Chapter 24 #2
Brooke stares at him like she’s never been more disappointed in another human being.
Across the room, Dom is standing at the fridge while Kya points at him with the kind of fury usually reserved for war criminals.
“You bought pulp.”
He looks at the carton in his hand, then back at her. “It’s orange juice.”
“It has chunks.”
“They’re not chunks.”
“They are to me.”
Cain is at the table with Jason on his lap and Amy beside him, helping her cut up construction paper for some school project while Emma sits nearby with a sewing basket and the patient expression of a woman who has long since accepted that men are mostly decorative unless supervised correctly.
And in the middle of all of it, normal life keeps happening.
Dinner dishes in the sink. Homework on the table. Pregnancy cravings and tiny clothes and baby names and domestic nonsense layered over the bones of an outlaw life like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Maybe it is. Maybe that’s what’s been getting to me lately.
Not just Allison.
What she looks like in this world. How easy she is in it.
How every time I see her carrying a drink to Brooke or rubbing Kya’s shoulder while she complains or laughing with Emma over some tiny pair of socks, my chest does this ugly, dangerous thing like it’s trying to show me a future I’ve never really let myself look at too closely before.
That’s the part that stings.
Because it’s everywhere now. Future.Not abstract. Not vague.
Real.
Logan and Mac’s baby. Dom and Kya’s baby. Carter and Brooke’s baby. Joker with Raven and Lexi. Cain with Emma and the kids. Shadow land Shaina finding peace together.
Even the old guard.
Dad and Mom. Torch and Tracie. Twisted and Nikki. Storm and Becca.
The whole damn place is built on men who found women worth bleeding for and then did the hard part after.
Stayed.
And I’m standing in the middle of all that like a cautionary tale with tattoos.
I barely make it to the fridge before Cain says, without looking up from Amy’s project, “You’re stomping.”
I stop. “What?”
“You’re stomping.”
“I’m walking.”
“You’re stomping like you want to fight drywall.”
Jason, who is two and apparently already thinks disrespect is a personality trait, bangs one little hand on the table and says, “Stomp.”
Emma smiles into her sewing.
I glare at Cain. “You got a point?”
He finally looks up. And there it is again. That steady, measuring stare. “You wanna talk,” he asks, “or keep acting like a child until one of us throws a shoe at you?”
“I’m not acting like a child.”
Dom snorts so hard he nearly chokes on his own drink.
Kya points at me without looking away from her orange juice betrayal. “He is.”
Brooke nods solemnly. “Definitely.”
Fantastic.
I open the fridge and pretend I’m here for something specific instead of just trying not to lose my shit in public.
Cain says, “Thought so.”
I shut the fridge harder than necessary and turn to look at him. “You’re all real invested in my business tonight.”
Cain shrugs one shoulder, calm as ever. “Hard not to be when your mood’s got its own zip code.”
Emma’s eyes flick to me, softer than Cain’s but no less observant. “Everything okay?”
No. Not remotely.
“Fine.”
Kya mutters, “That means no.”
“Thanks, doctor.”
“You’re welcome.”
Normally, this kind of family chaos is enough to break through whatever bad mood I’m carrying.
Normally, I’d sit down, steal fruit off Brooke’s plate just to piss her off, tell Dom he deserves whatever Kya does to him over the pulp, ask Amy about the project, let Jason use my arm as a jungle gym while Emma laughs quietly at all of us.
Normally, this room settles me.
Tonight it just makes the ache worse.
Because Allison belongs in this exact kind of mess. And she’s not here. That thought hits me hard enough I have to look away.
I end up out on the back porch ten minutes later with a beer I don’t particularly want and enough restless energy under my skin to power a city.
The night is warm, the kind of Alabama heat that clings even after dark, cicadas whining somewhere out past the tree line. The porch light spills over the railing and the bikes lined up in the lot, chrome catching in soft flashes.
I hear the back door open behind me before I turn.
Landon steps out with his own beer and shuts the door with his shoulder.
Of course.
He leans on the railing beside me without saying anything at first.
We’ve always been good at that.
Brother silence. The easy kind. The kind built over years and bad decisions and blood and loyalty and enough shared history to make words optional most of the time.
Tonight, unfortunately, words are coming anyway. “You’re off,” he says after a minute.
I stare out into the dark. “Apparently everybody’s a detective tonight.”
He huffs a laugh. “Maybe because you’re making it easy.”
I don’t answer.
He doesn’t push right away, and I’m grateful for that in the same irritated way I’m grateful for most things lately.
Eventually, he says, “Club?”
“No.”
“Women?”
That one hits too clean.
I keep my expression flat. “Why would you assume that?”
He takes a drink, then says, “Because when it’s club, you get quiet. When it’s personal, you get mean.”
I look at him then.
He doesn’t look smug. Doesn’t look like he’s cornering me.
Just honest.
That’s somehow worse.
“Appreciate the psychological profile.”
“You’re welcome.”
We stand there another beat.
Then Landon says, “You know if something’s wrong, you can just say it.”
And Christ, that should not feel like a knife. Because if there’s one man in this world I should not be standing next to while all this shit is crawling around under my skin, it’s him.
Torch’s son. Allie’s brother. My brother in every way except blood. And I’ve been carrying around feelings for his little sister like a loaded weapon I keep pretending isn’t cocked.
I look away first. “I know.”
He studies me for one beat longer than I like, then lets it go.
The back door opens again.
This time I know who it is before I even hear her voice.
Allison.
My whole body recognizes her faster than my brain does.
I don’t turn right away. Can’t.
Because I’m suddenly too aware of everything at once. Landon at my side, her footsteps on the porch boards, the scent of her shampoo when the warm air shifts just right, the fact that if she says anything to me right now in front of her brother, I may actually die of the irony.
But she doesn’t talk to me.
She’s on her phone. And she’s smiling.
That alone is enough to gut me.
She doesn’t seem to realize we’re out here at first, too wrapped up in whatever’s on the other end of the call, pacing slowly toward the far corner of the porch with one hand tucked under her elbow.
“Friday is still good,” she says, voice soft and easy in a way I haven’t heard directed at me in weeks. “No, I’m not changing my mind.”
Every muscle in my body goes tight.
Landon glances sideways at me once.
Then, wisely, says nothing.
Allie laughs quietly at something the man on the other end says.
Drew.
It has to be. And somehow hearing his name isn’t even the worst part.
Hearing her laugh is.
Because it’s real. Because it’s light. Because she sounds…free.
I don’t want to know what he said to get that sound out of her. I want to break his fucking jaw for trying.
She stops near the far railing and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “No,” she says, softer now. “I told you, I can meet you there.”
A pause.
Then, “No, I don’t need you to rescue me from my own truck.”
Landon’s mouth twitches.
Mine doesn’t.
Because there’s something in the way she says it that catches wrong. Not enough for me to place exactly. Enough to feel.
She listens for another second, then lets out this small, amused breath. “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She smiles one more time and says goodnight before ending the call.
And that one stupid, harmless, normal little conversation should not feel like somebody reached into my chest and started pulling things apart with their bare hands.
But it does.
Because it’s real now. Not abstract. Not hypothetical. Not some maybe I can still derail if I just stand in the right hallway and kiss her hard enough to make her forget her own name.
Real.
She is moving on.
And I am standing ten feet away from her in the dark like a goddamn idiot, hearing it happen in real time and knowing with cold, brutal certainty that I have done absolutely nothing to stop it except make myself harder to choose.