24
Lila
Moving day had barely reached noon before my father had sighed at least six times in the particular way that meant he wanted credit for not making things harder.
Matty handled himself better mostly because the furniture gave him somewhere to put his frustration.
Between the two of them, the sofa, dining table, bedframe, dresser, and heavier shelves were already inside.
Boxes still crowded the walls, but the apartment had crossed from empty to ours. That mattered.
Jade and I had never lived anywhere this nice.
Hardwood floors caught the light from big windows.
The kitchen had enough counter space to use without shuffling everything around, and the hallway outside stayed blessedly quiet.
Evan’s unit was only a few doors down and around the corner, while Blue was across town on the Saints’ compound, a sentence that still sounded faintly ridiculous in my head.
Yet here we were. Bay of Saints. My father carried a side table into my living room, Matty muttered at a bookshelf, and Jade unpacked kitchen towels like this had always been the plan.
“Okay,” I said, taking in the remaining furniture. “Once the last big stuff is in, you two are done.”
My father stopped fussing with the couch. “Done?”
He heard rejection where I meant independence. “Yes.” I crossed my arms. “I only needed help with the furniture. After that, Jade and I can deal with boxes and unpacking. We need to get used to the place ourselves.”
Matty gave me the same expression he used whenever my decisions offended him personally. “That’s stupid.”
I refused to let him make common sense sound reckless. “That’s reasonable.”
His expression said I had somehow proven his point. “That’s stupid,” he repeated.
My father joined him with one warning packed into my name. “Lila.”
“No.” I pointed at both of them. “You helped. I appreciate it. Truly. But once the furniture is in, you go home. Jade and I can handle the rest.”
“Why?” Matty demanded.
Because if they stayed, this place would become an extension of Wicker Falls before Jade and I had a chance to claim it. Dad would find concerns. Matty would hover. At thirty-five, I wanted one move that belonged to me without family supervision pressing in from every wall.
I gave them the answer they hated most. “Because I said so.”
Jade emerged from the kitchen with paper plates tucked against her hip. “I support this decision.”
Matty pointed at her. “Traitor.”
She smiled sweetly and kept walking, leaving him to grumble his way through the last chair.
A few minutes later, the kitchen was empty.
I found Jade through the living room window, down near the truck talking to the boy we had met yesterday.
Cage. Tall and lean, blond hair falling across his forehead, dressed in dark clothes, leather, and boots.
Jade wore the small, careful smile she used when she wanted somebody to know she was interested without ever admitting it.
Matty appeared beside me. “Who’s that?”
I kept my attention on the lot. “Oh. That’s our neighbor.
Jade met him yesterday when we came to pick up the keys.
I think his name is Cage. He lives in the apartment across the hall from us.
” His proximity to Jade clearly bothered Matty already.
Mine didn’t. “I think it’s nice that she has someone around her age already that’s close by. ”
Matty’s mouth tightened. “Kid looks like he belongs to an MC.”
The comment scraped at nerves he didn’t know were already raw. Cage was obviously a teenager, but the leather and easy confidence suggested he had grown up around men who wore both naturally. “I think his father does,” I said. “He’s obviously too young.”
Then Matty’s judgment reached the wrong place. “Is that an issue? You once had a best friend that belonged to an MC. You didn’t have a problem with him belonging to one.”
His expression changed before he answered. “You don’t know anything about Jackson and the MC he belonged to, Li. He didn’t want to be there. He had plans of getting out.”
Jackson’s name still found the tender places no matter how many years sat between then and now.
Matty kept going. “But what does it matter. He abandoned us. Left without a word. It was probably because of the MC. Don’t let her get wrapped up in that world.”
Heat climbed fast. He knew one club from years ago and thought that gave him the right to judge all of them, including men who had become part of my life before I understood exactly how much they would matter.
“You don’t know anything about this club, Matty.” The edge in my voice matched the one inside me. “Not all clubs are bad. Keep your biases to yourself and don’t push them onto my daughter.”
He blinked at me. “Jeeze,” he said. “I’m just trying to take care of her and you.”
That was the problem. He still heard love and responsibility as the same thing. “For the last time,” I snapped, “we don’t need you to take care of us. We can take care of ourselves.”
His face hardened. “Fine.”
He left the apartment hard enough for the door to strike the wall, then redirected his temper toward the next piece of furniture downstairs. Cage had disappeared by then. Jade was at the truck with a smaller box, watching me with concern until I gave her one quick shake of my head.
The next half hour settled into the particular quiet our family had perfected after an argument. Dad focused on where furniture belonged while Matty worked without meeting my eyes. Jade kept herself outside the blast radius, a skill she should never have needed to learn so well.
Once the last heavy piece was inside, Dad surveyed the living room with the expression of a man still searching for one practical excuse to remain.
“We can go get pizzas,” my father offered, not quite meeting my eyes. “Bring them back.”
I understood the offer for what it was. One more hour. One more reason not to drive away yet. I shook my head. “No, that’s okay. You two should get back to Wicker Falls. We’ll be alright for dinner.”
He hesitated, still searching for a reason to make staying sound necessary. “You sure?”
I softened because pushing him out didn’t erase what this move cost him. “Yes,” I said, gentler now. “I’m sure, Dad. We’re fine.”
Matty set down the box in his hands while Dad looked between Jade, me, and our half-unpacked home. None of it gave him the argument he wanted. Eventually, he accepted that.
He hugged Jade first, then me. Matty followed, mine briefer and stiffer than usual, apology tangled with irritation in the quick squeeze. A minute later their footsteps faded down the stairs.
I stayed in the doorway until Dad’s truck started. Without them, the apartment finally had room to breathe. The silence belonged to Jade and me now, and so did every half-open box and unfamiliar room. Whatever we built here would belong to us too.
Jade leaned against the frame beside me. “You good?”
She tried to make it casual. She had never been especially good at hiding when she was checking on me.
“Yeah,” I said. “You?”
She shrugged, the answer carrying more affection than complaint. “Uncle Matty gets weird.”
He did, especially when love convinced him he had jurisdiction. “That he does.”
Her mouth twitched before she offered a peace treaty disguised as neighborhood intelligence. “Cage says the vending machine in the laundry room eats dollars but works if you hit the side twice.”
I looked down at her. “That’s useful information,” I said.
She smiled, small and sly, and went back inside. My phone buzzed before I could follow.
Running a little late. Movers are slow and men are weak. Save me.
A laugh escaped me.
“Evan?” Jade asked from the kitchen.
There was only one person in my life who could turn moving delays into a personal betrayal. “Of course.”
“That man really thinks he’s the main character.”
For all his dramatics, he had shown up for us every time it mattered. “He’s not wrong.”
Her laugh followed her down the hall. I took an empty box downstairs, mostly because standing still gave me too much room to think.
The evening air had cooled. I dropped the empty into the rental truck and shifted a couple of manageable boxes closer to the edge for Jade. Dad’s truck was gone from the street.
Good. The relief came without guilt.
Then a motorcycle rolled into the complex. The engine caught me before the rider did.
Jackson.
He came through the lot and parked a few rows over, moving with the same easy control that had once been so familiar I could have picked him out from a block away.
He looked stronger than he had in the hospital, color back in his face and none of the awful stillness of that bed.
Better wasn’t healed. He had no business riding across town or hauling boxes.
That should have been my biggest problem. Jade was upstairs.
Jackson crossed the lot toward me with the stubborn purpose I remembered too well. He reached the truck, ignored my stare, and took hold of the nearest box as if helping had already been decided.
My stomach dropped. One trip downstairs from Jade could turn sixteen years of silence into a public collision.
“Put that down,” I called before he could move.
He turned. Farther down the lot, Priest looked over from his truck. Blue stood beside him with one hand on the stroller, both of them close enough to hear.
Jackson looked back at me. “I’m helping.”
Concern gave me the cleanest excuse to get him out of there. I took it. “You’re healing,” I snapped back as I came down the steps. “Put it down.”
He shifted the box higher against his chest. “I can do both.”
The man had nearly died and apparently taken stubbornness as a discharge instruction. “No, you can do one, and you’re choosing wrong.”
Priest and Blue had drifted closer by the time I reached the truck, giving us space while very clearly missing nothing.
“You always this bossy when somebody’s trying to do something nice for you?” Jackson asked.
The question carried enough old familiarity to make my chest ache. I buried it under irritation. “Yes. Especially when that somebody got out of a coma ten minutes ago.”
“It was not ten minutes ago.”
The exact number of days meant nothing while his body was still repairing what had almost killed him. “Close enough.”
He set the box down with all the reluctant dignity of a man planning his next argument. The resentment in his face eased only enough for the point underneath it to show. “I’m trying to help.”
“I know,” I said, too fast. Then, sharper, “Which is why you need to go home. My dad and brother already helped me with all the big stuff. I don’t need you carrying boxes.”
That stopped him. “Excuse me?”
The danger wasn’t his body anymore. It was how quickly he heard what lived underneath my words.
“You should be resting,” I said. “Not out here lifting boxes and playing hero.”
His eyes narrowed. He could have argued about his shoulder or ribs, but his attention moved past me toward the building and came back to me.
I had pushed too hard. Concern might have explained one warning. Panic explained the rest.
Jade could appear at any moment and see the man from those hidden photographs standing within touching distance. Worse, Jackson would see her.
He had left once without a word. I still had questions sharp enough to draw blood, and Jade deserved something better than learning the truth because timing trapped us in a parking lot.
“You trying to get rid of me?” he asked.
“No.” I folded my arms, containing everything my hands wanted to betray. “I’m trying to keep you from putting yourself back in the hospital.”
He studied me long enough to make silence feel dangerous.
Then he glanced toward the building again. “Ghost said you had more going on than I knew about.”
Every instinct in me locked down. Priest had gone still nearby. Blue’s attention sharpened.
Jackson stepped closer, leaving the forgotten box at our feet. “What are you trying to hide, Lila?”
I had no answer I could give him here. My mouth parted, then closed. I needed time. Ten minutes. Five. Anything that let me choose how Jade learned who he was and how Jackson learned she existed.
The apartment door opened upstairs. Jade stepped onto the walkway with her phone in hand, started toward the stairs, then saw him.
Jackson stopped. So did she. Her brows drew together. “Mom?”
I closed my eyes for half a second before forcing myself to face what I had spent sixteen years protecting.
Jackson looked from Jade to me, then back to her. I couldn’t know what he saw in her face, only that he stopped looking at her like a stranger. The stillness in him turned absolute.
Jade’s confusion sharpened too. She had seen the photographs.
Jackson’s focus never left her. “Who is that?”
My throat tightened around every possible answer.
His attention came back to me, certainty beginning to replace confusion. Jackson’s voice dropped lower. Rougher. “Lila.”
There was no answer I wanted to give in front of Priest and Blue, with Jade trapped inside the same moment. “Please don’t do this out here.”
Jade looked past us toward the entrance to the lot. Her expression changed first.
Then she said, with sudden certainty, “Grandpa and Uncle Matty came back.”
I turned. My father’s truck was rolling straight toward us.