Chapter 26 #2
She crosses to the counter and wraps both hands around the mug like she needs the warmth. I watch the second it hits her, the comfort, the relief, the little exhale she doesn’t realize she lets out.
That shouldn’t feel as intimate as it does. It really fucking does.
“Lexi’s still asleep,” I tell her. “Amy’s standing watch like she’s on federal detail.”
That makes her laugh softly, and I swear to Christ, that sound is going to end me.
Not dramatic. Not loud. Just real. That laugh. That’s what gets me now. The sound of it. The way it sneaks up on me and settles somewhere under my ribs like it belongs there.
The same way she brushes Lexi’s hair back from her face when she’s distracted. The same way she looks at me when she forgets to guard herself for one dangerous second.
That’s the shit that’s killing me.
Not the obvious stuff. Not just the body or the chemistry or the fact that I’m one memory away from dragging her back to my room and not letting her out till dinner.
No.
It’s the little things. The domestic, stupid, ordinary things.
That’s what’s got me gone.
Lexi comes in not long after, hair wild and face still puffy with sleep, Bunny dragging behind her by one ear.
The second she sees me, she perks up. “Joker.”
I brace for impact. She walks right past her mother and plants herself against my leg like that’s where she was headed all along.
And there it is.
That weird, warm hit straight to the chest that I never asked for and definitely do not know what to do with.
Raven sees it too. I can tell by the way her whole face changes for a second.
Not fear. Not discomfort. Something softer. Something way more dangerous.
“Morning, bug,” I mutter, because at some point I started calling the kid that and now it’s apparently stuck.
Lexi squints up at me. “I’m hungry.”
“Tragic.”
She doesn’t even react to the sarcasm anymore.
That should concern me.
Instead, I reach down, lift her onto one of the barstools, and hand her a piece of toast cut into squares because apparently I’ve now become the kind of man who knows how a three-year-old prefers her breakfast. If anybody had told me that a year ago, I would’ve laughed in their face.
Now?
Now it feels so natural it’s almost embarrassing.
Raven leans against the counter beside me with her coffee, watching the whole thing with an expression I can’t fully read. But I know enough to recognize that she’s feeling something. And because I’m a glutton for punishment, I let myself look right back.
Long enough. Steady enough.
No games. No hedging.
Her breath catches slightly before she looks away first.
The morning settles into something weirdly easy after that.
Lexi eats. Raven drinks her coffee. I make more toast because apparently everybody in this place survives on carbs and poor decision-making before noon.
A couple brothers pass through and give me looks.
I ignore them. Mostly.
By the time breakfast’s over and Raven takes Lexi outside to let her burn off some energy with Amy, Gio, and Casey, I’m already tracking them without thinking.
Where they are. Who’s around them. Which vehicles are in the lot. Who’s coming through the gate. What exits are clear.
I’ve been doing it since I brought them here.
But there’s a difference now.
Before, it was responsibility. Protection. Logan’s favor.
Now?
Now it’s instinct. Automatic. Possessive enough to make me a pain in the ass if anybody notices. Which, of course, means Shadow notices first.
He comes up beside me outside near the row of bikes, flicking open a lighter and stealing my cigarette without asking because apparently boundaries are for other people. “You gonna keep staring at them like that,” he says, taking a drag, “or are you planning to blink sometime before lunch?”
I don’t even look at him. “Give that back.”
He ignores me completely.
Typical.
Blaze comes around the corner a second later, coffee in hand, and follows both our lines of sight without any subtlety whatsoever.
He grins immediately. “Oh,” he says. “He’s gone gone.”
I finally turn and glare at both of them. “You two got a hobby?”
“Yeah,” Blaze says. “This.”
Shadow hands my cigarette back. “You’re making it too easy.”
“I’ll make it hard to walk if you keep talking.”
Blaze just laughs and leans against the wall beside us, still looking way too entertained for this early in the day. “You know you’re doing the thing, right?” he asks.
“What thing?”
“The thing where you pretend you’re not doing exactly what you’re doing.”
That tells me nothing.
He sees that in my face and elaborates with far too much satisfaction.
“You know where they are every second,” he says, ticking it off on his fingers.
“You’ve adjusted your whole damn routine around them.
You hover every time anybody gets too close.
You keep moving like the kid’s yours to account for.
And you look at Raven like you’re one bad day away from maiming somebody. ”
I stare at him.
He grins wider.
Shadow adds, “You also haven’t brought a woman back to your room since she got here, which, frankly, is the strongest evidence we’ve got.”
I look at him flatly. “You keeping tabs on my dick now?”
“Unfortunately,” Blaze says, “your dick has become chapter business.”
That gets a reluctant snort out of me before I can stop it. Which is apparently all the confirmation they need.
Shadow points at me like he’s solved a crime. “There it is.”
“Shut up.”
“Nah.”
Blaze takes a sip of coffee and nods toward the lot where Raven is crouched down to fix Lexi’s jacket while Amy and Gio hover nearby like tiny overprotective security detail. “So what’s the move?”
“What move?”
“The move where you stop pretending this is temporary.”
That one lands. Harder than I expect. Because that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.
Pretending there’s still some version of this where I keep my distance emotionally.
Pretending I haven’t already crossed about twelve internal lines I swore I wouldn’t.
Pretending I’m still just helping out until Grinder figures his shit out and Raven and Lexi move on to wherever they’re supposed to go next.
That’s the lie. And I know it the second Blaze says it out loud. Because the truth is, I don’t want them to go anywhere.
Not now. Not after her in my truck and her in my bed and her in my kitchen and her laugh in the morning like it belongs in this place now. Not after the kid started looking for me first when she wants something opened or fixed or carried.
Not after any of it.
Shadow must see the exact moment it clicks in my face, because his expression shifts slightly. Less amused. More serious. “You in?” he asks quietly.
It’s a simple question. But around here, it means a lot more than the words.
You in means:
Are you claiming this?
Are you standing on it?
Are you ready to make that everybody’s problem if it needs to be?
I look back toward Raven.
She’s standing now, one hand on Lexi’s shoulder while the kid talks animatedly to Amy. Her hair’s lifting in the breeze, dark and soft against her back. She glances up like she can feel me looking and our eyes meet across the lot.
And there it is again.
That unguarded look. Just for a second. Then her mouth curves.
Small. Private. For me.
That’s it. That’s all it takes. I’m done pretending.
“Yeah,” I say.
Shadow goes still.
Blaze lowers his coffee a little.
Neither of them expected me to answer that easily.
I didn’t either. But now that it’s out, it sits right.
Solid. True.
“Yeah,” I repeat, rougher this time. “I’m in.”
Blaze lets out a low whistle. “Well, shit.”
Shadow studies me for another second, then nods once like he understands exactly what I’m saying without me needing to spell it out. Because he does.
He grew up with me. He knows what it means when I stop hedging. He knows I don’t do halfway. And if I’m saying it now, it means it’s already done.
“Logan know?” he asks.
“Not yet.”
Blaze grins again, all too pleased with himself. “Oh, this I wanna see.”
I flick my cigarette into the gravel and start walking toward the clubhouse. They follow immediately, because of course they do.
“Do not make this weird,” I say without looking back.
Shadow barks a laugh. “Brother, it got weird the second you started cutting dinosaur-shaped pancakes for a kid that isn’t yours.”
“I did that once.”
Blaze nearly chokes. “You did what?”
“It was an accident.”
“There is no accidental dinosaur pancake.”
“There is if you mind your own fucking business.”
That just makes them laugh harder.
Assholes.
By the time we make it inside, Logan’s already in the main room downstairs near the bar, talking with Cain about something low and irritated while Dom sits at one of the tables with a laptop open, looking like he hasn’t slept and probably hasn’t.
Standard.
Logan glances up first.
Then at the two idiots behind me. Then back at me.
His expression changes almost immediately.
He knows something’s up. “Why do you look like you’re about to announce a death?” he asks.
“Because his freedom just died,” Blaze says helpfully.
Logan’s eyes narrow. “What?”
Cain leans back against the bar, crossing his arms. “Oh, this oughta be good.”
I should probably wait. Take Logan aside. Handle it privately like a rational adult with some semblance of self-control.
Instead, I look at the men in this room, the ones who matter, the ones who’ll need to know if shit gets ugly, and I decide I don’t really give a fuck about subtlety today.
“Raven’s mine,” I say.
Silence. Absolute silence.
Then Dom slowly looks up from the laptop.
Cain blinks once.
Blaze looks delighted.
Shadow looks like he’s trying not to laugh.
And Logan?
Logan throws his head back and laughs so hard I briefly consider punching him in the throat.
He braces a hand on the bar, still laughing. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
I stare at him. “You done?”
“No,” he says immediately, still grinning like a bastard. “Not even a little.”
Cain’s mouth twitches. “Well. That explains a lot.”
Dom, without missing a beat, mutters, “Statistically, this was inevitable.”
I look at him. “The fuck does that mean?”