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Cyn glanced at Ros as she returned to the booth. Sy had his arm stretched behind Vera in companionable intimacy as he took a swallow of his drink. “I figured Tiger was about to set his sights on someone,” he commented. “He had that feel to him, ever since he and Skye started doing sessions together. Dumb bastard just didn’t realize it until someone tried to blow him up.”
Vera looked amused, but nodded in agreement. “Love is as inevitable as life and death. It finds us all eventually.”
“And skewers you,” Cyn noted. “There’s a reason Cupid carries those fucking arrows.”
Sy sent Cyn a fond glance. “You must love me, Mistress. You skewer me regularly.”
“I’ll love you into an early grave,” Cyn promised, her dark eyes reflecting the light like a cat’s. “Dismembered and disemboweled. And castrated. Once I’m done with your dick.”
Sy winced and grinned at Ros. “When they find bodies at her place and the news crews show up, I’ll pay a hundred bucks to the first one of you who can say ‘she was a quiet person and everyone seemed to like her’ with a straight face.”
“I’m okay with being the psycho bitch everyone’s too scared of to look under her house,” Cyn said. “Go big or go home.”
Skye wasn’t certain of her intent when she reached the parking lot. Tiger might already be gone, but she could go to his place. Or his garage.
Instead, she saw him with his Harley, hips propped on the seat as he watched the door. He’d been waiting to see what, if anything, she would do.
As she approached him, her stride slowed, and she tapped into her phone. She used the generic Southern one he’d called “her voice.”
“How long would you have waited?”
He glanced up at the sky as it rumbled with distant thunder. Lightning flashed on the horizon. She smelled the heat of an impending storm front. Her weather app had said it would move in tonight, which would be welcome, since things had been dry.
“Until I felt like it was time to leave,” he replied. “I didn’t write it to force you into anything, Mistress.”
The chalkboard statements were often open ended. But the look he gave her was full of things that could tangle a person up. Bind them to another.
“It’s your move, and I’ll abide by it,” he said. “Maybe not gracefully. If you don’t want to move forward together, I’ll stay away from Progeny a while. You’ll need a new mechanic, and I can recommend one. But before you decide, there’s one more thing I need to say to you. You remember that day at TRA, when you said I’d be able to hear everyone again? Everyone but you.”
“Yes. You texted me. Told me you’ve always been able to hear me.” He’d put it on the board, too, in case she’d missed how much he meant the message.
His gaze intensified as he took it even further. “From Day One. Because I wanted to, because I knew you had things to say that mattered, that spoke to me and made me want to serve you. First in that club, and now in a whole hell of a lot bigger world. That’s what losing my hearing gave me. Getting it back isn’t going to change that truth. Unless me being deaf is what made me more appealing to you.”
As she flinched, he shook his head. “I’m not saying that to piss you off. Or to judge you. I go to motorcycle rallies because I like being around people I connect with, because we share a passion for something and speak a language we all get. At the end of a tough day, I go to the club, or a biker bar, because those are my people, too. Where I’m connected and accepted. That’s the way people are. Greeting cards can say love bridges those gaps, and it does, but…”
He ran a hand over his face. “Fuck, Mistress. I love you. I want to find out how deep and far that goes, how many bridges we can build between who we are and who we want to be with one another. But I also want you to be happy. You’re content, you’re accomplished, you’re amazing, but I’m not so sure you’re happy. I want to be something that makes you happy. If I can’t be that anymore, because I can hear again, well, I can’t.”
Pain flashed across his face, but mixed with it was what he’d just told her was in his heart. Love. “Who we can love or not love isn’t about fair or right or any of that shit. It’s finding a home that speaks to you, same as the rest. But I sure as fuck would like you to give it a chance with me.”
He was a plain-speaking man. He’d gone right to the heart of the matter and left her facing a mirror of herself that wasn’t entirely comfortable. But Ros had said it. As life was lived and desires and needs went down new paths, finding one’s real home sometimes meant finding the courage to leave one behind and go to another.
She signed, one hand closed with the thumb up, did the same with the other hand and brought them together, before gesturing at herself with one of them. Then she took her hand up to her cheek, near her mouth, and made another gesture.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
She lifted her phone, typing in three words.
“Follow me home.”
His phone started buzzing as he smiled at her, though it was a tense thing. They had things to work out, but for the first time tonight, she didn’t feel like a knife had been jammed up into her heart.
Little John hadn’t connected with her because of her inability to communicate with him in the manner he expected. Even so, she’d known from the moment she’d stepped into the room with Vera that he wasn’t who she wanted to be with. She’d been determined to soldier through it and get back to status quo. She’d told herself it would start feeling right eventually.
When Vera had picked up on her mood, that was what Skye had told her. Vera had given her a look that called serious bullshit. Skye had ignored it. Until now.
Tiger’s brow had creased at the caller ID. Nodding apologetically to Skye, he answered. “Colt?”
When his expression whitened, she put her hand on his arm, everything else forgotten.
