Chapter 31
My body wakes up before I want it to. Not from an alarm. Just a habit. It always does this when I have nowhere to be. Snaps right back online no matter how little sleep I give it. I got maybe three and a half hours tops.
The room is still dim, soft morning light starting to leak in at the edges of the dark curtains. I stay still for a second, soaking in the quiet.
Hex is next to me.
Asleep.
And for once, I get to see what it’s like to have him laying in bed with me. Not tense, not watching or protecting. Just breathing. Laid out beside me, one arm slung across his chest, the other still resting near where I must’ve curled in close sometime in the night.
His face is softer in sleep. His mouth, his jaw, far less sharp. His lashes are long, and the lines near his eyes have eased. There’s peace here he likely never lets the world see.
My gaze drifts lower, over muscles I’ve already touched, already begun to claim.
But with nothing in the way now, I catch the smaller things: faint scars scattered across his skin, the kind only noticed when you’re close enough to memorize them.
I catalogued his ribs before sleep took me, but not the round bullet sized mark inside of his forearm.
Or the scar running along the side of his head buried deep in dark hair.
Those perfect lips and the divot that hooks just above the right side of his upper lip.
I reach out, careful not to wake him, and trace a white line on his exposed thigh with my fingertip. Faint. Raised. Old. My heart clenches in my chest, heavy with anguish.
And that’s when I see it.
My arm.
I pull it closer and blink, realizing it’s not just a smudge or a shadow. It’s a drawing. An angel wing inked in clean, perfect lines from shoulder to elbow. The delicate feathers emerging from my skin, curve with my movement.
I scoot up enough to look the art, brushing my fingers over it, afraid to smudge it but needing to feel it’s real.
Somehow in the calm the early morning hours offered after a tumultuous night, he drew this. Warmth wraps my heart, realizing just how much my body trusts him that I didn’t wake in the least.
I smile, something full and bright blooming in my chest. The story he told me slips to the forefront of my mind. His mother’s angel.
I don’t know what to do with the emotion that it makes me feel. But I know I’m not ready to let it go.
My fingers trace the wing once more, and I want him to feel how much it means—how much he means—in every touch, every kiss. Shifting closer, I nestle back into the space beside him, careful with the covers. My lips hover near his. I press a kiss to his mouth: gentle, testing, sweet.
His eyes don’t open at first, but the scratch in his voice is low and rough from sleep. “You do that again,” he says, “you’re gonna get a whole lot more than kissing. You’ve already woken the beast touching my thigh the way you did.”
I grin, lips brushing against his again. “It’s almost like that was the point.”
He opens his eyes at that, and the look he gives me is pure fire and soft affection tangled into one. His hand slips under the covers, palm spreading across my hip.
We don’t rush. Just a slow build of touches, kisses, hands exploring skin we already know but want more of.
He pours himself into me with the kind of reverence that says I matter, and I return it, showing him that I see him.
I see all the strong, broken, beautiful parts that make up the man beside me.
Forty-five minutes pass in a haze of warmth and whispered things I’m not ready to call love out loud but feel deep in my bones.
Eventually, the guilt catches up with us.
I press my forehead to his chest. “We should check on JT.”
He groans, dragging a hand down his face. “Yeah. We should.”
Neither of us moves for another full minute.
The moment sinks into my skin with the same quiet permanence as the drawing on my arm.
The loft is quiet, the scent of coffee already drifting in from downstairs. Maybe Will’s back. It couldn’t possibly be JT.
But then my phone buzzes.
I almost ignore it, but habit wins. I reach for it at the edge of the nightstand and see the sender’s name in bold: Brenda Melrose.
My stomach drops before I even open it.
It’s the client with the custom armoire Ashley destroyed.
The message is polite, professional. She’s asking if everything’s still on track for delivery next week and includes an innocent, attached photo of the space it’s meant to go in.
I stare at the picture of a room that now has no piece of furniture to fill it.
That beautiful, one-of-a-kind cabinet is splintered in the middle of my shop.
My chest tightens.
I slide the phone face down on the nightstand and sit up, the covers falling from my chest. I’m already thinking through supply chains, salvage leads, restoration timelines. I’ll have to find something comparable. Fast.
Hex shifts behind me. With a large hand he hooks me, dragging me over to him. “You okay?”
I nod, but it’s more muscle memory than truth. “I need to get back to the shop. It’s the client expecting the piece that… doesn’t exist anymore.”
He sits up too, the lines of sleep giving way to something sharper. He doesn’t argue for me to stay, but I can feel it in him. He’s working something out behind his eyes.
“I’ll be okay,” I say, more gently this time. “I just need to start sorting things.”
He moves without a word, walks across the loft to the dresser, opens the top drawer. When he turns back, he’s holding the Sig he taught me to shoot with.
My stomach flips.
He presses it into my hands, his fingers curling around mine for a beat longer than necessary. “Keep it on you,” he says. “At all times.”
I swallow hard. “Hex—”
“I need to know you’re not out there with no protection when I can’t be with you.” He lifts his eyes to mine. “It’s not about being scared. It’s about being smart.”
I nod, fingers closing around the grip. “Okay. I will.”
We’ve only known each other a couple of weeks.
Two weeks. Sixteen days. I used to tell myself I’d wait months before introducing Bash to someone new.
That I’d need time. Enough time to be sure, to test the waters, to make certain I wouldn’t confuse him or bring someone into his world who wouldn’t stay.
But I am certain about this.
The pull to stay here, in this soft bubble we’ve built, is strong. But life’s already knocking. Really fucking loud, with all the glory of its messy impatience.
Even so, something in me won’t let the truth of this time we’ve spent together pass by like a fluke.
I take a deep breath before saying: “I want you to meet Bash.”
That gets his attention. His eyes flick to mine with what can only be described as surprise. He blinks. “Yeah?”
I nod, the weight of what I’ve just said hitting me full in the chest now that it’s out.
“He’ll be back tonight, all wound up from fishing with his grandparents, talking a mile a minute, probably sunburned and sticky from too much lake water and not enough sunscreen,” I say, wrinkling my nose. “But… maybe sometime this week you could come over. Have dinner?”
His whole expression changes, seeming to melt him. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
I smile, but something inside me stirs. I’m nervous, but uncharacteristically hopeful for the first time in a long time.
I’ve never felt anything like what I’m experiencing with Hex before. Not this kind of steady. Not this kind of safe.
And it’s not just the way he makes me feel in bed—though, Lord knows, that’s top notch—or the way he looks at me like I’m something rare he refuses to mishandle.
It’s the way he stepped into my world, saw my yard and my life, saw Bash’s life, and didn’t hesitate to add to it.
A playscape, quietly built. A promise, unspoken but solid, that he plans to stick around long enough to see my son play on it.
It’s the way he told me to share his truth with Demi without blinking. No flinching, no conditions—just trust in me, and in her, because I trust her.
And it’s the way he handed me a gun this morning—no fear, no ego. Just the quiet conviction that I deserve to be protected, even if he’s not standing beside me.
That kind of trust? That kind of care? I’ve never had that before.
Hex is different. He’s real in a way most people aren’t.
And when I said I want him to meet Bash… I meant it.
Because if I ever want my son to see what it looks like when someone shows up to treat a woman right, I want him to see Hex.
I hold his gaze, still sharing a quiet smile. I hope he sees what my invitation really means. It’s not just dinner. It’s a door fully open to him. One I never thought I’d let anyone walk through again.
I get dressed, pack up what little I brought for the weekend, and before we leave, I stop by the office to say goodbye to the boys. JT’s still on the couch, bandaged and bruised, but cracking jokes. Will is back and gives me a nod and a soft thank you.
Then Hex and I head out.
The truck ride is quiet but not strained or awkward. My hand rests on the center console. His is right beside it. Every few minutes, his fingers brush against mine like a subtle check-in.
When we pull into a spot near the front of my shop, the air feels different. The glass has been swept, the door secured with plywood, but I know what waits for me inside. Furniture toppled, tools scattered, pieces ruined.
Hex kills the engine and walks me in, stalking every shadow, eyeing every corner.
I step through the door and pause. The familiar smell of sawdust, finish, and something older hits me square in the chest and I do my best to choke back tears.
This place is mine. My hard work. My freedom. And it’s a fucking war zone.
“I hate this,” I whisper.
Hex doesn’t say anything. He just steps beside me and starts picking up furniture and strewn tools. A broken clamp. A knocked-over stool. He doesn’t need direction. He just helps.
We work in silence for a few minutes. He moves through the space with careful hands, as though he understands it holds more than just objects. It holds pieces of me.
Then his phone buzzes.
He pulls it from his pocket, glances down, and frowns. “It’s Will.”
I pause, wiping dust off my palms and onto a nearby rag. I feel the shift immediately.
Hex listens for a few seconds, jaw locking up again, then hangs up.
“One of Stauder’s guys just dropped a message off,” he says, voice edging back into gravel. “Told Will where I’m supposed to meet him.”
His cautious energy recalibrates—calm, focused, lethal. He’s already halfway out the door in his mind, scanning threats I can’t see.
All I see is him. And the sudden, terrible thought hits me, that I might lose him before I even get to tell him what he’s starting to mean to me.
I close the distance between us, every bone in my body aching to pull him back, to run away and hide, to pretend the world can’t find us here.
“You need to go,” I say instead, my voice steady, but my heart anything but.
He nods, then cups my cheek in one hand, his thumb dragging over my lips like he’s memorizing the texture. “Lock the doors behind me. Don’t open them for anyone but me or someone you know well. Keep that Sig on you. And text me the second you get home tonight.”
“I will.”
Leaning down, he kisses me with an indescribable fervor. Like he’s pressing a piece of himself into me, just in case. Like he knows he’s walking into a den of vipers who don’t care who they take from this fucked up world.
And I let him. I take the kiss like he’s promising his return.
When he pulls away, I hold his eyes. “Be careful.”
“I’m not the one you need to worry about.” As if that were possible. He says the words, wearing a smug look that hints at the unhinged side of him I pray to God I never have to see in action.
The door closes behind him. A simple sound, a whoosh of warm air. This is what the world falling out of alignment feels like.
I stand in the center of my shop, pulse pounding in my ears, staring at the space he left behind.
And suddenly, I can’t breathe.
Not because I don’t trust him. Because I do. I trust this man with my body, with my soul, with my damn life. But trusting him to come back in one piece? That’s a new kind of fear—one that sinks its claws in deep.
He’s not invincible, no matter how solid he feels under my hands. I’ve seen the scars. Heard the violence of his past. I know what kind of danger lives along the edges of his life.
I want to scream after him. Beg him not to go. Tell him that I’m falling for him so fast it terrifies me. That I can already see the hole he’ll leave behind if he doesn’t come back.
But I don’t.
I put on the face I’ve always worn when everything feels like it’s about to break. I square my shoulders. I lock the door like he told me to. I keep my hand close to the Sig.
And I pray that after all the things that didn’t kill him, Ned Stauder won’t be the one who finally does.