Chapter 26
The clubhouse is too full for the kind of mood I’m in.
That’s the first thing I know for sure when I step through the front doors and get hit with noise, heat, and the kind of family chaos that usually feels like home and tonight feels like punishment.
Somebody’s laughing too hard in the kitchen.
A kid is running down the hall and getting yelled at by at least two different adults.
The television in the common room is on, ignored.
Music is drifting faintly from the hallway, probably from one of the girls’ rooms.And every inch of the downstairs looks lived in, busy, comfortable, full of the kind of life I’ve always understood better than I’ve understood myself.
Normally, that settles me. Normally, the rhythm of this place makes everything else easier to carry.
Tonight, all it does is make me more aware of what I don’t have under control.
I already half regret coming in instead of taking the long way back from the garage and riding until I burned through enough gas and frustration to feel human again.
That wouldn’t have helped either.
Nothing has helped in days.
Not work. Not church. Not runs. Not beer. Not the gym. Not the way the brothers keep circling me like they know something’s wrong and are trying to decide whether to be polite about it or just start swinging until I confess.
Because the problem isn’t anything I can fix with my hands.
It’s Allison.
Still. Always. And that would be bad enough on its own if she weren’t also going out with Drew again tonight.
That’s the real thorn under everything.
Another chance for some polished, smug cop to sit across from her and act like she’s too good for the life that made her, while I stand over here on the wrong side of every decision that matters and pretend this is somehow not my own fault.
I should’ve fixed it already.
I know that. I just don’t know how. That’s the part that’s been chewing at me hardest. Not the wanting. Not even the jealousy, though that’s making me meaner than I care to admit.
The not knowing.
Because all I’ve managed to do every time I get close to her lately is swing too hard in the wrong direction. Kiss her when I should talk. Back off when I should stay. Hurt her when I’m trying to protect something I can’t even name out loud without sounding like I’ve lost the plot entirely.
And now Drew gets to show up clean and easy and available while I’m still standing in the same emotional sinkhole, apparently hoping she’ll keep understanding me indefinitely while I give her absolutely nothing solid in return.
Yeah. That’s going real fucking well.
“Bout time.” Cain’s voice comes from the table where he’s helping Amy tape construction paper to a poster board while Jason tries to eat a marker cap beside him.
I glance over. “You waiting on me specifically, or is the attitude free tonight?”
“Little of both.”
Emma smiles from the other end of the table where she’s sorting through a stack of school papers, a cup of tea near her elbow and Raven beside her with Lexi tucked under one arm while she braids the little girl’s hair.
Raven and Joker got back from Louisiana yesterday and somehow folded right back into the rhythm of the clubhouse like they’d never been gone, just a little more relaxed, a little softer around the edges.
Joker’s in the common room now with Shadow, Cobra, and Hammer, talking low over some game nobody’s really watching.
He catches my eye for a second when I look that way, gives me one of those dry, unreadable looks of his, then goes back to whatever Shadow’s saying.
Even Joker’s noticed I’m off.
That should probably concern me more than it does. Or maybe it concerns me exactly as much as it should and I’m just too tired to add it to the list.
Mac’s voice cuts through the room from the couch. “If one more person asks if I’m comfortable, I’m going to start naming names in my prison memoir.”
Logan, who’s standing three feet away with a bowl of fruit like he’s negotiating with a hostage, says, “I wasn’t asking if you were comfortable. I was asking if you needed another pillow.”
“That is the exact same thing with different wording.”
Brooke laughs softly from the recliner, one hand over her stomach while Carter rubs slow circles over her ankle like he’s trying to pay off a debt. “I think it’s sweet.”
“Of course you do,” Mac mutters.
Kya, sprawled across the other end of the couch with a blanket over her legs and a carton of takeout balanced on her stomach, points her fork at Dom. “He asked me if I needed help standing up.”
Dom looks genuinely confused about why that’s a crime. “Because you said your back hurt.”
“Yeah, and?”
“Baby, I was trying to help.”
“You were acting like I’m ninety.”
Emma catches my eye again over the rim of her tea, amused and too observant.
I should let the room pull me in.
This is the kind of normal that usually works on me. Family noise. Brothers talking shit. Women threatening mild homicide over acts of care. Kids underfoot. The whole place breathing around me like one big, ridiculous, messy organism.
Instead, all I can feel is the pressure building in my chest, mean and restless and impossible to outrun.
Because Allison is here.
I know she is before I see her. Maybe because my body registers her before my head does now. Maybe because I’ve been tuned too tight toward her for too long and there’s no shutting that off anymore no matter how much I try.
She’s in the kitchen, half-hidden behind the tall pantry door, talking to Aunt Tracie about inventory for Ambrosia while she writes something down on a legal pad balanced against the counter.
Her hair is up tonight, a few loose pieces falling around her face.
She’s wearing jeans and one of those soft long-sleeve tops that shouldn’t be remotely dangerous and somehow still are.
She laughs at something Aunt Tracie says, and the sound goes through me like a blade dragged too slowly.
It should not still be this bad.
It is.
I look away before anyone catches me looking too long.
Too late probably.
Landon’s in the doorway to the kitchen talking to Ana and Shaina, and even from here I can feel the brotherly familiarity of that little group like a weight pressing down on the back of my neck.
Landon with his easy lean and beer bottle in hand.
Ana perched on the counter with that expression that says she’s about to say something unhelpful on purpose.
Shaina against the doorframe beside Shadow, who looks like he’s half listening to the room and half listening only to her.
Brothers. Sisters. Women. Family.
Every direction I turn lately feels like a reminder of what this is supposed to be.
And what I’ve turned it into instead.
I grab a beer from the fridge just to give my hands something to do and head for the back hall before somebody corners me into actual conversation.
Maybe I can go through the inventory sheets for tomorrow’s run.
Maybe I can make myself useful enough that my own head shuts the hell up for twenty minutes.
That’s the plan anyway.
Then I hear Allison laugh again. Different this time. Lower. Closer.
And because apparently I’m a glutton for punishment, I stop just short of the hallway bend instead of keeping my ass moving where it belongs.
The voices are coming from the laundry alcove off the side hall, where the old counter and extra cabinets make it just private enough for women to disappear into when they want to talk without the whole room breathing down their necks.
I should not be standing here. I know that.
Then I hear my name. And every instinct I have goes silent all at once.
“Shaina, I’m serious.” That’s Allie. Her voice is low, exasperated, familiar enough to make my pulse kick once before I can stop it.
Shaina answers immediately, not even trying to keep the bite out of her tone. “I am too. He’s being a dumbass.”
My jaw tightens.
Great. Excellent. Love that this is where we’re at.
“I know he’s being a dumbass,” Allison says. “That’s not new.”
Something about hearing her say it, calm and tired instead of furious, digs in deeper than it should.
There’s a pause. The quiet rustle of fabric. Maybe Shaina shifting against the counter.
Then Shaina says, “So stop waiting for him.”
The words hit so clean and direct they almost feel physical.
I go very still.
Allison doesn’t answer right away. When she does, her voice is quieter. “I think I am.”
That should not feel like somebody just put a fist through my sternum. But it does.
I grip the neck of the beer bottle harder and tell myself to move. Go. Walk away.
This isn’t yours. This isn’t a conversation you should be hearing. This is exactly the kind of boundary a sane man would still understand even if he was losing his whole damn mind over the woman on the other side of the wall.
I don’t move. Because apparently sanity has left the building too.
Shaina lets out a breath. “Then why do you still sound like you’re trying to convince yourself?”
Allison laughs softly, but there’s no humor in it. “Because it’s harder than I thought it’d be.”
That one hurts too.
Maybe because I know what she means. Maybe because I’m standing in the exact same fucking place myself and still somehow finding ways to make it her problem.
The silence stretches just long enough to tell me she’s deciding how much to say next.
Then she says, “Drew texted me again this morning.”
Something hot and ugly flashes through me so fast I almost take a step forward without meaning to.
Shaina makes a noise that’s half approval and half curiosity. “And?”
And.
I hate that word right now. Hate the fact that I’m standing here with my whole body locked up waiting on an answer I have absolutely no right to feel this much about.
“And I think I’m going to give him a real chance. He apologized for the other night.”
There it is.
The breaking point. Not loud. Not dramatic.