Chapter 32
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— Colt —
The days that followed our date at the jazz club were the longest of my life. Not because I doubted her. Because I didn’t, and that was the problem.
She’d sat across from me in that bar and said she wanted to be my old lady.
Said it soft, almost shy, color rising in her cheeks.
And I’d had to use every bit of discipline I had not to put her on the back of my bike right then.
Take her back to the clubhouse. Remind her exactly what it used to be like between us.
That thought had ridden home with me and hadn’t left. Her voice saying old lady like she was testing how it felt in her mouth. The blush. The way she’d looked at me after, like she’d surprised herself.
I wanted her. I’d always wanted her. But she was trusting me with something fragile, and she deserved to be certain—really certain—before I stopped being careful. So I’d told her a few days. Meant it. Went home and took a very long, freezing shower.
The cold showers didn’t cut it—helped for about ten minutes, then I was right back where I started.
Lying on top of the covers at two in the morning thinking about the way she’d looked at me, that blush, that mouth.
So I took care of it myself—hand on my cock, just me and my thoughts of her.
More than once. Thought about her the whole time, which didn’t do much for the sleeping problem, but it helped with the other one.
She texted three days after the jazz club: I still want to see your room.
I wrote back: Anytime. Then I had to head back into the cold shower.
She was there within the hour.
My room wasn’t much. Just a bed, a dresser, some photos stuck to the mirror.
Not the room I’d had before. When I found out she was alive I’d moved, quietly, without telling anyone why.
Stripped it down, started clean. I’d never thought about what it looked like until I was standing in the doorway watching Lilac walk into it.
“It’s small,” I said, because I had to say something.
She looked around with curious eyes. “It’s yours. That makes it interesting.”
She crossed to the dresser. Studied the photos on the mirror—her and the boys, mostly.
Shots I’d taken on my phone that night at Betty’s, photographing the albums she’d spread across the table: Luca and Knox as newborns, as toddlers, the boys at birthdays and firsts I’d missed.
A few solo ones of Lilac, caught between moments, ones I’d zoomed in on without saying why.
Then her hand moved to the corner of the mirror, where I’d tucked the wedding photo half-behind a strip of others.
She reached for it without asking. Brought it close to her face.
I held my breath.
She went still. Not gradually—all at once, like a switch thrown. Her eyes stopped moving. She was looking at the photo, but I wasn’t sure she was seeing it.
Then she sat down on the edge of my bed, and I stayed where I was—afraid to move and disrupt whatever was happening inside her head.
She set the photo face-up on the dresser and looked around the room again. Slower this time. Taking inventory.
“Have other women been in here?”
I didn’t flinch. She deserved a straight answer. “Not this room. I moved when I found out what really happened to you. New bed, new mattress. No woman’s been through that door.”
“But before.”
“Yeah. Before.” I held her gaze. “I wasn’t a monk for seven years. Wasn’t looking for anything either—just scratching an itch when it got bad enough and moving on. That’s the honest answer.”
I let that sit. “The papers were forged. I know that now. Which means for part of those seven years I was still your husband when I—” I stopped. “I thought I was a divorced man. I wasn’t. I’m sorry for that.”
She was quiet for a moment. “I wasn’t either.”
I went still.
“I’m not saying that to hurt you.” Her voice was even. “I had no memory of you. I don’t feel like I betrayed anyone, because as far as I knew there was no one to betray.” She paused. “And I don’t hold your history against you for the same reason. You thought I was gone. You thought you were free.”
“Was it serious?” I asked, before I could stop myself.
“No.” The corner of her mouth curved. “An accountant. We dated for about eight months a few years back. Very stable.”
“Great.”
“It wasn’t.” She held my gaze. “That’s why it ended.”
“This room’s only ever had me in it,” I said. “And now you.”
She stood up. “I didn’t come here to look at a room,” she said. She crossed the space between us and put her hand flat on my chest. “I’ve been waiting for my memory to give me permission to feel what I already feel. I’m done waiting.” Her eyes held mine. “I know who you are. I know what I want.”
I didn’t move.
“Kiss me,” she said. “Like I’m yours.”
“Always have been.” I kissed her. Not the careful kind—not the way I’d been kissing her for weeks, measured and restrained. Everything I’d been holding back since the grocery store. She kissed me back with equal force, her fingers twisting into my shirt, her body pressing into mine.
When we broke apart, both of us breathing hard, she was smiling.
“I remember that,” she whispered.
“Remember what?”
“How you kiss.” She pressed her forehead to mine. “Like I’m everything. Like nothing else exists.”
“Nothing else does. Not when I’m with you.”
We stood there for a long moment. The bass from the main room moved through the walls. Her hands were still in my shirt.
“I’m not ready for more,” she said finally. “Not yet. But I’m getting there.”
“I’ll wait as long as you need.”
“I know.” She looked up at me. “That’s why I trust you.”
I held her a little tighter and didn’t say anything.
She left around ten.
I walked her out and watched her taillights disappear, then went back to my room and sat on the edge of the bed in the dark.
The wedding photo was on the mirror. Front and center. She’d moved it from the dresser and put it there herself, and I hadn’t noticed until now.
She’d held it in her hands. Told me she remembered kissing me. Then we had kissed like teenagers. Which, like a teenager, meant I needed another cold shower to get my head back in the game.
Dutch and I had been planning the Death’s Head operation for three weeks. We had everything we needed—Graham’s intelligence, the financial records Glitch had pulled, the timeline. We were waiting on one more confirmation from a contact, and then we’d move. Days away. Maybe less.
I’d been telling myself it was the right sequence. Finish what needed finishing. Then build what needed building. One thing at a time.
But sitting in the dark, listening to the club noise through the walls, I understood for the first time that those two things were not as separate as I’d been making them.
She’d said she trusted me.
I sat with that for a long time.
Then I picked up my phone and texted Dutch: We need to talk timeline.
His response came back in under a minute: Tomorrow. Early.
I set the phone down and looked at the photo again. Both of us young. Both of us certain. Neither of us knowing what our future would hold.
I did now. A reckoning was coming.