Chapter 1
Lauren
I woke up sore in a way that started at my shoulders and didn’t stop until it reached places I was not going to name out loud.
The room was dim. I was tucked underneath the covers and every muscle in my body had filed a formal complaint that I was going to have to address in the morning.
Big Bane was right beside me, propped up against the headboard with his phone in his hand, completely unbothered, scrolling through what appeared to be Pinterest boards of vintage car interiors and custom paint concepts like he had not just rearranged my entire internal structure over the last several hours.
He was also responding to client messages., calmly, with punctuation.
I watched him for a moment without saying anything, still too boneless to fully commit to being awake. My glasses were around here somewhere around here, but I had no energy to find them.
I had cried more than once, and there was a period of time I could not fully account for. When I had come back to myself he had been right there, lying next to me.
I shifted slightly, and immediately regretted it.
He looked down at me. “You good?”
“I need you to know,” I said, my voice still rough at the edges, “that you are not a normal person.”
He smiled and went back to his phone.
I lay there in the quiet and stared at the ceiling and felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time settle over me like the room itself was exhaling.
“Maybe it’s not a bad idea,” I said, mostly to the ceiling, “if I stayed here for a while.”
He looked down at me again, slower this time, and the smile that came was quiet and real and went all the way to his eyes.
“I would love that,” he said. “And I would love for you to meet my son.”
I pushed myself up onto one elbow. “Sure, I wouldn’t mind that.”
“You’ll meet him,” he said. “In time.”
I laid back down and let that land, let all of it land, and the room stayed quiet and good around us.
Then he set his phone on the nightstand and turned toward me.
“You ready to go again?”
I looked at him. “Are you trying to get me pregnant?”
He smiled and leaned down and started kissing my shoulder, working his way up. “Maybe,” he said against my skin. “I just missed you so much. You have no idea how much I missed you.”
He kissed me and I let him. He pulled back and looked at my face with those dark eyes that had always seen more than I gave them credit for.
“You’re thinking about seeing him again,” he said. Not accusing. Just stating.
I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” He shifted his weight slightly, looking at me with that direct steadiness that had no performance in it.
“I want you to know that I think you calling me was a sign. For us. For trying again. But I’m not in a position to tell you how that looks or put a timeline on it, because you’re a woman with your own mind and I have always known that.
” He paused. “What I do know is that you will always be my wife. And if you need to have a little boyfriend in the meantime while we figure this out —” he kept his face completely straight, “— I promise I will not kill him. Intentionally.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“I said I promise not to kill him intentionally. If something happened it happened, but I won’t go looking for the man.” He tilted his head slightly. “Probably.”
“You are so —” I pressed my hand against his chest. He caught it and held it there. “What do I look like with two men?”
“I’m just making sure all options are communicated clearly,” he said, and the smile he was suppressing was barely contained. “And on another note —” he shifted, “— I think it’s time I meet your family.”
I looked at him.
“Absolutely not.”
“Your parents need to know me,” he said, nodding like it had already been decided.
“No.”
“Lauren —”
“I said no, Bane.”
“You are about to be forty, give or take a few years —”
I pointed at him. “Do not.”
“I’m just saying that at a certain point your parent’s approval don’t mean shit—”
“I said don’t.”
He smiled in a way that told me he was enjoying every second of this.
“I don’t have family like that,” he confessed.
“I’m not letting you go. And if you’re going to meet my son, it’s only right that I shake your father’s hand and have a conversation with your mother.
I’m not talking about being best friends.
I’m saying you come from a good family and I would like to know the people who made you who you are.
” He looked at me. “I would love to get to know more about the woman you are now. All of it. Everything I missed.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
He was being completely sincere. It just came out of him at full volume whether he intended it to or not, and it had nowhere to hide on his face.
My thoughts were moving too fast to catch individually.
“Fine,” I said. “Maybe.”
“You want to go on a date tonight?”
I blinked. “Tonight?”
“Yeah.” He said it like it was obvious.
“I — yeah,” I said. “Sure. Yeah.”
He nodded, satisfied, and pushed himself up from the bed. “Good. I’m going to go wash the truck and let you get yourself together.” He looked back at me. “You want me to run the shower for you?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” He straightened up and grabbed his phone off the nightstand. “And let me know when you get hungry before we go out so we can grab something small first.”
I lay in the middle of the bed and stared at the ceiling.
I was supposed to be at work. I had a whole life in Baltimore with a schedule and a routine and a very clear plan for what the next several years were supposed to look like. Part of me wanted to call him back in here, just to feel that close to him.
But I didn’t.
I let the quiet be what it was and I let myself actually think in it.
I pulled the covers up and listened to the water run and let myself exist inside the most honest moment I had given myself in longer than I wanted to admit.