“Beth, wait I can explain.” Razer’s hand snapped out and caught her arm, keeping her from leaving. Beth took a deep breath and let Razer have his piece also.
“Razer, explanations are not necessary for the simple reason they won’t make a difference to how I feel about you. You were wrong that night at your house. I wasn’t beginning to care for you, I had fallen in love with you. I knew you didn’t return my feelings and I let it happen anyway. I have had a few bad weeks since then, but I am getting over you. If the explanations you want to give me end with you wanting to be friends, that won’t work for me. It would be too painful for me to see you with other women and not touch you myself.” When Razer would have spoken, Beth raised a hand to stop him. “Let me finish, on the other hand, if you are hoping these explanations lead to us being back together again, that no longer is an option. You are incapable of giving me the relationship I need to be happy, which involves trust, fidelity and love. Because even if you swore to do all three, I would never ever believe in you again.”
This time when Beth took a step forward, Razer’s hand dropped to his side. Both bikes sat immobile as Beth carefully maneuvered her SUV around the bikes, pulling out onto the road without a look backward.
“We fucked up bad.” Evie’s head fell forward to Shade’s back.
“More like crashed and burned,” Dean said, stepping out from behind a parked van.
“Back off Dean. You had no business eavesdropping.”
“I had every right, I handed you that girl on a silver platter and what did you do? You screwed her over so now I not only don’t have her, but you don’t have her, and it’s not looking like you ever will.” Dean ruthlessly threw Beth’s words back in Razer’s face.
“She will come around, she will forgive me. The girl is incapable of holding a grudge.”
“Did you even make an attempt to get to know her?” Dean asked in disbelief.
“What does that mean?”
“It means she is not going to forgive you. You hurt her too badly, she won’t put herself back in that vulnerable position again, with either of you.” The sympathy in Dean’s voice had Razer feeling fear for the first time that he wouldn’t get Beth back once he explained. He had never doubted that once she understood why he had broken it off with her they would resume where they left off. Now by the look in Deans eye, he felt he had overestimated the ability of Beth to forgive, if not forget.
“Come with me.” Dean left the parking lot, walking towards the church across the street.
“You two go on back to the club.” Shade nodded and left with Evie at his back.
Razer rode his bike across the street, parking it before going inside the church to find Dean waiting in his office. There was a filing cabinet and he was taking a key out to unlock it when Razer walked in.
Razer watched as he took out a medium size box and handed it to Razer. “Go home and watch a couple of these. When you are done, destroy them. I could only stomach watching a couple of them, but I think you need to see what you are up against.”
“Why are you helping me? You already paid your favor back to me.”
“This isn’t about you Razer. This is about a pastor doing what is best for a member of his congregation that he put in harms way.” Razer took the words like a punch in the stomach. Dean felt as if he had hurt Beth by giving Razer a chance with her.
Razer left without a word. Strapping the heavy box onto the back of his bike, he headed to the clubhouse. Once there, with the box in his hands, he searched for a private room with a television. Finding none, he ended up in the back room and finding it empty, he hooked up the VCR recorder that Dean had given him. Opening the box, Razer found each tape neatly dated and the title of the sermon Beth’s father must have taped. Razer started at the earliest date.
Hitting play, Razer took a seat on the couch and watched as the grainy film came to life. A tall thin wiry man with wire framed glasses stood behind the pulpit giving a sermon. It was a thing to shrink a grown man’s balls. With hell and damnation as threats, he gave a blistering sermon that would have put the fear of god into a grown man, much less the tiny girl sitting on the front pew by a rigidly stern woman who nodded her head in agreement with every sentence the preacher mouthed. Razer recognized Beth immediately and a smile touched his lips to see her sitting so quiet and still throughout the longwinded sermon. Not that Razer listened, he fast forwarded through much of it and was about to stop it when a movement from Beth’s father caught his eye and he pressed play once again. He was motioning Beth to stand in front of the large congregation.
“Now we come to the part of service where I give everyone a chance to repent their sins and take their punishment to be forgiven of your sins. My daughter will begin. Beth?”