Chapter 26
TINY
Idon’t realize how much my life has shifted until the garage falls quiet and my hands don’t know what to reach for next. No bike half torn apart, no engine waiting for my anger, no noise loud enough to drown out the thoughts I used to refuse to hear.
There is only stillness.
It creeps in late at night, after the compound settles and the brothers drift off to their corners of restlessness and routine. I stand alone under the fluorescent lights, grease still on my knuckles, and realize there’s nothing left to fix, so I feel whole.
For most of my life, silence meant danger. It meant I’d lost something. It meant the other shoe was about to drop. Peace was never a place you stayed; it was something you passed through before the next hit landed.
But now the quiet feels… occupied.
I wipe my hands on a rag and glance toward the hallway without meaning to. Toward the room where Syvannah sleeps, curled on her side, her breath slow and steady, trusting the world enough to close her eyes.
Trusting me.
The weight of that presses on my chest harder than any fight ever has.
I’ve buried bodies. I’ve buried pasts. I’ve buried pieces of myself so deep that I forgot they were still alive. But loving her?
That’s the one thing I can’t outrun, grease-stain, or outmuscle. The scariest part is that I don’t want to.
I tell myself it’s temporary. That whatever this is will settle, quiet down, and find its place among the other things I carry. But it doesn’t. It follows me from the garage into the days that come after, until loving Syvannah no longer feels like a choice but becomes inevitable.
After Pearl’s funeral, the compound doesn’t feel as haunted as it used to.
Still heavy, sure. Death doesn’t pack up and leave just because you lit candles and said prayers, but the air moves more easily.
The brothers move more easily. Syvannah breathes more easily.
And I watch it like a man who’s finally learned what peace costs.
Syvannah doesn’t pretend healing is pretty.
Some mornings she wakes stiff, jaw tight, eyes distant, as if she’s climbing out of a hole only she can see.
Other days, she laughs at something stupid Torch says, and it hits me so hard I have to look away before my brothers notice the shine behind my eyes.
I kill the lights in the garage one by one, leaving only the hum of the emergency strip over the door.
The quiet follows me, heavy on my shoulders, down the corridor that smells like leather and old wood.
I don’t mean to head toward our room. I just…
do. But before I reach the stairs, I catch the sound of running water and a soft hum drifting from the kitchen, and my feet change direction without asking my permission.
Syvannah stands at the sink, barefoot, hair still damp from the shower, wearing my hoodie like it belongs to her. The sleeves hang past her hands, and she keeps pushing them up with her knuckles while she rinses a mug that doesn’t need rinsing.
I lean in the doorway and watch her. She hums something soft under her breath.
My chest tightens. “Hey,” I say.
She glances over her shoulder. “Hey.” She offers me a small, easy smile. The kind she didn’t have months ago.
I push off the frame and step into the kitchen. A distant voice drifts through the open window. A bike revs somewhere near the fence.
“You busy tonight?” I ask.
Syvannah turns fully, lifting her brows. “Depends.”
“On?”
“Why are you asking?”
I scratch at the back of my neck. My pulse is loud in my ears, stupid for a man my size. “I want to take you out.”
Her mouth curves, making my heart skip a beat. “Out where?”
“Somewhere not here.”
Syvannah studies my face, reading past the words. “Like… a date?” The tease in her voice sets my body on fire.
“Yeah.” I don’t look away. “A real one.”
Syvannah doesn’t say a word, the silence stretches, making my jaw tick. Then she steps closer, sliding her hands into the hoodie pocket, tilting her head. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I ask.
She nods. “Okay.”
Relief floods my chest so fast it almost knocks me off balance. “Good.”
She laughs. “You look relieved.”
“I am,” I answer honestly.
Syvannah reaches out, her fingers brushing my wrist like she’s checking something. “When?”
“Now.”
Her eyes brighten. “Now, now?”
I nod once. “Before I overthink it.”
“Too late,” she says, but the grin on her face gives her away as she grabs her boots.
We move through the clubhouse together, shoulder to shoulder, and the closer we get to the garage, the more her energy shifts, as if she’s trying not to show how much she wants this.
I already packed tacos earlier. I didn’t want a plan, I wanted a moment.
I grab my helmet, and little Houdini herself, Peanut, appears, growling at me. She’s perched on the workbench, tail flicking like she knows exactly what that sound means. Syvannah crouches beside Peanut, fastening the tiny harness with practiced fingers, murmuring encouragement under her breath.
I hook up Peanut’s carrying case inside the saddle bag as Syvannah finishes. It’s better to have Peanut secure and not hide away like the last time when she bolted out of Blayze’s saddle bag, scaring the crap out of us. But knowing this little devil, she’ll want to ride inside my cut for a while.
“Are you ready?” Syvannah asks, picking up Peanut. She answers with a sharp, opinionated meow.
“That’s a yes,” I say.
Syvannah smiles. “She hates being left behind.”
“Same,” I reply, firing up my bike.
I steady the bike while Syvannah climbs on behind me. Peanut scrambles up my chest like she owns it, paws braced on my cut. I tuck her inside my cut and secure the strap the way we always do. She presses her face into my beard and purrs like a chainsaw.
Syvannah’s arms slide around my waist. Her cheek rests between my shoulder blades.
I roll us out slow, engine low and respectful. The road opens up ahead, dark and quiet, city hum fading behind us. Wind tugs loose strands of Syvannah’s hair, and I feel her smile against my back.
“This is perfect,” she murmurs.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
The bike hums steady beneath us. Peanut peeks out once, ears flattening at the wind before she settles again, trusting. Syvannah tightens her hold, not from fear, just closeness.
We stop at the overlook and kill the engine. Silence rings in my ears. Syvannah slides off first, stretching, then reaches for Peanut as I lift her down. Peanut hops onto Syvannah’s shoulder like she’s done it a hundred times before.
“You did good,” Syvannah tells her. Peanut blinks slowly.
I pull the food out of the saddle bag and set up in the grass. We eat the tacos, looking at the city lights spread below us like they’re minding their own business. Syvannah sits cross-legged, hoodie zipped to her chin.
“This is nice,” she says.
I pass her a napkin. “You’ve got salsa on your lip.”
She wipes, then freezes. “Did I get it?”
I lean in, thumb brushing the corner of her mouth. “Now you did.”
Her breath catches and she doesn’t pull away. She rests her head against my shoulder, quiet settling between us without pressure.
“You’re not staring off,” she says.
“I am absolutely staring off.”
“No,” she corrects. “You’re here.”
I glance down at her. “That okay?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
The word settles deep in my soul. We stay out until the city comes to life below us, proving we can move on no matter what happens.
We don’t talk much on the ride back. We don’t have to.
Syvannah holds me like she’s memorizing what peace feels like, Peanut tucked warm between us, and the compound lights appear ahead like a promise.
Back at the Clubhouse, the night air still clings to us, cool and wind-sweet from the ride, but Syvannah’s hand in mine is warm, steady in a way it hasn’t always been.
The engines have gone quiet, the yard mostly dark, the clubhouse windows glowing soft behind us like the whole place is holding its breath.
Peanut sits tucked into Syvannah’s hoodie, her head poking out like a tiny queen surveying her kingdom, eyes half-lidded with satisfaction. Every now and then, she meows, as if reminding us she’s still here, still part of it.
Syvannah doesn’t let go of me when we step inside. She doesn’t pause, doesn’t look around like she’s waiting for the world to snatch something from her.
She just walks with me, her shoulder brushing mine, fingers threading with mine like it’s natural, like we’ve done this a thousand times and none of those times ever ended badly.
The hallway is dim. Quiet. Someone laughs from the common room, a muffled burst of sound that fades quickly, but down the hallway it’s just the soft thud of our boots, the faint creak of the old floorboards, the distant hum of the compound settling into the night.
When we reach our door, I turn the knob and Syvannah turns into me.
Peanut jumps out of her perch and takes off into the room.
Syvannah’s palms flatten against my chest, warm through my shirt, and then her mouth is on mine, soft at first, then deeper, like she’s done waiting for permission, done waiting for the moment to feel safe enough to take. Her kiss isn’t desperate, it’s certain.
My breath catches, and I shut the door behind us without looking, the latch clicking like a seal.
The second it does, the world shrinks down to the feel of her body pressed against mine, the smell of her hair, shampoo and night air.
the quiet sound she makes when I slide my hands around her waist and pull her closer.
Her fingers curl in my shirt like she’s anchoring herself. Like she’s anchoring me.
I kiss her again, slower this time, giving her room to breathe, to choose, to decide what she wants from me tonight. Syvannah responds by leaning harder into the kiss, rising onto her toes, her mouth opening beneath mine with a soft exhale that turns my blood thick.
“You okay?” I murmur against her lips, because I always need to know.