Chapter 9 Willa
Willa
All around is a perfectly kept line of houses. Flowers hang in the windows, and the doors are painted in bright colors. The only thing missing is birds chirping. If not for the distant hum of motorcycles, I’d think I stepped into a fairytale.
“I feel like I’m standing in an alternate reality,” I say to Aimee, glancing around. “It doesn’t even feel like part of the compound.”
She rings Tempe’s doorbell and steps back. “It’s nice, right? Most of the guys with families have them live here for safety reasons. It’s a way to keep them nearby but not so close that they’re subjected to the craziness of the clubhouse at night.”
Given what I saw at the party last night, it makes sense that they wouldn’t want children surrounded by that.
The door swings open, and a boy around six answers.
His smile immediately falls to a frown. “Oh.”
Tempe walks up behind him with one hand on her belly. The other she places on the little boy’s head, tussling his hair.
“Is that any way to answer the door, Austin?” She laughs. “Sorry, he’s waiting for Reagan to bring Bea over to play.”
“I get it, we’re nowhere near as interesting as Bea.” Aimee smiles, dropping down to Austin’s level. “But I’ve got something for you from Havoc.”
“What?” His cheeks brighten.
He looks so much like Tempe when he smiles. They have the same eyes. A single crinkle between their eyebrows. The same dimple on one side when they smile.
Aimee pulls something that looks like a garage-door remote from her back pocket, handing it to him.
“He fixed the remote?”
“He did.” She smiles.
Austin throws himself at her, giving her a big hug. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, kiddo.” She pats him on the back, and he runs back into the house.
Tempe leans against the doorframe, dark circles under her eyes. “Thank Havoc for me. Austin has been going on and on about that remote for a week now.”
“It took Levi longer than he planned to fix it.”
“Don’t worry, I understand.” Tempe’s face winces as she presses her palm to her belly.
“Are you all right?”
“Do you need anything?” Aimee and I ask at the same time.
If Steel is as busy with the club as Dean is, I can’t imagine how much stress must be on her shoulders.
“Jameson just went to pick me up some of my favorite tea. He should be back any minute, but I appreciate the offer.”
Last night, Tempe only called Jameson by his club name, Steel. But hearing her use his legal name in their home has me seeing the two sides of their relationship. In the clubhouse, he’s the president. At home, he’s just Jameson.
It makes me wonder if I overstepped when referring to Dean by his legal name all night. If he didn’t constantly avoid me, maybe I’d get the chance to ask how things work around here.
“Call if you change your mind,” Aimee says.
“I appreciate it. Did you guys want to come in?”
Aimee shakes her head. “I’m running into town with Levi soon.”
“And I was just getting out of the clubhouse for a minute,” I add when Tempe looks at me.
“Okay, well, have fun.”
Reagan walks up as we turn to leave. She’s accompanied by a little blonde girl who looks no older than Austin, so I assume that’s Bea. It makes sense now why the clubhouse is kept so clean during the day if the families stop by on occasion.
The more I put the pieces together of this life Dean’s built with his club, the less I know what to think about it. Yes, the guys party like the world is ending almost every night, but during the day, it’s a lot like it is back at the ranch.
A patchwork family looking after each other.
“Do you and Havoc have a house out here?” I ask Aimee as we walk back to her car.
“No, we live at the clubhouse for now. But we’re building something by Luna and Ghost.” She points at a house that’s under construction at the end of the neighborhood.
“That’s theirs, but our lot is right next door.
We have a contractor lined up to start this fall.
I wasn’t in a rush because I like living at the clubhouse.
It keeps me busy. But Levi wants it ready just in case I change my mind.
I think he’s still worried I’ll get overwhelmed one day and bail on him. ”
“Why would he worry about that?”
She frowns as we climb into the car. “Levi and I have a long history. We knew each other in high school, long before he patched into the Twisted Kings. After graduation, he joined the military. He wanted to do something different than follow in his father’s footsteps.
But while he was gone, things changed—we changed.
I went through a lot… to say the least. When I saw him again, it had been fourteen years since we’d seen each other. ”
“I didn’t realize you knew Havoc from back in high school.”
A sad smile crosses her face. “He was the first man I loved. The only one actually.”
My throat tightens as I think about Dean. I never told Kincaid I loved him because it would have been a lie, and he never said he loved me either. But there was someone I loved—secretly, painfully—all those years. Someone I thought about even long after he left town.
“Levi and I came from different worlds back then. Lived different lives. It’s strange thinking we got along so well because you wouldn’t think a biker’s son and a lawyer’s daughter would have anything in common.
But no one knows me like Levi.” Aimee starts the car.
“At least we found our way back to each other eventually.”
Aimee doesn’t elaborate on what life threw at them in the years they spent apart, and I don’t ask.
We all have a past that haunts us. Clearly, I’m not alone.
Hearing Aimee talk about her and Havoc finding their way back to each other makes me wonder if that means it’s possible. Can Dean and I do the same?
We drive past the empty lot that will someday be their home. There are stakes in the ground, marking where their house will be.
“So if you and Havoc are good now, why would he think you’d run?” I ask, curious.
“He doesn’t really think I’ll leave,” Aimee corrects herself.
“But he understands I’ve been through a lot, and he knows how hard it was for me settling in one place again.
He’s trying to make the best of it. That man gives me so much.
Sometimes I still have a hard time processing how he could still want me after everything that happened. ”
Everything.
She says so little and so much with that one word, and I understand.
Except, in my case, I didn’t just make a mistake. I hurt Dean.
There’s no forgiving what I’ve done, no matter how much I wish it was possible.
Aimee looks over at me. “I don’t know what happened between you and Chaos or where you two are at right now, but I know something has been changing since you got here.”
“Like what?” I ask, turning to her.
“He doesn’t share his room with people. Hell, he doesn’t share his life with people. Those might seem like small things, but for him, I don’t think they are.”
“I don’t think Dean and I are destined for a storybook happily ever after.”
She shrugs. “I wasn’t destined for it either, but do you want to know what I decided?”
“What?”
“Fuck the storybook. Write your own ending.” Her smile draws out my own.
“You said you and Havoc are headed into the city to run some errands?” I ask. “Any chance I can tag along? Unless Dean’s lockdown order confines me to the property line.”
“Fuck the lockdown order,” Aimee says, and I can’t help but laugh. “Just for that, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. If Chaos gives you crap about it, then you tell him to take it up with me.”
“Havoc will agree to it?”
She winks. “You let me worry about Levi.”