CHAPTER TWELVE #2
The hangar’s no longer quiet. Whatever reverence the ceremony held has burned off.
A gunshot cracks somewhere up front. Wyatt stiffens, flags Brandon from across the room, but it’s nothing.
Just someone firing into the dirt, followed by raucous laughter.
A beer bottle smashes at my feet as we pass the bar.
I flinch, then keep walking like it never happened.
Near the pool table, one of the newer girls is perched on the edge, naked. Her blonde hair fisted in a guy’s hand, arms braced behind her, breasts bouncing while he fucks her. A small crowd watches, and one of them is already unbuckling his belt.
Wyatt takes my hand, squeezing with concern. A sight like that is strange to him. He doesn’t fully realize that to me, it’s normal.
We walk for a bit and then he stops and pulls me in, slow and smooth, lowering his mouth to my ear. To anyone watching, it probably looks like he’s about to say something dirty.
But it’s Wyatt, so of course he’s not.
“This kind of night,” he says, voice low.
“Drunk men, loud music, distractions everywhere…If I were going to carve a hole in this place, I’d do it under this kind of noise.
” He pauses, eyes tracking across the hangar like he’s mapping routes in his head.
“And with the race…it’ll be worse than this.
Hundreds of people coming and going. Of course, security will be ten times tighter than it is now. ”
His voice is all strategy, a man doing complex calculations. But I lean into him as if I’m playing along, feeling his breath hot against my ear and neck, the brush of his body against mine. The tequila makes it easy to get closer to him, to let the smell of him make my breath hitch.
He smells so clean and crisp under the leather, like aftershave and laundry, nothing like this place. I breathe in the warm smell of his neck feeling heady and loose.
He’s still talking, oblivious to the reaction warming my body. “If I could shift the gate schedule by five minutes and disable one camera…maybe we’d have a window to go out the north fence. Late. When everyone’s too drunk to care about…”
I press a hand to his chest, feeling the muscle tense beneath his shirt as I trace the line of it. He goes still, and then he laughs—a warm, rough sound close to my ear.
“What’re you doing?”
I glance up at him, flushed with tequila and shameless. “Playing the part. Aren’t I supposed to?”
He laughs again, low and breathy, but he doesn’t move away. He just stands there with his head still bent over mine, and I become tremendously aware of the rise and fall of his chest under my hand as he breathes.
His hand lifts and settles at my waist. For a second, he just looks at me with soft eyes, a crease forming between his brows.
He opens his mouth and closes it, like he wants to say something but stops himself.
The smallest smile tugs at his lips. Then he says: “You smell like vanilla and lime,” in a low, warm, unguarded murmur.
“It’s the tequila,” I say with a giggle, and his smile widens, easy and rare.
“I know.”
It’s not often that I see this version of Wyatt—relaxed, playful.
Laidback. I haven’t seen it once since we’ve been in the hangar together.
He’s been too busy keeping me alive, standing between me and the worst of this world.
Looking out for me just like he’s always done.
Like he did that first night at Ryder’s house, when he gave me a place to stay and a job.
He’s always been there for me—somehow, against all odds, I even found him here, of all places, when I needed him the most.
Wyatt, I realize, means everything to me.
The words leave my mouth before I even have time to think about them.
“I love you, Wyatt.”
His lips twitch into the smallest smile, and his brow knits, like the words surprised him. Not in a bad way. Just unexpected.
He takes a breath, his eyes searching mine for a beat, and then he leans in and presses a gentle kiss to my forehead.
“Love you too, kid,” he murmurs against my skin.
My heart swells and bursts.
For a moment, he just holds me there and I breathe it all in—the warmth of him, the solid weight, the soft joy filling my chest. Then his mouth shifts to my ear and he teases, “I knew you’d be an I-love-you drunk.”
I laugh and swat his chest with one hand. “I mean it.”
“Oh, I know you do.” He pulls back slightly, eyes twinkling. “In vino veritas.”
I hit him again, and something in his expression softens, his smile dimming into something sincere.
“I mean it too, kiddo. You know I do.”
I could stay right here, held in this rare moment, but a lanky blond prospect barrels up to us with a bottle of whiskey, followed by another guy balancing a stack of disposable shot cups. Before I can protest, we each have one in our hands.
“Shots for the captain and his lady!” the blond announces, grinning, and then they move on.
Wyatt looks at the shot. Looks at me. “This is the last thing we need.”
“It really is.”
We clink. Down them. I cough. He winces. I toss my empty cup over my shoulder, and he laughs. By morning, the hangar will be trashed, but the newest set of prospects will clean it up.
Wyatt plants his hands on my shoulders. “What now?” he asks. “Dance?”
I laugh. “What does this look like to you? Prom?”
He surveys the chaos—shouting, broken glass, the start of a fight. “Nope,” he says, eyes returning to mine. “Definitely not.”
But I step in closer anyway, wrap my arms around his back, and lean in like we’re slow dancing. “Did you go to prom?” I ask.
“I did.”
I blink. It's hard to picture him younger. Softer. “Did you have a date?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
He chuckles. “Jennifer Miller. Senior year. She was my girlfriend. Why?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Just trying to picture you in a tuxedo.”
He tips his head back, laughing. “It was a sight. Corsage and all.”
I tilt my head. “I’d like to see you in a tux.”
“I’d like to see you in a prom dress,” he shoots back.
“Don’t deflect. Did you sleep with Jennifer Miller on prom night?”
“Max,” he says, mock-offended. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
“C’mon! Did you?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“I just…want to.” I want to understand him as a sexual being. But I don’t say that. Instead, I break eye contact and rest my cheek against his chest, let it pass for something safer.
“We should find a place to sit,” he says after a beat.
“Your knees okay?” I ask sweetly. “Need a break, grandpa?”
“Oh,” he groans, laughing. “Wow. Not cool, Max. I should throw you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and walk you out of here.”
“Please,” I say, grinning up at him. My chest brushes his.
He looks younger like this. Not in years, but in…weight. Like someone peeled the years off his shoulders, just for a second.
“Hey,” I say. “I think you’re having fun.”
“I’m regretting everything,” he deadpans.
“Liar.”
“I’ll forget all of this tomorrow.”
“You’ll remember every second,” I say, tipping my head. “Because I’m unforgettable.”
His lips twitch again. That grin tugs at the corner of his mouth, and it hits me low and deep, the way it always does.
“You’re something,” he murmurs. Warm. Softer than it should be.
And then chaos cracks open behind us. A table flips. A woman screams. A bottle smashes on the floor.
Wyatt’s hand tightens on my waist. His head snaps up, scanning, already tracking Brandon and Knox as they move in.
“All right,” he says, voice shifting. The tension’s back. “Time to disappear before this night gets stupider.”
We tumble into the room, breathless and still laughing. Wyatt shrugs off his leather cut, and I kick off my shoes. We collapse onto the bed without bothering to pull back the blankets.
“I’m tired,” he says, exhaling hard. “And drunk. But I should probably go back down in a bit, check on things.”
“No,” I complain, rolling over and laying a hand flat on his chest. “Stay with me.”
He covers my hand with his, taps it gently like he’s humoring me, the warmth of his body seeping into my palm, into my skin.
“You never answered my question,” I say after a moment.
“What question?”
“Jennifer Miller. Did you or didn’t you?”
He turns his head toward me—mouth smiling, eyes frowning. “Why are you so obsessed with my prom night?”
I shrug. “I just want to know who you were when you weren’t…saving me. I’m trying to understand Wyatt the man.”
His smile fades and his brow creases. “Shh,” he whispers gently, then sits up to turn the fan up a notch before lying back down.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
He gives me a small, apologetic look.
“Ryan the man,” he says quietly. “There’s not much to say. I was just some kid. I enlisted that summer. Life started fast.”
“Stop changing the subject,” I whisper. “Sex or not sex?”
He chuckles. “Yes, okay? Yes. I had sex with Jennifer Miller. Are you satisfied now?”
By my math, Wyatt would’ve graduated about thirty years ago. Before I was born. I should be able to laugh it off.
But the answer hits wrong.
A hot, irrational line of jealousy flashes through me. “No,” I say truthfully.
His brow furrows. “No?”
I don’t answer right away. I keep my eyes on the ceiling. I can feel him watching me, waiting for the joke that doesn’t come.
“I guess I thought hearing about it would scratch the itch,” I say slowly. “But it didn’t.”
“What itch?”
“I don’t know,” I lie. Then after a breath: “Maybe I just wanted to picture you…in a different way.”
He pauses for a minute before speaking. “Different how?”
“I don’t know. Not in control, I guess. Not so serious. Just…wanting something. Losing yourself in it.”
Another pause, with only the sound of the fan humming in the corner, the dull roar of the party behind it. But his fingers tuck around mine until he’s holding my hand.
“You never do,” I whisper. “Lose yourself, I mean.”
“That’s not always a bad thing.”
“No,” I admit. “But sometimes I wonder what you’d be like if you did.”
“Max,” he says in that same voice he used last night. The warning.
I turn toward him, propping myself up on my elbow, my other hand still held against his chest, rising and falling with his breathing. “Don’t you ever just…want something?”
He takes a deep, heavy breath, his chest rising high and falling under his black t-shirt. He uncurls his fingers and pats my hand before moving his away.
“We’ve both had a lot to drink. We should get some sleep.”
But I don’t move, or roll over. Instead, I let my fingers trail up to the collar of his shirt, and brush them over the skin of his neck, just wanting to touch him. To feel his skin.
“Max.” A hoarse whisper but no movement.
“It would be so easy for you,” I murmur. “If you wanted me. We play a couple in front of everyone else. You could’ve had me, any time. And I guess I just wonder why you…don’t want to.”
He closes his eyes close for a second, brows knit deeply, and sighs. When he opens them and looks at me, they’re clear, bright blue.
“You’ve been through a lot, Max. I don’t know the half of it. I would never do anything to make you feel less than a hundred percent safe and protected.”
“Right.” I force a smile. “Of course. Because I’m fragile.”
He opens his mouth, maybe to protest, but I shake my head before he can.
“Maybe I just want to feel something good. Something real. With someone I trust.”
His jaw works for a second, like he’s trying to find the right words and deciding against most of them.
When he speaks, his voice is rough. “You’re not fragile. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever known.”
Then he looks at me again—really looks—and I see it: the guilt, the want, the weight of everything he’s been carrying since we got here.
His hand brushes against mine again. A breath of contact. “I was there at the beginning. With you. With Ryder. It’s hard to forget how all this started.”
The wound tears at me, a black hole at my center tugging everything toward it.
“But Ryder’s gone,” I counter, pushing away the yawning black hole. The grief. “We’re still here. And we’re all each other has.”
“I’m old enough to be your father.”
“I don’t care.”
He doesn’t answer.
He watches me, the air between us thick and charged in a way it never has been before. And then he lifts his hand—slow, like it takes effort—and touches my face. His thumb brushes just beneath my eye, across the curve of my cheek.
I lean in until our mouths are close enough to share the same breath and pause there, waiting for him to stop me, or move. But he doesn’t do either, so I press my lips to his. The barest, testing brush.
His hand slides up, fingers threading into my hair. “Max,” he breathes. It sounds like a plea. Like he’s seconds from unraveling.
I pull back just enough to look at him. His jaw is tight, like he’s grinding down every last ounce of control.
“I’m trying,” he says hoarsely. “Believe me, I’m trying.”
“I know,” I whisper—and then I kiss him.
This time, he kisses me back. Softly at first. Tentatively. Then with all of the same tension and aching that I’ve been burying for months. When his tongue slides against mine, it sends a jolt down my spine so sharp it makes my breath hitch.
Wyatt’s tongue. Wyatt’s mouth.
His hands tighten in my hair, pulling lightly, and I slide closer, my legs tangling with his. Everything blurs but the feeling of his mouth on mine, and suddenly not being numb doesn’t feel so devastating.