Page 55 of Grim

Something in him eased. Something else tightened.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Then you’re with me.”

The words felt like a promise. A risk. A step he’d never taken with anyone.

Sophia reached across the table and took his hand.

He let her.

And for the first time in a long time, the path ahead didn’t feel like a battlefield. It felt like something he wanted to walk as long as she was beside him.

Chapter 17

Grim

Grim felt Sophia’s arms tighten around him as the bike rumbled beneath them, the engine vibrating through both their bodies. The sun was sinking low, streaking the sky in deep oranges and bruised purples. He could feel her breath against his back, steady but a little too quick.

She’d been to the clubhouse once before. Early afternoon. Quiet. Tense. Nothing like this.

This was the Saints in full force, loud, chaotic, unfiltered. And he knew she felt the difference.

He pulled into the lot, gravel crunching under the tires. Music thumped from inside the clubhouse, bass vibrating through the ground. Laughter spilled out into the warm air. The familiar mix of grilled meat, cigarette smoke, oil, and spilled beer wrapped around him like a second skin.

Sophia slid off the bike, smoothing her hair. She tried to look calm, but Grim saw the way her fingers trembled for half a second before she tucked them into her pockets.

He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “This isn’t like last time.”

She looked up at him. “I know.”

“You don’t have to go in if you’re not ready.”

Her eyes softened, but her chin lifted. “I am ready.”

He wasn’t sure he was.

Grim glanced toward the clubhouse doors, loud and crowded and full of people who didn’t know how to mind their business. People who would look at her. Judge her. Test her. Test him.

He almost told her they should go home. Almost said he’d bring her another day, when things were calmer, when he wasn’t still raw from last night, when he wasn’t terrified of letting her see too much too fast.

But Sophia stepped closer, her hand brushing his forearm, a soft, grounding touch that cut through the noise in his head.

“Maddox,” she said gently, “I want to be here.”

His chest tightened. She didn’t say it like a challenge. She said it like a promise.

He exhaled slowly. “It’s loud in there. People talk. They stare. They’re not trying to be rude, they’re just… Saints.”

“I can handle people staring,” she said.

He searched her face. “They’re going to know what you mean to me.”

Sophia’s expression softened. “Good.”

The word hit him harder than it should have.

He reached for her hand — not thinking, just needing the contact — and she laced her fingers through his without hesitation. Her hand was small in his, warm, steady. It grounded him in a way nothing else did.

He brushed his thumb over the back of her hand, a silent question.