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“Will you stay with me tonight? No… I mean I don’t want to… I…”
“Just tell me, Rory. It’s okay. You’re safe with me,” I tell her, hearing the sadness and the fear in her voice. I can also hear the embarrassment, and I never want her to be embarrassed around me.
“Tomorrow I’ll be strong again, but tonight… Can you just stay and hold me? Just keep the shadows at bay so I can sleep?” she whispers.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” I admit. I close the door, holding my head against it for a minute. If it was possible for a man to be torn in two, I definitely am at this moment. I want to hold Rory all night, more than anything else in my life right now. At the same time, I know it’s going to kill me to hold the woman I love, knowing that when the sun comes up in the morning she will go back to calling me Diesel and pushing me away.
It’s no less than I deserve, but God knows it’s going to kill me.38RoryI come awake, sweat, cold and clammy, on my skin. It’s pitch black and memories of the dream are still right there, making my breathing uneven and my pulse beat erratically.
“Rory?”
My head jerks hard toward the voice and slowly it dawns on me that Noah, not Ryan, is with me tonight. I wake up with the nightmare often, but I don’t bother containing it, because Ryan sleeps soundly. I thought having Noah close would keep the demons at bay. I was wrong and now he’s seen me weak.
“I… I’m fine,” I whisper, embarrassed.
“You don’t look fine. You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Noah argues.
He moves up on the bed, using the headboard to rest his back. Then, he pulls me into his body. At first, I try to resist, but I don’t really want to, and it’s token resistance at best.
“It’s dark, Noah. You can’t tell what I look like,” I mutter, just to argue.
“I can see from the moon shining in the window,” he says kissing the top of my head. Something shifts in my chest at that innocent kiss, or maybe it’s having his arms around me and being curled into his body. Maybe that’s what lets my defenses ease. I’m not sure, but I do know being here like this… I feel warm, whereas before I’ve felt nothing but coldness inside of me forever.
I’ve been cold since the day I thought Noah died. I didn’t get better with time. I just became… frozen.
“I should worry about how good this feels,” I tell him softly. His body stiffens at my words, his hand stops rubbing on my arm—just for mere seconds, but I notice it.
“You don’t have reason to believe me, sweetheart, I know that. But, I swear to you, I won’t hurt you again.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready to believe that, Noah,” I tell him honestly.
“That’s okay. I’ll prove it to you. It will just take time.”
I swallow down the fear his words conjure deep inside.
“Why, Noah? Why put in the effort?” I ask him, not understanding.
He’s silent after my question and I think maybe he’s not planning on answering. I decide to let it go. Maybe he’ll realize that I’m not worth the effort. I’m not. I couldn’t even protect my own child…
“I spent my life looking for a place I belonged. I never had that, Rory, not once, except with my grandfather. I left everything behind when I went into service. I was lucky enough to fight beside some men who felt like I did, but they had forged their own kind of family. Dragon, Crusher, Bull… all of them, really. They came together as brothers. They left all of the other bullshit behind and they forged a family together. They didn’t care about society rules or judgments. They didn’t care about the color of their skin, or where they came from. It was all about the brotherhood and I wanted that. But, even with them, there was a part of me that felt I didn’t fit in. So, when I got out of the service, I talked to Dragon and I got another chapter of Savage Brothers started. I wanted to create a legacy that my children could grow surrounded by, and one that my woman could rely on. I wanted them surrounded by family and good men they could count on—even if something happened to me.”
“They are good men,” I whisper, my heart barely beating. Noah has never opened himself up and told me things like this. I’m afraid I’ll do something to make him stop, and I’m afraid he’ll keep going, too. If he lets me all the way in, what does that mean? Can I trust him again? Do I want to?
