Page 51 of Cruz

“Nothing,” she sighs as she works herself into her coat and buttons it up. “I’m sorry. I’m being silly.”

She’s not facing me, so I wait for her to turn around. “It’s not silly if you’re uncomfortable.”

She grasps my hand and bends over it to brush a kiss over my knuckles. My feet feel like they’re hovering over the ground and not touching it at all. “I’m not uncomfortable. This is new. I’m shy and awkward, I guess, but I’ll get over myself.” She threads our fingers together. “Are you ready? I’m excited for tonight. Nervous too. How are you feeling?”

“The same.”

“And your knee?”

We didn’t text during the week. I confirmed this morning that she’d still like me to pick her up. I’ve picked up my phone a thousand times and set it aside. I wanted to give Sloane this time to think, to have privacy, to talk with Liam if she needed it.

“It’s okay. Archer looked at it. He couldn’t find anything wrong. Just told me to keep up with my exercises and come to see him again if it’s still bothering me and he’d order a scan. It’s doing better. It stopped hurting yesterday. It just goes like that. It has angry days, but it’s holding up.”

Her fingers travel up my wrist, beneath my jacket cuff. They tickle the sensitive skin there before she steps away, walking to the door. “Good. I’m glad you don’t need surgery.”

“No. I mean, yes. I’m glad too.”

She lets me go out first so that she can lock the door behind us. I hold her door open and don’t close it until she’s buckled in.

“Thank you for the cactus,” she says again when I’m behind the wheel. “It’s lovely. And kind of hilarious. It shows that you listen to my nonsense.”

***

It takes about fifteen minutes until we reach the outskirts of Hart and head out of town, past Patterson’s diner. Sloane is fairly quiet. I wonder what she’s thinking. Is she happy to be on this date? Beyond happiness into amazement that we’re here at all? I am. Sloane’s everything I dreamed about. She’s everything I never dreamed was even possible. I didn’t know that I wanted this until her. In just a few weeks, my life looks so vastly different that I barely recognize myself. It was like leaving the military and becoming a civilian again. It was basically restarting my life all over. Like learning to walk from that first step after a horrific accident. Everything is new. For some, it’s a brutal adjustment. Leaving the SEALs sort of was, but this experience is different. It’s not brutal or horrific. It’s like sinking down into a hot bath or sliding under a warm blanket when you’re freezing cold. It’s a home cooked meal, or holding a puppy. Or a cat.

Sunday.

Wait.

“Did you go to the shelter this afternoon?” I realize how that sounds when I say it and backpedal. “I mean, it’s okay if you didn’t.”

“I did! Oh my gosh, I forgot to tell you. I was going to, and then I got distracted with the cactus and I’m over here, sweating this out and being so freaking happy at the same time that I can barely contain it, and that makes me worried about acting like a weirdo and scaring you off. But yes. I went. She’s lovely, Cruz. She’s so sweet. I got the paperwork for her. The shelter wants to do some checks just to make sure we’re a good fit, but they told me it’s just a formality. She’s mine. I’ll see if Liam can get some time off during the day to go and bring her home.”

Home. That’s a nice word. A word that I shouldn’t yearn for and haven’t entirely felt, despite being at the clubhouse. It’s a great place, and it does feel permanent. There’s nothing off about it. No bad vibes. I never questioned my choices. It just wasn’t complete. It’s a hard feeling to describe, but that’s as close as I can get.

“That’s amazing. I’m so happy for you, and for her, and for Liam. Hopefully, it all works out, but I read that animals can take a while to settle in. Up to six months or more.”

“I read that too.” Her lips press together and her hands shift in her lap, rubbing down her leggings like her hands are cold. “I hope she knows how loved she is already. Liam’s excited. I’d love to let her have full run of the place, but I’m not sure if that’s allowed in an establishment that serves food. The apartment is spacious though, so she has plenty of room. I wish I’d done this sooner. I should have done this years ago, when he was a kid.”

“You’re doing it, though. That’s what’s important.”

She gets quiet again, watching intently as I turn off the freeway onto a gravel road. I have good directions from Raiden. He said that a few miles down, this road branches off into a series of other grids, but some are little more than access roads into fields. The houses down here are few and far between. No one will bother us about being on their land, as long as we park on one of the backroads and stay there.

I choose a road, well rutted and more dirt than gravel. I let the truck bounce and jostle over it for a little while before I pull over and shut it down. Even though the club owns more than one garage, I don’t want to lose parts off the aging truck. It would be decidedly not that fun to get stranded out here and have to have someone pick us up or tow us home.

I debate with myself silently, holding my keys tightly in my hand, but then I figure that if we’re here, I might as well go for it. I reach into the backseat and pull out the perfectly folded blanket.

“Cruz!” Sloane unfolds it and studies the work in the near dark. “From what I can see, it’s beautiful.”

“I’d love to say I made it, but someone’s grandmother did. With love. Willa found it for me because she knew I was looking for the perfect one. I thought the stars wouldn’t look nearly as good from in the truck cab. It’s not that cold or windy. Sitting on the tailgate would be alright, but I wanted to make sure you didn’t get chilled.”

She blinks quickly, her eyes shimmering in the moonlight stealing in through the windows. It’s a clear night, with a nearly full moon. The stars were pretty, even in Hart. Out here, they should be even brighter.

She opens her own door, but I quickly run around the truck and hold it for her, offering my hand so she doesn’t step down too hard or fall on the gravel road. She has the blanket gathered in her arms, and after I let the tailgate down and help her up, she wraps it around her like a cocoon.

The moonlight is so bright that it lines Sloane’s face in silver. Her eyes are bigger and brighter, glistening with that strange, shimmering light. She’s unearthly beautiful. She stares back at me, and I wonder what my face looks like. My eyes. Is she finding that same beauty in them that I see in her?

She pulls the blanket a little bit tighter and tilts her face up to the sky. “This is incredible. I don’t do this nearly enough. Take the time for myself for one, but enjoy the small things. I want to, but life is… busy.”