lesson.”
I nod, crossing my arms over my chest. “Uh-huh and how do you suggest we do that?”
“I don’t know yet. Let me think on it,” she says and we turn to walk out to our cars. We reach the end of the sidewalk and she reaches out, grabbing my arm. “Hey, you feel like going to get ice cream or something? I need to calm down before I go home or I’ll end up shooting that man again.”
“I’m sorry… did you just say that you’ve shot your husband before?”
She shrugs. “It was a misunderstanding.”
“And he forgave you?” I ask, my gaze flicking to her in disbelief. I have a hard time imagining Wyatt just letting it go if I shot him. She flashes me a grin and shakes her head.
“Oh, no, he groveled a whole hell of a lot. I was not the one who needed forgiveness.”
I shake my head, fighting back a smile. “Ah, so it was like that, then.”
“It was,” she says, her grin growing. “So, how ‘bout it? Ice cream?”
“Ohh, you know what I’ve been craving for like two days? Cheesecake with cherries and chocolate syrup on top.”
She arches a brow. “What are you, pregnant?”
I stop in my tracks, staring out at the parking lot with wide eyes.
Holy shit.
Could I be pregnant already?
Shaking my head, I turn to her. “No… it’s too soon. Wyatt and I have only been back together…”
“For a freaking month, Piper. You totally could be pregnant… do you want to be?”
I nod, trying not to get my hopes up but my heart races as I think about the possibility. “We’ve been trying.”
“Okay,” she says, grabbing my hand and pulling me to her car. “We have more important things to do than get ice cream.”
She stops next to the passenger side door and releases my hand to yank it open before bending down and digging through the glove box. When she stands up again, she has a box of pregnancy tests in her hand and I start laughing.
“Tate, why the hell do you have pregnancy tests in your car?”
She shrugs as she pulls one out of the box and hands it to me. “Because when Lincoln and I were trying, I stashed these things everywhere so that no matter where I was, I could pee on a stick and find out.”
“Huh,” I mutter, thinking it’s actually not a bad idea. “Okay.”
“Come on. Let’s go back inside so you can pee.”