“I’ll be back later this afternoon. I’ll ride over to my parents’ house. My mom was texting me endlessly and I figured that I’d have to say something. She mentioned my brother, but not that he was home.” Esme winces and I want to ride straight to Hart and do something that I’ve never done in my life: pound my brother into the dirt. “When you tell him to leave, give him a printout of the amount he owes the club and ask what his repayment plan looks like. Tell him to have it ready. I can grab it from him this afternoon.”
“You’re not going over there by yourself, are you?” Raiden asks.
“No. He’s not,” Esme cuts in. She plops down on the bed beside me. I guess that answers that question about whether she can hear what’s going on. There’s no room on her face for argument. She’s absolutelycertainabout this. “I’m going with him. We’ll head straight there from here.”
“Esme…” I protest.
“James has said every terrible thing to me that you can imagine. This isn’t anything new. I’m not afraid of him. I’m not scared of your parents either. They can say what they want. It doesn’t make it true. I don’t want you to go there by yourself. You’re not alone anymore.”
“You’redefinitelynot alone,” Raiden confirms.
“We can send someone with you,” Tyrant urges.
“I think this is something Esme and I would like to do by ourselves, if that’s alright? If James doesn’t give both of us a solid apology and discuss repayment terms, then it’s club business.”
Tyrant and Raiden respect family and they easily respect my decision. “Be safe,” Raiden urges.
“Call us if you need anything,” Tyrant adds.
“I will. Thanks. And thanks for taking one for the team here.”
They both let me know that they don’t mind turfing James out of there, and it’s not my fault he showed up, then they hang up.
I already have an apology ready, but Esme cuts me off. She gathers my hands up in hers and squeezes them. “Nothing James does is your fault. Not one thing he says or has ever said.”
I lean into her, dragging in a shuddering breath that goes down hard in my lungs and stays trapped and burning. “I won’t let this ruin our time together. I’m not worried about me Only about you. If he says anything or does anything—”
She stops that with a kiss. It starts out filthy and desperate and slows down into sweet nips and tugs at my bottom lip and ends with me melting against her. “This is our time,” she insists.
I know she doesn’t just mean these few days that we took for ourselves. She means all of it. Nothing is going to come between us. Not my parents, not James, not the town or anyone in it. She knows how hard I’ll fight for her and she looks at melike she’d fight the entire world and drape it at my feet if anyone hurt me.
“We still have a few hours,” she urges. “Let’s have breakfast.” She’s already climbing into my lap, squeezing her thighs against my waist. She’s only half dressed, in a tank top and her panties.
I power off my phone and hurtle it back onto the chair. It’s gonna stay there until we’re ready to leave. I’m not cutting our time together short by so much as a second. I’m not going to sit here and brood about what I can’t control or how this conversation is going to go. It’ll happen. My brother will probably be his usual asshole self. There’s a slim chance that he might listen to reason. He sounds pissed, ranting outside the clubhouse, but there’s nothing I can do about that either. He has quite a few hours to blow off some of that steam before I get back to Hart. I’m not counting on my parents for any help in this. I’m sure about one thing only, and it’s that I’m going to make sure I’m heard. Those boundaries will be carved into fucking stone.
“Let’s have breakfast,” I agree. “There’s literally nothing more in the world that I’d rather do than share it with you.”
“Despite the distractions?”
“Not despite or in spite of. Just that. Breakfast. You and me. I won’t let anything change that. Not the past, and not my family.” I realize how much of a bubble that sounds like, and bubbles inevitably burst, so I kiss her and thread my hands around her waist, splaying them out at the small of her back to support her. “You’re my forever, Esme. You’re my hope, my dream, my future. You’re my story, and there’s still so much of it to write together. I’m so happy that we’re doing this together.The hard days are hard and the shitty parts suck, but we’ll get through it. We’ll have more of these perfect moments. They’re great because you’re here. No other reason.”
She’s barely breathing by the end of it. I’m scared that I went overboard and got way too intense, but then she grasps my shoulders and kisses me. I kiss her back, throwing myself into it like she does, letting her know that there’s not a single part of me that isn’t hers, and thatnothingis gonna change that.
Chapter 26
Esme
Wizard stopped at Patterson’s diner on the outskirts of Hart. He pulled into the parking lot, popped my visor up on my helmet, and made sure that I was still okay with this. He wanted to drop me off at the clubhouse because he wanted to spare me, but I meant what I said about him not doing this alone, because it’s not just him anymore.
I know he’s had the club for a long time, but now he has me too.
He made sure that this didn’t ruin our time away. He wouldn’t come back early. This wasn’t a day that started off beautiful and sunny and devolved into storm clouds and rain on a fast sliding downhill trajectory. We took our time with breakfast, and he made love to me again, long and slow. He wasn’t distracted. His mind, his heart, and his body were with me.
Of the many things I admire about Wizard is his ability to be in the present. He doesn’t let the bullshit suck him out. He could have been grouchy when we got on his bike, or nervy, but he wasn’t either of those things. He didn’t ride a mile over the speed limit. We took our time, enjoying the journey back to Hart as much as we’d enjoyed our time away.
His parents and James are all outside when we pull up at their house. Wizard installed security cameras on thehouse years ago for them. They would have seen us arrive, and certainly heard us, so it’s a little bit strange.
His parents pretend to be occupied, weeding the rock garden in the middle of the lawn. James has his dad’s old brown and yellow pickup out in the driveway. The hose is hooked up and bottles of wax, car wash cloths, and sponges are strewn along the concrete. It almost looks like the picture of suburban happy families.
