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She snaps her mouth shut and does.
I grab a few blankets and lay them over her before scooping up her legs and plopping down on the center of the couch, placing her legs across mine and tucking the blankets around her. When I look at her, she is staring right at me, perplexed and semi-cautious. Her eyes almost seem to shine with joy that someone is taking care of her, but also her mind battling with her that she should be independent.
I rub her calf over the blanket. “It’s okay to want someone around. It doesn’t make you any less independent.”
Her eyebrows hit her hairline before she quickly masks her surprise. With a sigh, she says, “I’m trying to understand that. I was actually debating whether or not to call Raven to come stay with me when you showed up.”
“You can call me anytime you can’t sleep. I’ll be here.”
“I—” She clears her throat before nodding. “Okay. Thank you.”
I smile. “No problem. Now, what do you want to watch?” I ask as I grab the remote and flip through movies.
After five minutes of bickering about whether Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit is better, we settle on Lord of the Rings, which is Presley’s pick. At some point, my hand works its way under the blankets, and I am rubbing her feet and legs. She tenses slightly when I first start doing it, but soon she relaxes back with a sigh and has been fighting sleep since. The apartment is dark besides the TV screen, so I can just barely make out Presley’s sweet face from the glow.
She slowly lets her eyes fall closed, and a few minutes pass before her breathing evens out. I sit here and watch her sleep, amazed by how fucking gorgeous she is. It’s been years since I felt so strongly about someone, and even back then, I didn’t feel like this. Like my heart is beating outside of its chest when I’m not around her. Like I would burn the entire world down if she asked me to.
The next morning, I wake up to something moving on my legs. When I crack my eyes open, Presley is wiggling around under the mound of blankets trying to sit up. I grab them and pull them back, and she shoots me a grateful look before jumping up and racing to the bathroom.
I chuckle and stretch before standing and folding all of her blankets and stacking them on the corner of the couch.
Presley comes back out a few minutes later and looks at the time before gasping. “We’re going to be late! I can’t believe I slept that long. I don’t even remember the last time I slept that long.”
“Angel, it’s okay. You obviously needed the sleep. I slept the whole time, too.”
I don’t mention when I woke up to Presley whimpering and crying out in her sleep. She settled quickly when I rubbed her back and mumbled sweet nothings to her. My heart ached and raged for her. All I wanted to do was wake her up and demand she tell me what had happened that gave her nightmares so I could fix it for her, but I forced myself to just hold her close instead.
“Josh knows how to open the shop, and I’m sure he’s already there, seeing as it’s 9 a.m. So just get ready, take your time. And I’ll see you there soon. I gotta go home and shower and change.” She nods and bites her lip as she watches me pull on my boots and leather jacket before heading to the door. “Lock this.” She jerks like she forgot she was checking me out still and comes over to the door as I walk out. “See you in a bit, angel.” I wink at her with a smirk. She blushes and waves as she shuts the door. I don’t walk away until I hear the lock click into place.
On my way back to the club, my phone rings, and I answer it through the Bluetooth speaker that is in my helmet. “Hey, Mama.”
Her sweet voice comes through, “Hi, baby, how are you doing? I miss you.”
“I’m good. I miss you too. Are you ready to come back yet? How’s Montana?”
“Hmmm,” she hums. “I think I will be ready soon. But not yet. I’m enjoying my time here.”
My mom has been in Montana for about three months now. She went there to go to a retreat and then stayed with some friends she met and has been exploring and living her life. Which is good. She spent too many years not living the life she deserved, and we’ve gone through so much in the last ten years. She deserves a break, but I miss her. When she was here, I’d go to her house once a week for dinner, and usually she’d tell me to bring whatever brothers wanted to come, so they all love her as a mom too.
She tutted, “Enough about me. How’s my boy?”
“I’m fine. We finally hired someone new at the shop. She is helping get things back in order.”And possibly stealing your son’s heart. But I won’t tell her that.
“Good, good. Hopefully, this one is better than that last girl,” she sneers. Mom is very protective of us, and that girl really just fucked shit up for us. “I didn’t like her. But hopefully, I’ll like this one.”
I grin as I turn down the road towards the clubhouse. “Oh, I think you’ll love her.”
All my mom wants from me is for me to find love as great as she and my dad had. But I won’t tell her just yet how affected I am by this girl, especially when I have no fucking idea what I’m doing right now.
It’s almost like a lightbulb goes off in her head. She sure catches on fast. “Oh, do tell, boy.”
I chuckle. “No, I’ll let you find out. Maybe it’ll be an incentive for you to come home sooner.”
She makes a sound of protest but says nothing.
As I park and dismount my bike, Blade walks outside with Stone behind him. I switch my Bluetooth off and put my phone on speaker as I walk towards them.
“Is that Mama?” I nod as he yells, “Hey, Mama! It’s Stone and, of course, your favorite son, Blade!”
