Chapter 1 #2
This was the thing about dating a therapist — she just said it. Whatever was going on inside, she put it on the table and dealt with it. Twelve years in the MC and I’d never seen anyone do that. I still didn’t know what to do with it half the time, but I liked it.
“You need anything from me?” I asked.
Her expression softened. “Just this. You being here.” She turned back to the stove. “Tell me about the run. Not the logistics—I know you can’t share details. But how are you feeling about it?”
“Prepared. Paranoid. The usual.”
“Those aren’t feelings, Holden. Those are states of readiness.”
“Fine.” I blew out a breath, trying to translate the knot in my chest into words she’d understand. “Anxious. Like something’s off but I can’t identify what. And frustrated because I’ve checked everything three times and there’s nothing wrong.”
She was quiet for a moment, plating the food with careful movements. “Have you considered that the anxiety might not be about the run itself?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you’ve been doing this for years.
You’re good at it—the best, from what I hear, although my opinion might be biased.
Your anxiety doesn’t usually spike like this unless…
” She set a plate in front of me and settled into the chair across the table.
“Is there something else going on? Something you’re not telling me? ”
I looked at her—at the concern in her eyes, the way she leaned forward like she had all the time in the world for whatever I was about to say. We’d only been together a short time, but she’d known me for years. She’d seen me at my worst and my best, long before we were even friends.
“The route’s solid,” I said. “Three options, fallbacks for all of them. I’ve checked it.”
She waited.
“Glitch and I are running through comms tomorrow. Everything’s covered.” I moved my fork across the plate.
“That’s not what I asked.”
I set down the fork. “There’s a prospect on this run. Danny. I’ve been working with him for months — he’s good, smart, steady. Nineteen.”
“The one who’s been doing the tire changes.”
“Yeah.” I looked at the table. “He looks at me like I’ve got all the answers. Like if he just follows my lead, nothing bad can touch him.”
Bea reached across the table and took my hand. She didn’t say anything.
“I remember being that age,” I said, after a moment. “Thinking I was invincible. That bad things only happened to people who weren’t careful enough.”
“Like you were before your father died.”
The words hit me like they always did—a dull ache in my chest, the echo of grief that never fully faded.
“I wasn’t there when it happened. I was at a party, getting drunk with my friends, while my dad was bleeding out on I-84 because some dispatcher pushed a driver past his limits and nobody planned the route well enough to know the timeline was impossible. ”
“You were sixteen. You couldn’t have known.”
“I know that. Logically, I know that.” I turned my hand over, lacing my fingers through hers. “But I keep thinking about all the ways this could go wrong. All the ways I could fail him.”
“You’re putting yourself in your father’s position,” she said quietly. “And Danny in yours.”
“Is that your professional opinion?”
“It’s my girlfriend opinion, which is just as valid.” She squeezed my hand. “Holden, you can’t control everything. You can plan and prepare and run through every scenario, but at the end of the day, some things are out of your hands.”
“I know.”
“Nope.” There was something gentle in it. “You’re trying to control the entire universe through sheer force of will. You have been since you were sixteen.”
I didn’t have an answer for that. “I can be a little intense sometimes,” I finally said.
“A little?” She smiled. “You’ve been ‘a little’ intense since the day we met. I’ve had years to study your particular brand of obsessive planning. It’s part of your charm.”
“Is that what you tell your clients? That obsessive planning is charming?”
“I tell my clients that their coping mechanisms developed for good reasons, even if they’re not always serving them anymore.
” She stood and came around the table, sliding onto my lap.
“I tell my boyfriend that he’s allowed to worry, but he also has to trust that he’s done everything he can.
And then he has to eat dinner and get some sleep. ”
I pulled her closer, burying my face in the curve of her neck. “How did I get so lucky?”
“You asked me out a few times before I said yes. That’s not luck, that’s persistence.”
“You made me work for it.”
“I make everyone work for it.” She pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Now eat. You can’t protect anyone if you pass out from low blood sugar.”
We ate dinner, talking about everything other than the run—her annoying neighbor, the new coffee shop that had opened in town, whether we should take a weekend trip after the run. Normal stuff. Couple stuff.
Later, after the dishes were done and we’d settled on the couch with the TV playing, Bea curled into my side with a contented sigh. “Whatever happens on this run,” she said quietly, “you come home to me. Okay?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Not a plan. A promise.” She tilted her head to look up at me, her eyes serious. “I know you can’t guarantee safety. I know your job is dangerous. But promise me you’ll do everything in your power to come back.”
I cupped her face in my hands, studying every detail—the freckles across her nose, the way her mouth was already starting to curve up even though she was trying not to let it.
“I promise,” I said. “I love you, Bea. I’m not going anywhere.”
She kissed me then, soft and slow, and I let myself sink into it. Finally let myself forget about maps, and routes, and all the ways the run could fall apart.
She stood and took my hand without a word. I let her lead me down the hall.
The bedroom was warm, her lamp on the nightstand casting everything gold. She turned to face me and I just looked at her for a second — the loose strand of hair against her neck, the curve of her shoulder where the lamplight caught it — and the noise in my head finally went quiet.
She reached for my shirt. I caught her wrist and kissed her first — slow, deliberate, nothing held back. She made a small sound and grabbed the front of my shirt with both hands.
“Stop thinking,” she said against my mouth.
“I’m not thinking.”
She looked up at me. “Liar.” But she was smiling.
She worked the buttons from the bottom up and pushed the shirt off my shoulders. I unclasped her bra, felt her exhale slowly — and that was the end of it. The planning brain went quiet. There was just this.
I kissed her neck, her collarbone. Took my time.
She made small sounds against my hair and her hands moved through it, not pushing, just holding on.
I paid attention to all of it — the responsive tells, the way her breathing shifted when something was right.
Same as reading the road, except nothing about the road felt like this.
I worked her jeans off and she lifted her hips to help. I spent a while learning what she wanted tonight. By the time she came apart it was with both hands fisted in the sheets. I cataloged every sound she made so I could find my way back here next time.
She was reaching for me before she’d finished.
Impatient in a way I hadn’t expected, which I liked.
I helped her with my belt and pushed into her.
Going still for just a second at the end of it — still not quite used to this, still a little undone by it no matter how many times — before she tilted her hips and I started to move.
The kind of rhythm that comes from paying attention. She knew exactly how to shift against me; I knew the sounds she made when she was close. Nothing else. Just her — the heat of her, the way she moved, her nails finding my shoulders when she got there the second time.
She came quietly, her whole body pulling into mine. I followed, pressed my face into her hair, and let everything go.
Afterward we lay quiet, her curled into my side with her hand on my chest, the lamp still on. I watched the ceiling.
Tomorrow I’d go back to the clubhouse and finalize every detail. But tonight I was just a man holding the woman he loved, grateful for every moment he got to keep her.