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The gut-wrenching dream wakes me from my deep coma like sleep. I didn’t plan on wrapping my body around hers so tight that I would fall under her spell and stay the night. However, my body had other plans. After taking what I wanted for so damn long I could never let go of her. For once, I wasn’t afraid, until now.
My arm tightens around her body and I take a long inhale of her hair. Tami’s back is snuggled in tight to my front and her head rests on my bicep. But the pain lingers from the dream as I wake.
The early morning rays haven’t even broken through the sky yet and I start to spiral downhill. I dreamed of the day Solo came to me and he asked me to take care of her if he ever couldn’t. The thoughts take me back in time. When I was up at the mine and waiting for my sentence. I think back over his words our last words before I went to prison.
“A big part of me lately feels that we were only meant for a short time.” Solo turns to me, “I will always love her and protect her no matter what. Will you do the same? If something happens to you or me, she belongs to us, always and forever.”
This time his words and confession make me turn to him, “Solo, we will always be brothers. But Tami will be the force that tears us apart. What that means when I’m out of prison, I don’t know yet. She is buried in my soul I will die for her.”
The raw and ugly anger comes forward and panic sets in. All the world comes crushing and tumbling around me at once. My mind a battlefield, where I am my own worst enemy. I know Solo was planning on leaving no matter what, that he felt it. At the time though, in his mind, he was leaving the MC as soon as I was out.
My chest shatters, the pain consuming my body. I can’t stay here another second. I need to clear my head. Slowly, I untangle myself from the bed and Tami. She doesn’t wake as I dress back into my clothes. Bending over I kiss Tami on the forehead and her eyes pop open.
Her warm soft hand snakes out from the comforter and she sees the truth written on my face. That I am walking out the door. She runs a hand over my cheek. It’s almost as if she knew I would run. Tami takes her time running her hand over my skin.
Cash breaks the moment and begins to cry in the early morning. Needing the distraction, I swiftly walk to his room and pick him up from the toddler bed and hold him to my chest for a moment. I do the same as I did to Tami and kiss his forehead.
Am I really doing this? Can I walk away from her and my son? He settles down and I take him into Tami’s room where I find her dressed in an old t-shirt and shorts. Cash cries for his mom and she goes to him. Her need is obvious; she needs him as much as he needs her.
She cradles him to her chest and soothes him, rocking him back and forth. I turn to walk out but her voice stops me, “Pawn.” I can’t and won’t turn around. “My love for you scared the shit out of me. It was so unreal I didn’t know if I would survive without you in it. A part of me knew that one day you would leave me. I now know I can survive.”
The sting of her words spurs me on to walk out on the woman I love. Once I am in my truck, I slam my hands on the steering wheel and peel out of her driveway. There is only one thing I know of that will help me to forget and drown out the misery.