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“I haven’t bandaged you yet,” Doc said.
“I’ll do it in Colt’s room. We’ve got a first aid kit.” She dashed from the office, the door slamming hard behind her.
We both stared after her. Finally, Doc sighed and then stripped off her gloves and tossed them into the metal bowl resting on the desk.
“Is she…gonna be okay?” I queried.
“Are any of us going to be okay?” Doc asked with a shrug. “The losses hit hard and deep, every time. Sometimes, it’s hard to get back up again. But you do. And you find a way to live with the consequences of being part of this club, a part of this life, or you don’t.”
“It’s that simple?”
“Not simple, but it is that cut and dry,” she said. “You’ve got your entire life ahead of you. You don’t have to stay and be a part of this. You can leave.”
“Why didn’t you leave?” I asked.
“It’s complicated.”
“Life usually is.”
She cracked a smile. “Word of advice?”
“Yeah?”
“Nothing is black and white.”
“I know,” I said.
“Nothing is black and white,” Doc repeated. “And there are several shades of gray. Don’t bother trying to figure out how others reconcile the club life. Your job is to figure out ifyoucan. Then you’ll know.”
“Then I’ll know what?”
“Know if you have what it takes to live this kind of life with Viper.”
My eyes widened.
“Because that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? You want a life with Viper.”
“I do?” I asked.
She smiled. “I’m thinking you do.”
I snorted. “For a while I actually pretended that I could just sleep with him and not want more. Stupid, right?”
Doc raised her hand that was riddled with gruesome pink scars. “Hi, I’m Linden and I’m a Boxer-a-holic.”
“What happened to your hand?” I blurted.
“Club business,” she drawled.
“I see,” I murmured. “And you didn’t walk away?”
“Some things you just can’t walk away from.”
“Some things, or some people?”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t just Boxer for me. It was all of them. They became my family. It wasn’t what I expected or planned on. But I decided to take the good with the bad. Losing South Paw—that’s the bad. But we have each other to lean on to get through it. That’s the good. See? Not all black and white.”
“And different shades of gray,” I said. “Yeah.”
