Page 38 of Ace

Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

She climbed onto the bike behind Ace because she didn’t know what else to do, but her mind was racing a hundred miles a minute toward the end of her perfect relationship. Her brain screamed at her to make some excuse as to why she needed to stay behind after all, but the motorcycle roared to life, pulled out of the parking garage, down The Strip and onto the highway before she could piece together a coherent excuse.

Her braids whipped in the wind, smacking her face as they sped down back roads and into a section of town away from the main hustle and bustle of the busy city and Lizzie had no choice but to accept the inevitable.

She was screwed. There was nothing she could do now but remind herself that she hadn’t been in a relationship with him when she’d lied, and therefore, hadn’t really done anything wrong. The reminder helped a little, but Jade’s warning overpowered any ease she might have felt. She should have told him before he found out. She’d planned to, but she just wanted their one perfect day, just in case. There was no way she could have foreseen this turn of events.

They turned down a road lined with cookie-cutter houses, each painted a different color and rolled to a stop in front of a house that was a pale sea green with a white door and rose bushes lining the sides of the walkway.

She needed to tell him now. Before she lost her chance. He jumped off the bike, and she followed suit, grabbing his sleeve.

“Ace…” She cleared her throat. “Daddy… there’s something I need to tell you.”

He unsnapped her helmet, then his, and cocked an eyebrow, tilting his head to the side. “Oh?”

“Yeah, um… see… you know how I said… crap.” She swore as in her peripheral vision the white door swung open, and a woman with dark hair dressed in jeans and a pink flannel came running out.

“Ace!” the woman cried. “Thank you so much for coming! I don’t know what to do. He just drove by again, and Angela will be getting home any minute.” She stopped short when she noticed Lizzie standing there.

“Oh! Oh gosh. You were busy. You were like on a date or something. Oh my god, I’m so sorry! You should have said something. I would have figured something out. Gosh, I feel like an idiot.”

It was clear to Lizzie the woman felt unnecessarily guilty, and then, to make matters worse, she turned to Lizzie and stuck her hand out.

“Hello, I’m Christina. Thank you so much for coming, and again, I really am so very sorry.”

Lizzie could feel Ace’s burning gaze as she accepted the other woman’s hand and shook it. She swallowed hard, and tried to smile at Christine as she assured her as graciously as possible that no harm had been done.

Yet.

Just when she thought Ace was going to say something and blow the whole facade up right in front of her, a black SUV rolled up behind their bike, and the beautiful young woman from the courtroom a week before jumped out, smiling and waving to her friends. She beamed when she saw Ace and ran up to give him a hug before her mom pulled her away, into the house and out of harm’s way. The second the door closed behind them, Ace turned to her with anger in his eyes.

“What was that?”

“Ummmm….”

“She clearly doesn’t know you, and here I thought you were supposed to be family. Start. Talking. Now.”

Lizzie did. Fast and rambly, she started explaining and couldn’t stop. “I was going to tell you. Tonight. Or tomorrow. I knew I needed to because of the rule about not lying but I wasn’t sure how you’d react, and I just wanted us to have one perfect day first.”

“Why would you lie about that? I don’t understand.” His eyes were narrowed into dark slits, his arms crossed over his chest. For the smallest guy in the MC club, he suddenly looked very imposing.

“It’s embarrassing,” she croaked.

“Try me.” He didn’t point out that he’d helped her pee, and literally changed her diaper, spanked her bottom and held her while she cried. All those things had been embarrassing too but this was mortifying in a different way.

“Ace… I…” She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry as a desert. “I’ve always had a crush on you. And I didn’t know how you felt, so I never acted on it. Just getting to see you and interact with you once or twice a week was enough. But then the bar burnt down, and I never saw you. Not at all for like… over a month. Sometimes I would drive by the bar, just out of habit, or just… I don’t know, wishing to see one of you guys. Figure out where you went to, make sure you were okay. And that day, there was a signboard up, inviting patrons to come see you at Daddy’s Bar and Grill in Utopia. It wasn’t what I was expecting. I knew what Utopia was, and I was intrigued.

“My plan was just to do what the sign said, pop into the new place, and say hello, not just to you, but to everybody. But when I got there, I saw you driving away on your motorcycle, and I… well, I followed you.”

“To the courthouse,” Ace finished.

“To the courthouse,” she confirmed.

“And when you asked me what I had been doing there, I panicked. I said the first thing that popped into my brain as a believable reason for me to have been there.” She paused and met his eyes. His gaze had softened slightly, but he still looked very upset. Not that she could blame him. It had been dumb, what she did, and now it was blowing up in her face in an epic way.

“So you lied and said you were family.”

“So I lied and said I was family.” She sighed. “Ace, I’m really sorry, and believe me when I say I really was going to tell you.”