Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Ingrid
Two weeks.
It's been two weeks since Gunnar almost died on that steel table.
Two weeks of watching him heal, slowly but steadily.
Two weeks of sleeping beside him every night in his too-small bed at the clubhouse, careful not to bump his injured side.
Two weeks of being his ol’ lady.
And I still haven't gotten my stuff from Trisha's house.
I've been putting it off.
Making excuses.
Too busy taking care of Gunnar.
Too tired from work.
Too focused on looking at rental listings online.
But the truth is simpler than that.
I'm dreading it.
Dreading seeing Trisha and Angela again.
Dreading whatever poison they're going to spit at me.
Dreading the confrontation I know is coming.
But I can't avoid it forever.
My clothes are there.
My books.
The few personal items I actually care about.
And more importantly, I need to close that chapter of my life.
Officially.
Permanently.
"You sure you don't want me to come?"
Gunnar's sitting on the edge of the bed, watching me get ready.
He looks better than he did two weeks ago—color back in his face, some of his strength returning—but he's still moving carefully.
Still wincing when he turns wrong.
Still weeks away from being cleared for anything physical.
"You're not cleared to lift boxes," I remind him.
"I could supervise."
"You could tear your stitches."
"They took the stitches out three days ago."
"You could tear your wound."
"It's healing fine."
"Gunnar." I turn to face him, hands on my hips. "You're not coming. Doctor Reynolds said no strenuous activity for at least another month. Carrying boxes counts as strenuous."
"I wouldn't carry boxes. I'd just—"
"Hover menacingly?"
"I was going to say provide moral support."
"Hakon and Ulf are coming with me. They can hover menacingly and carry boxes." I cross to him, cup his face in my hands. "I'll be fine. It's just Trisha and Angela. They're annoying, not dangerous."
"They're toxic. And they've been texting you nonstop since you told them you were moving out."
He's not wrong.
My phone has been a constant stream of passive-aggressive messages for two weeks.
Can't believe you're really doing this.
Hope your new life is worth abandoning your real friends.
Don't come crying to us when he dumps you like all the others.
I stopped responding after the first day.
Blocked them yesterday when the messages got particularly vicious.
But that doesn't mean today is going to be easy.
"I can handle them," I say firmly. "I've been handling them for years."
"Handling them and standing up to them aren't the same thing."
"I know." I kiss him softly. "But I'm different now. You helped me see that. And I need to do this—need to face them, get my stuff, and walk away for good. It's the last piece of my old life that I need to let go of."
Gunnar's quiet for a moment.
Then he nods.
"Okay. But if anything happens—anything at all—you call me."
"And what are you going to do? Hobble over there and glare at them?"
"I'll send reinforcements."
"Hakon and Ulf are reinforcements."
"Then I'll send more reinforcements." He pulls me closer, presses his forehead to mine. "I don't like this. I don't like you walking into that house without me there to protect you."
"I don't need protecting. Not from them." I smile against his lips. "But I love that you want to."
"Always."
A knock on the door interrupts us.
"Yo, Ingrid!" Hakon's voice. "Van's loaded with empty boxes. You ready?"
"Coming!" I call back.
One more kiss—longer this time, deeper—and then I pull away.
"I'll be back in a few hours."
"I'll be here. Looking at rental listings."
"Find us something good."
"I'll try. Though I'm starting to think every apartment within ten minutes of the clubhouse is either a dump or costs more than my bike."
"Keep looking. Our dream home is out there somewhere."
"Dream home, huh?" He grins. "Thought we were just looking for a rental."
"Dreams can start small."
I slip out the door before he can respond.
But I hear him laughing as I go.
And that sound—that warm, happy sound—carries me all the way to the van.
Hakon's behind the wheel.
Ulf's riding shotgun.
I climb into the back seat, nerves already jangling.
"Thanks for doing this," I say as Hakon pulls out of the compound. "I know you guys have better things to do than help me move boxes."
"Are you kidding?" Ulf twists around to look at me. "This is the most excitement we've had in the last two weeks. Gunnar's been hogging all the drama."
"Getting stabbed isn't drama. It's a near-death experience."
"Potato, potahto."
Hakon snorts.
"What Ulf means is we're happy to help. You're Gunnar's ol’ lady now. That makes you even more family than you were before. And family helps family move."
"Even when family's old roommates are complete nightmares?" I ask.
"Yep." Hakon catches my eye in the rearview mirror. "Gunnar told us about those girls. About what they said to you."
"He did?"
"He tells us everything. We're his best friends." Ulf shrugs. "For the record, they sound like jealous bitches who can't handle that you found something real."
"Eloquent as always," Hakon mutters.
"I'm not wrong."
"You're not wrong," I admit. "They've been like this since I told them about Gunnar. Maybe longer. I just didn't want to see it."
"Sometimes it takes distance to see people clearly," Hakon says. "Nothing wrong with that. What matters is that you see them now."
"And that you're getting the hell out of there," Ulf adds.
The drive to Trisha's house takes about twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes of small talk, of Hakon and Ulf trying to distract me from my nerves, of me pretending I'm not dreading what's coming.
When we pull up outside, both of their cars are in the driveway.
Of course they are.
I was hoping they'd be at work, or out, or anywhere but here.
No such luck.
"You want us to come in with you?" Hakon asks.
"Please."
We climb out of the van.
Hakon grabs a stack of collapsed boxes from the back.
Ulf falls into step beside me.
The walk to the front door feels like a march to execution.
I knock and immediately hear footsteps inside.
Then the door swings open.
Trisha.
She looks the same as always—bleached blonde hair, too much makeup, that permanent sneer that passes for a smile.
Her eyes flick from me to Hakon to Ulf.
Then back to me.
"Well," she says. "Look who finally showed up."
"I'm here to get my stuff."
"Obviously." She steps aside, letting us in. "Angela! Ingrid's here with her bodyguards!"
"They're not bodyguards," I say. "They're friends. They're helping me move."
"Sure they are."
Angela appears from the kitchen, mimosa in hand despite it being barely noon.
Some things never change.
"Ingrid." She looks me up and down. "You look... different."
"I feel different."
"Must be all that club dick you're getting."
Hakon makes a sound behind me—something between a laugh and a growl.
I ignore it and I ignore her.
"My room's down the hall," I tell Hakon and Ulf. "I'll show you."
"We know where your room is," Trisha calls after us. "It's not like you ever had guests."
I keep walking.
Don't engage.
Don't let them get under my skin.
My room is exactly as I left it—small, sparse, impersonal.
Looking at it now, I realize how little of myself I put into this space.
How little I invested in this life.
Like I always knew it was temporary.
Like I was just waiting for something better to come along.
"Not much here," Ulf observes.
"No. There isn't."
We start packing.
Clothes into bags.
Books into boxes.
The few personal items I care about—photos of my family, a necklace my mom gave me, some keepsakes from childhood—wrapped carefully and tucked away.
It takes less than thirty minutes to pack up two years of my life.
That should probably make me sad.
Instead, it feels like freedom.
"That everything?" Hakon asks.
"I think so. Let me just check the bathroom."
I head down the hall to the shared bathroom, grab my toiletries from under the sink.
When I come back out, Trisha and Angela are blocking the hallway.
Great.
"So this is really happening," Trisha says. "You're really leaving."
"I told you two weeks ago I was moving out."
"I thought you'd change your mind. Come to your senses."
"My senses are fine."
"Are they?" Angela takes a sip of her mimosa. "Because from where I'm standing, you're throwing away a perfectly good living situation for some guy who's probably going to dump you in a month."
"Gunnar's not going to dump me."
"That's what you said about Bjorn."
The name lands like a slap.
But I don't flinch.
Don't let her see that it hurts.
"Bjorn was a relationship I had when I was a teenager, a boy," I say calmly. "Gunnar isn't. He’s a man."
"How do you know? Because he got stabbed?" Trisha laughs. "That's not love, Ingrid. That's just bad luck and poor decision-making."
"You don't know anything about us."
"I know you. I know how you get with guys—all clingy and desperate, giving everything away until there's nothing left. And then when they leave—because they always leave—you come crawling back here to cry on our couch."
"That's not going to happen this time."
"Right. Because this one's different." Angela rolls her eyes. "God, you're pathetic. How many times are you going to fall for the same bullshit?"
"Okay." Hakon's voice cuts through. "That's enough."
He's appeared behind me, Ulf beside him, both of them holding boxes.
Both of them look at Trisha and Angela like they're something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of a shoe.
"Excuse me?" Trisha draws herself up. "This is my house. I'll say whatever I want."
"And we'll leave when Ingrid's ready," Hakon says calmly. "But you don't get to stand there and insult her while we do."
"Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?"
"I'm her family. Which is more than you've ever been."
Trisha's face goes red.
"Family? You've known her for what, five minutes? We've been friends for years."