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“Super. Is there anything else you need to discuss before a giant hole appears at my feet and swallows me up?” She’s kidding, but I don’t miss how her fingers tighten in mine.
“I know you prefer not to lie, but me and you...it’s going to be a lot for people to digest. Eli entrusted me with you and if he had known that this—” I rock our joined hands “—would happen, he never would have picked me. He trusted me to protect you and not to break his trust by getting emotionally involved. I’ve been thinking nonstop about this, and I’m going to tell Eli and Cyrus you’re my girl, but I’d like to wait until after I’m patched in.”
Emily pales out. “If they know now, you think they’ll keep you from being a part of the club?”
“I don’t know.” Guilt festers within me. I don’t want to lie to Eli, Cyrus or the club, and I don’t want to make Emily a secret. On the ride back here I’d thought about talking to Eli this evening, but I wasn’t expecting to be patched in and I sure as hell wasn’t expecting that Olivia wouldn’t live long enough to see the ceremony. If we push this off—if I tell Eli tonight and he decides to wait until he can digest that I’m in love with his daughter—Olivia might miss this moment and I’ll miss knowing that she was there.
“If you’re uncomfortable with waiting, I’ll tell Eli now. I’ll tell him I have feelings for you that I want to pursue, but otherwise I’m asking for you to give me tonight and then tomorrow, I’ll tell him everything.”
“Is that what’s happened?” A spark of humor lights up her eyes. “You have feelings you want to pursue?”
I frame her face with both hands, letting my fingers tunnel to the roots of her hair. She’s so beautiful it hurts. “I’ve already fallen for you, Emily, but Eli and Cyrus are real protective of you. This is going to shock the hell out of them. Besides...”
I trail off and Emily’s forehead wrinkles. “What?”
I swallow down the hurt. “Eli said your dad called him. You’re going home soon.”
The bright cheer that had been on her face is replaced by a shadow. “What? But I told Dad on Monday I wasn’t ready to go back yet. I told him I wanted to spend more time with Olivia and Eli said something about going on another weekend trip and—”
“Your mom and dad miss you,” I cut her off. “That’s not a bad thing.”
She throws herself into me, wrapping her arms around my stomach and burying her face in my chest. I rest my chin on her head and squeeze her into me. I’m going to miss this. Having her in my life day in and day out. “I want to make this work, but we have to play our cards right. Are you with me?”
She pulls back and looks up at me. “I don’t want to be a secret.”
“You won’t be. I promise. Let me get patched in tonight and then I’ll have some footing in the club. Trust me, I’ll need it. Eli won’t be happy with me.”
“But he can’t take back your patch because we’re together, can he?”
It’s what I’m banking on. That and I hope Eli will get his shit together sooner rather than later in understanding that I would die for his daughter. I have no doubt Eli will come to his senses on this, but I can’t risk him taking longer than Olivia has to live. “I’m not asking you to lie. I’m asking if we can move slowly.”
“Okay.”
I kiss her forehead and then lead her out of the woods. A foot from the edge of the tree line Emily hesitates. “Is your name really Oz?”
The majority of people in my life think it is. Only a handful of people know my real name. “It’s Jonathan, but Olivia started calling me Oz when I was little and it stuck.”
“Why Oz?”
I watch as a group of guys raise the American flag next to the Terror’s flag on the pole. “Because she said that growing up here, around all this, must be the equivalent of Dorothy being born in Oz.”
Emily smiles and she doesn’t lose the expression when I release her hand, but she does stroll close enough to me that sometimes our hands brush against each other as we walk. We round the cabin and Eli leans against his old pickup and grins when he spots the two of us.
“Eli wants to see you,” I say. “Find me when you’re done and we’ll get some food.”
I wink at Emily and force myself to turn and walk away. By this time tomorrow, I’ll be a full member of the Reign of Terror and one step closer to having her by my side in public.
Emily
DON’T MENTION THAT I know what the stars on his arm mean. Don’t mention that every time I sneak a peek at him, I’m counting again and again, or how I’m freaking frustrated that it always adds up to seventeen.
Eight stars are empty. Nine stars are colored in. Seventeen stars. One for each year of my life. Why the hell would a man who never wanted me mark himself this way?
Don’t go there, Emily. Just don’t. Focus.
Don’t mention to Eli that I’ve fallen in love. Don’t mention to him I spent the night half-naked wrapped up in Oz’s arms. Don’t mention that I’ve never felt this way and that it’s a wonderful feeling and a terrifying feeling and it’s similar to being on the back of a motorcycle.
Don’t mention to Eli that while he’s sitting there all expectant in the passenger side of his truck, I’m thirty seconds away from puking on his steering wheel. “I can’t do this.”
