I should have called.
Like that would have done anything. He wouldn’t have answered.
I did call.
By then it was too late. He still didn’t answer.
I want to go back. I want to go back to the apartment and stop him from leaving. Beg him to stay. I want to take back my last words. Tell him he was wrong and that I was ready. Beg him to stay. Ask him to wrap me up in his arms and beg him not to leave. Make him promise that he wouldn’t do anything stupid and rash.
I pound the deck boards in frustration, but all I get is sore knuckles for my trouble. How the hell did Gage find him so fast?
It occurs to me that since it’s only nine in the morning, he could be at work. He could be at the clubhouse. He could be anyfuckingwhere. Maybe I’m seriously overreacting. His phone could have died. He could have been busy. He has a life. A life that doesn’t involve me because I didn’t exactly give him a choice in the matter. Despite what we did last night, he doesn’t have to answer to me. I’m not his mother or his keeper and I’ve been a shit wife. Maybe he just didn’t feel like answering the phone and having an emotional conversation. Maybe he thought I was calling to ask him about those fucking papers.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
I don’t fucking know a goddamn thing and that’s the worst part about all of it.
I slowly shove myself to my feet. My legs feel watery, like the pavement and the grass and the sidewalk and the rest of the fucking world out there. It’s a deluge. It doesn’t rain that often in Florida, at least not like this, but today it seems to be making up for years of lost time.
I try and give myself a pep-talk. Try and get myself going, propel myself in the direction of the car. There are other places I can check. Helena isn’t a big city. I know where the clubhouse is. I can ask his brothers if they’ve seen him. I can call my sisters. Get them to ask their men if they know where he’s gone. It’s pouring out. Surely, he couldn’t have ridden off in this. He couldn’t have found him in a few hours… I’m overreacting.
My brain whirls in circles, furious, working overtime, so that my head aches. It feels like it’s going to split down the middle, and I grab at it ineffectually, my fingers like claws.
Clubhouse. I’ll check the clubhouse and I’ll go from there.
As I step out into the rain, my jeans, t-shirt, and hair pretty much already plastered to my body from running the short distance from my car to the house the first time, I make a determined effort to shut off the bullshit train wreck of thought and just focus.
That effort goes completely to shit after two hours of searching for Gage and coming up empty.
***
The clubhouse was locked up, the chain link surrounding it cold and unwelcoming and formidable. There were a few bikes parked inside, but no life stirring on the outside and I couldn’tbust through the gates or scale the fence with the barbed wire at the top. I wait in my car for an hour, but no one came or went. I guess if anyone is there, then they’re recovering from last night’s partying.
I pull out my phone while my stomach sloshes sickeningly and try every single number I know, even Steel.
No one answers.
Stephanie doesn’t answer.
The only person who answers is Leena. I don’t want her to panic, so I try to stay calm. I tell her I’m looking for Gage and that it’s urgent, but I won’t tell her why, not even when she presses. Eventually, she gives up and tells me that Wraith isn’t currently at home. She hangs up after she promises me she’ll try calling him and get back to me.
Half an hour passes and she calls back, just to say that Wraith isn’t answering his phone either, but that’s pretty common, as he’s in Jacksonville dealing with club business and doesn’t often have time to check his phone for long periods during the day.
She gives me a few other numbers to try and asks me if I’m okay.
I assure her that I am, even while I’m falling apart in my car, a few minutes away from putting my fist through the windshield in worry and frustration.
I try every single number she gave me, my hands shaking violently. No one answers.
Since I don’t want Leena or Steph to see me having a meltdown, I lock myself in my car and sink down low in thedriver’s seat. I stay that way for a long time, chewing my bottom lip to shreds, until the metallic taste of blood floods my mouth.
I don’t know how many hours pass or how many times I put my phone to my ear and dial every single number over again.
No one picks up.
Finally, near one in the afternoon, I drive myself to a gas station so that I can use their washroom to splash water on my puffy, ashen face, and empty my bladder.
I nearly empty my stomach too, but the thought of puking in a public washroom makes me force down a few deep breaths and I manage not to upchuck what is likely just stomach acid, since I haven’t eaten in almost a day.