Fifty-Four
FANG
“I’ve got good news and bad news.” I walk with my fingers jammed in my pockets to save from reaching for her. Pulling her to my side—where she fits. “Good news is, you’re allowed to stay.”
Jenna glances up at me wide-eyed, bundled in the same sweater she wore the first day here.
My sweater. Her sweater.
“But before we go any further, we need to talk about what happened before I got there.” I swallow the lump of unease that settles in my throat. “Why you went to see him.”
If we’re to move forward, I need to understand all of her. We need to be honest with one another. No more secrets.
Jenna stares at the slick ground beneath our feet, seemingly counting the moments between each step.
“Do you know why you went there?”
“For the truth.” She sighs, hands fisting inside the knitted cuffs. “He told me one thing, you said another, my thoughts came up with a third possibility.” She laughs, awkwardly. “I needed to make my head stop spinning. I needed closure.”
I wait a few more steps before I ask. “Did you get it?”
She sighs, glancing up to the recently felled trees in the near distance. “Yes and no.”
I wait for her to elaborate.
“I know the truth about why he sent me to work there. But learning that created so many more questions. Ones I don’t think I’ll ever get answered.”
“Such as?”
Jenna stops, encouraging me to do so also and turn to face her.
“He knew they would traffick me, Fang. He sold me to Smoke to clear the debt. I was never there to earn the money; I was there to put me in arm’s reach. Like a goddamn animal that waits in the field beside the slaughterhouse.”
The air’s too thin. Too hot despite the chill that surrounds us. Fuck that asshole. I should have kept shooting when Loki told me to stop. Should have chased down that fucking truck and put a bullet in both of them.
“Fang.” Jenna’s hand finds my arm. “I’m telling you the truth. I swear.”
She thinks I shut down because I suspect she lies. “I know you are.” Her gaze is desperate for someone to be in her corner. To take her side.
Truth is, I’ve been there all along, haven’t I?
Otherwise why would I have pushed her so hard to get where we are now?
I could have sent her packing like everyone wanted those first days and washed my hands of her bullshit.
I could have told Chaos what I knew with minimal context and let him put her to ground. Done. Finished. Forgotten.
But I didn’t.
I waded in and played in that goddamn mess until she took my hand and let me convince her there was a way out.
“Is that all?” My voice threatens to break. I swallow away the risk.
Jenna shrugs one shoulder. “Mostly. The rest was simply a man telling his daughter that she never really mattered and she was always a means to an end.”
“I’m sure there was a time when he cared.” How bad I wish that were true.
How bad I hope she believes me—for her own sake.
Jenna glances back at the farmhouse, wetting her lips. “If there was, why wait nineteen years to meet me? Wouldn’t he have been curious before then?”
“Perhaps he kept his distance for your safety?”
Her critical gaze finds mine. “Are you defending him?”
“Fuck no.” I jerk my hands from my pockets and fold my arms.
“Then stop trying to romanticize our story,” she demands. “He’s a shit father, my mom’s dead, and I’m more an orphan than I’ve ever been. And I’m okay with that. I have to be.”
“You’re not alone, though.”
“Aren’t I?” Her arms band across herself protectively, and she looks away, evading my eye.
“Darla and Kathy lost faith in me—and rightfully so. The Kid is a stranger, and I’ll never change that because what kind of hypocrite would that make me?
My dad belongs six feet under, and my mom already is.
The club that gives me sanctuary has run out of use for me, and the fucking patch tattooed on my father’s back ensures I’ll never be welcome anyway, despite what they might have said just now.
” She tilts her head back, defiant and brave.
“I’m alone, Fang. A fucking island in a red sea. ”
“You didn’t mention me.” I take a step forward, and then ease her arms away from her middle. “I’m right here, Jenna. Last I understood, one plus one makes two, and two is a pair. A pair isn’t a single, and something that isn’t singular can’t be alone.”
She fights a small smile at my ramble.
“You aren’t alone.”
“But I’m not welcome, right?”
“You are,” I say gently. “For now.”
She stiffens.
“All you need to do to change that is prove to the remaining cynics that they’re wrong. Show us why you need this, where your soul rests. Explain why the picture on that mongrel’s back means nothing to you.”
“Why?” She says the word on a sigh. “Why do I have to keep fighting to defend my name when it wasn’t me who judged it?”
Little fucking woman just threw down a roadblock I have no hope of breaking through. She’s right. Why does she have to keep defending her name when it’s our prejudice that taints it?
“Am I wrong?” Jenna whispers.
I slide my hands to her hips and pull her close, resting my forehead atop hers. “No. You’re not.” I’ve got to figure out how to make the others see it that way, is all. “You’re right, Freckles. You’ve always been right.”
She sets her hands to my chest, measuring the rise and fall of my breaths.
The world continues around us, but I’m stuck in the moment with her, mind scrambling for an answer to all of this.
She might have lied and done questionable things in the name of self-preservation, but she’s never been anything other than herself.
As hard as that’s been to understand at times, Jenna has never willingly deceived us or created a false story.
She omitted the parts she knew would be hard to stomach.
And don’t we all do that from time to time?
Hide the parts of ourselves we know others won’t understand.
Jenna draws a deep breath before asking, “Is this going to work?”
I press a kiss to her head. “I’m not gonna let there be any other option.” I mean what I damn well said: she belongs here with me. She belongs here with all of us.
If Jenna hasn’t done enough yet to prove her loyalty toward our club, then what else will it take?
Her life?
That’s not something I’m willing to give.
“And Reno?” she tests. “Will that create more problems?”
“No more than what I’ve already had.” The woman doesn’t get a say in my happiness. And that’s what this is with Jenna—happiness. No matter how hard it’s been to reach.
I’m standing in the middle of our yard with my arms around the woman who pushed me hard enough to show me how wrong I’ve been. How ignorant. The woman who deserves more than she’s got in life, and the woman who thinks I can give her that. Stability. Love. Protection.
I can do all that.
I was always capable of doing all that.
Once I got out of my own way.
“I don’t care how new this is,” I tell her, pulling back and shifting my palms to cup her face.
“I don’t care how many wrinkles we’ve got to smooth over yet.
This will work, Freckles. The fact we’re standing here right now shows us fate won’t let it be any other way.
You were always meant to be here now, with me, as my woman.
And I was always supposed to let you test me.
Push me out of my comfort zone until I admitted the truth: I can’t imagine waking up tomorrow without you.
” She opens her mouth to speak, yet I silence her with my thumb.
“You make me a better person, Jenna. You hold me accountable, and you don’t let me get away with shit.
You are my better half, and now that I’ve found it, I can’t imagine never being whole again. ”
“Fang…”
I rest my forehead to hers, needing to savor the moment before it’s lost.
“I need you to tell me one thing before I say fuck it, let’s do this.”
“Anything.”
Her small hands cover mine, urging me to pull away and look her in the eye. “Am I worth it? The pain, the trouble, the heartache, and the fights. Am I worth it?”
“Those things are what make you worth it.” I trace the line of her cheekbone with my thumb, relish the softness of her hair tangled in my fingers. “Every time. Every day. I don’t want you to stop challenging me, ever. Not when you’re the thing that grounds me.”
“Not Molly?”
I smile. “Maybe a little, but I didn’t just chase her cross-country, did I?”
“I guess not.” She smirks. “Not yet, anyway.”
“I won’t stand here and tell you I’ll be perfect, Jenna.” She needs to understand that. “But I will promise always to try to be.”
“That’s all I need.” She presses up on her toes and sets her lips to mine, igniting a shitty mid-winter's day on fire.
I devour the woman, greedily taking what I can from her before she changes her mind.
But she doesn’t. Hands cupping my neck, she presses closer, Jenna holding her curves to my hard edges as though attempting to make us one.
It took fuck all time for this little woman to work her way into my heart, but once she did, I couldn’t deny that she belonged. Filling the hole I’ve refused to acknowledge all these years. Forcing me to face up to the ways I’ve let people down. Shown me how I could have treated them better.
I don’t doubt the road ahead will be rough. Shit—there’ll likely be days when we both think we won’t survive it. But I know the destination is worth the journey.
Me. Her. Old and poking fun at the world from our porch chairs when our joints refuse to let us do much more.
Molly coming by to visit when she can.
Maybe one or two more kids that look like the both of us. Ours.
Fuck. “You’ve made a goner out of me, Freckles.”
She smiles, hands sliding to my chest. “Not too badly, I hope.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I need you at least a little alive for what I want to do with you next.” She captures the side of her lip between her teeth. “Should we finish what we started?”
“Thought you’d never ask.”