14. Cara #2
“You expected a speech about club responsibility.”
“Maybe.”
“Nope.” Ice Pick turns his attention back to the road. “I needed to come back, and you needed a ride. Efficient.”
I laugh, and mean it.
The gates open twenty minutes later and the compound's busier than I remember it being. There’s more security than before, though it doesn't feel oppressive, maybe because I know why it's there now. A couple of the women are sitting at a picnic table with coffee despite the cold. Life continuing.
I see him before I've fully gotten out of the car.
Falcon's near the garage with Zip and Digger, holding a clipboard, which is such an unlikely image that it almost makes me laugh out loud.
He looks up and sees me and stops whatever he's doing.
Zip says something and Falcon answers without taking his eyes off me, then looks back down at the clipboard, leaving the next move to me.
Ice Pick comes around the vehicle. “You good?”
“Yes,” I tell him.
He gestures toward the compound. “Want someone to walk you over?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Ice Pick nods and heads for the clubhouse. I could go straight to the temporary room, shower, sleep, and avoid this entirely. Nobody would blame me.
Instead, I walk toward the garage.
Falcon is standing near the workbench with Zip and Digger when I enter. Zip sees me first.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi.”
Digger smiles at me. “Cara.”
I look at the stitches across his forehead. They seem worse in daylight. “Should you be working?”
His smile disappears. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“Because you got hit in the head.”
“Barely a concussion,” Digger argues.
“Knox disagrees,” Zip points out.
I smile, and Zip glances between Falcon and me.
“We need to check the south cameras,” he announces.
Digger looks confused. “We do?”
“Right now,” Zip says firmly.
“When did that happen?”
Zip grabs the back of Digger’s hoodie. “Walk.”
He steers Digger out of the garage with all the subtlety of a marching band. I watch them go.
“Idiots,” Falcon mutters.
“They’re family,” I remind him.
“Yeah,” he says, his gaze following them.
For a few seconds, neither of us speaks. He looks tired. Not destroyed the way he did yesterday, just tired. There’s a small cut near his temple that I didn’t notice beneath all the blood before.
“How’s Emily?” he asks.
“Annoying.”
Falcon’s shoulders loosen slightly. “Good.”
“Very,” I confirm.
“I heard she wants to see the transition house.”
“Tomorrow, hopefully,” I tell him.
“Zip’s handling it.”
“I know.”
We're quiet again, and it's not uncomfortable exactly, maybe a little.
“How are you?” he asks.
There are a hundred ways I could answer. I choose the true one.
“Tired.”
Falcon nods. “Me too.”
“Did you sleep?”
“Four hours,” he admits.
“That’s not enough.”
“I know.”
I give him a look.
“I’m improving,” he says, catching it.
There's something different about him standing there, and it takes me a second to place it. Calm. He's not scanning the compound, not shifting his weight toward the next thing. Just here.
“You repaired the fence?” I ask.
“Rook, Digger, and me,” Falcon says.
I raise my eyebrows. “You let a man with a concussion repair security fencing?”
“He mostly complained.”
“That sounds safer.”
Falcon’s mouth twitches. “Knox-approved complaining.”
I laugh, and he smiles. The sounds of the compound fade slightly around us, though neither of us moves closer.
“Thank you for the food yesterday,” I say.
“Harrier made it.”
“You arranged it,” I remind him.
Falcon looks down at his hands. “I only asked what you needed.”
“Yes.”
He understands what I mean by that.
“You’re welcome,” he says quietly.
I take a breath. “And thank you for not coming to the hospital.”
Pain flashes across his face, brief but unmistakable. “You asked for space.”
“I know.”
There it is again. We both notice at the same time, and a startled laugh escapes us.
“We really need another phrase,” I say.
“Working on it,” Falcon replies.
My chest aches, and not in the way it used to. God, I love him. I thought anger would kill that. It didn't.
"I missed you," I say, before I can decide whether to.
Falcon goes completely still. I could take it back. I don't.
"I missed you too," he says, quiet.
"I'm still angry."
"I know." He catches himself immediately. "Sorry."
I raise an eyebrow.
"I don't want you to pretend yesterday didn't happen," I say.
"I don't want you to either."
"I don't know what happens with us."
His eyes hold mine. "You don't have to know."
That answer helps more than it should, no promises, no demands, no pressure toward an outcome.
"I don't want you to disappear," I say.
"I won't."
"You can't promise that."
"No." He corrects himself right away. "I can promise I won't disappear because I'm scared of waiting for you to decide."
That, I believe. His hand shifts at his side, not reaching, but close to it, and my body responds before my brain catches up. I want him to touch me. Not everywhere, not the way we used to. Just something.
I close the distance myself. His fingers close around mine slowly, carefully, no claiming in it at all, just holding my hand.
My eyes sting. “This doesn’t mean we’re fixed.”
“I know,” Falcon says.
I give him a warning look. “Falcon.”
“Sorry.”
A watery laugh slips out of me despite everything.
His thumb moves once over my knuckles. “Can I say something?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“I don’t want to be fixed.”
I look up at him. “What do you mean?”
Falcon’s gaze drops to our joined hands. “I kept thinking that was the job. Fix what happened, fix myself, fix us. But I can’t do that.”
“No,” I agree softly.
He meets my eyes again. “But I can build something different.”
My throat tightens. “Maybe.”
“Maybe is enough,” he says.
I hear the for now underneath it, even though neither of us says it aloud.
.
I squeeze his hand once, and we stand there while the compound moves around us. Nobody stops. Somebody's probably watching, this club has no respect for privacy, but nobody interrupts.
“I need a shower,” I say eventually.
Falcon’s mouth twitches. “That sounds like a personal issue.”
I stare at him.
He grins.
“Asshole,” I mutter.
“I’ve been called worse.”
“I’ve called you worse,” I remind him. “Recently.”
“Yes, you have,” he agrees.
I turn and start walking toward the clubhouse.
“Cara?” he calls after me.
I stop and look back. He’s still standing exactly where I left him.
“I’m glad you came back,” he says.
Not back to him. Back here to the compound, to my family, to the life I’m building whether I meant to build it or not.
“So am I,” I tell him.
I walk away, and he doesn’t follow.
For now, that feels exactly right.