Epilogue – Star
”Ugh!” I exclaimed, as the bike nearly keeled over from underneath me once more. ”I’m never going to get this!”
”It takes time,” Jaxon told me patiently, as he caught the bike before it crashed to the ground again. ”You should have seen me when I was first starting out. I was useless.”
”You’re just saying that” I pouted back at him. ”I bet you were great.”
”If you could have seen the number of bruises I got those first few months,” he replied, shaking his head. ”You wouldn’t be saying that. Come on, give it another go – I know you can do this.”
I took a deep breath, gathering myself again. I knew he was right. I was capable of this, I was sure of it – I was going to have to be, if I was living here and working for the Dark Dogs. It had been nearly six months since I had officially joined their ranks, and I still didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle – something that I was determined to remedy, with Jaxon’s help.
The last couple of weeks of practice had been frustrating, to say the least, but Jaxon’s patience had helped keep me from flipping my shit. I had never driven anything before in my life, so I knew it was going to take a long time before I really got the hang of it, but I wasn’t exactly the most zen person on the planet. It was taking time for me to accept that, but I was getting there.
And I prided myself on actually being willing to put the work in these days. I had been so pampered when I had been living with my family, and, looking back, I could hardly believe how useless I had been – that”s how my father had wanted me, completely dependent on him, completely unable to do anything for myself. I couldn’t cook, couldn’t clean, couldn’t live outside of the confines of the life he had chosen for me.
But that wasn’t who I was anymore. No, every single day, I was gathering new skills, finding ways to look after myself and Jaxon, in this sweet little life we had made with each other. Right now, he was working on a portrait of me, half-finished in the apartment – the way he had made me look, like a damn princess, was so sweet to me, a chance to see myself through his eyes and really enjoy the way that felt. I had never felt so cared-for in my life, never had someone close to me who had looked at me with such adoration. And I wanted to earn that, every chance I got.
And working for the Dogs, to my surprise, had given me more of a chance to do that than I could ever have imagined. It had first started when I had been at the Kennels one night, and I had spotted a girl in the bathroom who looked a total mess – hair matted, face streaked with tears, hands shaky as she tried to wash herself up in the sink. I had pulled her aside and asked if she was okay, and she had revealed that she had just broken free from the grip of some asshole who was trying to force her to work for him – the kind of work I could hardly imagine the horror of. We had gotten to the bottom of it and scared off the fucker who had been using her and other women like that, making sure we sent a message to anyone else who might have tried it that it wouldn’t be endured here.
I wanted to be all the help I could be to people like her. I knew what it felt like, knowing your life wasn’t in your control – knowing everything was in the hands of someone else, and you didn’t get a call on how that unfolded. I had an eye for it, an eye for the women who were trapped in that same kind of nightmare, and I was determined to use what power I had in the Dogs to make sure none of them had to go through it alone.
I’d heard whispers that Lombardi, the man I had been on the brink of a hellish marriage to, had been involved in buying and selling girls on the black market – it didn’t surprise me, given that he would have functionally done the same to me, given the chance. I knew there was some other reality where I had been pulled into that mess, given no choice but to play at his adoring bride, and I was grateful every day of my fucking life that it hadn’t come to that.
”So, tell me what I need to do again,” I murmured to Jaxon, as he planted the bike upright once more. I leaned on him to climb on, throwing my leg over it and gripping the handlebars. He just stared at me for a moment, a grin spreading over his face.
”What is it?” I asked. He shook his head.
”Nothing,” he murmured. ”You just look sexy as hell on that bike, that’s all.”
”Hey, don’t get distracted!” I protested. ”You’re meant to be teaching me how to ride, remember?”
”Hmmm, I don’t know,” he shot back. ”I think I’d like you to be riding something else instead...”
”You’re a total pig,” I laughed, but I couldn’t resist leaning in and stealing a little kiss from him. I loved that he still flirted with me the way he did, as though he couldn’t get enough of me – I knew just how he felt. Even after all these months, I was still just as into him as I had ever been, just as attracted to him as I had been when I had first laid eyes on him.
I could still remember it, all those months ago – walking into his tattoo shop, knowing nothing of what I was going to do next, but knowing I wanted a symbol on my wrist to mark me as different than the woman I had been before. And he had been the one to give it to me. His needle under my skin, and he had marked me for life, in more ways than one.
”Come on, you can’t focus when you’re stressed,” he murmured to me. ”Let’s go home. I can distract you a little...”
”You’re a terrible teacher,” I teased him, shaking my head, but I climbed off the bike, propping it back up against the back wall of the Kennels, where we had been practicing. It wasn’t as though I was in any rush – I had my whole life to learn this new skill. I wasn’t going anywhere.
We wandered through the bar, where a couple of the guys nodded their greeting – it felt good, knowing I was a part of this club now, recognized as one of the guys. There weren’t many other women in the Dogs, but I could change that. I could show them that we had as much of a place here as any of them did.
Outside, the sun was shining, and I tipped my head back and let it cascade over my skin. When I opened my eyes, Jaxon was staring at me, and I cocked my head at him.
”What are you looking at?”
”Just trying to remember what you look like right now,” he murmured. ”I think it’ll be perfect in that painting.”
”Am I your muse now?” I joked. ”I mean, I guess I’m your canvas, with that tattoo you gave me...”
He chuckled and slipped his hand into mine, squeezing it tight. His hand fit so comfortably into mine, like it had been made to fit there.
”Yeah, you’re my muse,” he agreed. ”I’ve got so many ideas for pictures of you...”
”Let me guess, nudes?” I teased.
”Hey, not all of them,” he protested. I turned to him, slipping my hand on to his face, and gazing into those blue eyes – those eyes that had come to mean the world to me. Those eyes I could look at, and feel safe in. Those eyes that had become my home.
”I love you so much, Jaxon,” I murmured to him, and leaned in to plant a kiss on his cheek. He tightened his grip on my hand, like he never wanted to let me go.
”I love you, too, Star,” he replied. ”You’re not just a star to me, you know? You’re a whole fucking galaxy.”
I leaned my head against his, the warmth softening the air between us. I was where I belonged. Where I had always belonged.
And where I always wanted to be.