He held my gaze. “I know. Shame on me. And if you give me this and I break it again — that’s not on you. That’ll be on me. Shame on me twice.”
“There won’t be a twice, Holden.”
“No,” he said. “There won’t.”
The air between us was charged and still. I could hear his breathing. I could hear mine.
“Therapy continues,” I said.
“That was never going to stop.”
“And when it gets bad — you call me.”
“First person I call. Every time.”
I looked at him for a long time. The lavender was warm in my hands. His eyes were steady on mine — no performance, no plea. Just Holden, standing in front of me, ready.
I leaned in.
His arms came around me and I pressed my face into his chest. He pulled me in tight.
“I missed you,” I said into his shirt. “Every day. I missed you every day and I hated you for it.”
“I know.” His mouth was against my hair. “I missed you too. So much I couldn’t think straight. If it helps, I hated me too.”
I pulled back enough to look at him. His eyes were wet. Mine were worse. “Take me inside,” I said.
He didn’t ask if I was sure. He took my hand and the lavender and walked me through the clubhouse door.
Chapter 39
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— Holden —
She came inside.
That was the thing I kept turning over as I walked her through the clubhouse, her hand in mine, the lavender in my other hand. A few brothers looked up from the common room — Handful raised his eyebrows, Glitch nodded once — but nobody said a word. They knew what this was.
I’d been on my way out the door. Clean shirt, clean jeans, flowers in hand, the whole plan mapped in my head — drive to her place, knock on her door, say the things I’d been building toward for fourteen months. Get on my knees if I had to. There wasn’t another soul alive I’d do that for — but for her, I’d have dropped without thinking.
And then she’d been standing in the parking lot like the universe had decided I’d waited long enough.
Now she was here. In the clubhouse. Walking down the corridor and into my room like she belonged there. Which she did, in my opinion. And in my brothers’, judging by the nods on the way through.
“You eaten?” I asked.
“No.”
“Stay here. I’ll grab something from the kitchen.”
She sat on the edge of my bed. I put the lavender in a glass of water on the nightstand — didn’t have a vase, didn’t care — and went to find food.
We ended up with leftovers on two plates, sitting on the bed we’d shared plenty of nights before everything fell apart. The last time had been the night Danny died.
I watched her eat. Fourteen months of imagining her at my table, and here she was.
“You’re staring,” she said without looking up.
