Chapter 5 — Francis
The first thing I notice is his hand. It's on my stomach, fingers splayed wide, covering the soft flesh there like he put it there on purpose. Like he wanted to feel exactly that part of me while he slept.
We slept for three hours.
My body feels wired, alert in a way that has nothing to do with rest and everything to do with the fact that Knox is in my bed with his hand on the part of me I usually hide under loose shirts.
He shifts behind me and his hand tightens, pulling me closer against him.
I feel him wake up slowly. The change in his breathing. The tension returning to his muscles. The moment his brain catches up to where his body is.
He doesn't let go.
"Your wound," I say.
"Still there."
His voice is rough, scraped raw from too little sleep and too much adrenaline. I turn over to face him and immediately regret it because now we're inches apart and I can see the gray in his stubble, the lines around his eyes, the way he's looking at me like I'm a problem he hasn't solved yet.
"Let me look at it," I say.
He rolls onto his back and I sit up, pulling the sheet with me because suddenly I'm very aware that I'm wearing a thin tank top and pajama shorts and nothing else.
His eyes track the movement but he doesn't comment.
I peel back the gauze slowly. The wound is still oozing, the edges angry and red. It needs stitches. Probably needs antibiotics. Definitely needs better care than a first aid kit from under my bathroom sink.
"This is going to get infected," I say.
"Then I'll deal with it."
"You're being stubborn."
"I'm being realistic. I show up at the ER with a bullet graze at six in the morning, they call the cops. The cops show up at the clubhouse asking questions. That's a conversation Clint doesn't need to have right now."
I tape fresh gauze over it even though I know it's not enough. When I'm done I sit back and look at him, this man I loved at twenty-three and apparently never stopped loving because why else would I be sitting here trying to take care of him when he clearly doesn't want to be taken care of.
"What happened last night?" I ask.
"Marrow attacked the clubhouse."
"Did people die?"
"None of ours."
He says it like it's a football score. Casual. Final.
I think about what that means, about him being in a fight where people died, about the fact that he came to my door bleeding and I let him in without asking questions.
"I stood in my kitchen in the dark for two hours waiting to see if your bike came back."
His jaw tightens. He sits up, favoring his left side, and reaches for me. His hand cups the back of my neck, thumb brushing my jaw.
"I'm not dead," he says.
"This time."
"Francis..."
"What happens next time? What happens when Marrow comes back and you're not fast enough or lucky enough or whatever kept you alive last night?"
"I don't know."
The honesty of it hits me harder than a lie would have. He doesn't know. He's not going to promise me he'll be fine, that he'll come home, that I won't end up identifying his body at the county morgue.
"I can't do this," I say.
His hand drops. Something in his face closes off, that blank expression he used to wear when I told him I was leaving seventeen years ago.
"Okay," he says.
"But I don't want to walk away either."
He looks at me then, really looks, and I see something crack in that control.
"What do you want?" he asks.
"I want you to stop acting like your life doesn't matter. I want you to go to the damn hospital and get stitches. I want you to admit that what happened last night scared you too."
"It didn't."
"Liar."
His mouth tightens.
We stare at each other across two feet of rumpled sheets and I realize we're having the same fight we had seventeen years ago, just with different words.
"I was scared," he says finally. "Not for me. For Tate. For the brothers inside who couldn't get out if something went wrong. For what happens if Crane keeps pushing and we have to push back hard enough that there's no coming back from it."
"What does that mean?"
"Means we've been playing defense. Waiting for them to make moves, responding, trying to de-escalate. But Perry's dead. They attacked our clubhouse. At some point defending stops working and you have to end it."
"End it how?"
He doesn't answer. Doesn't need to. I can see it in his face, in the set of his shoulders.
"You're going to kill Victor Crane," I say.
"Clint makes that call. Not me."
"But you'll do it if he asks."
"Yes."
No hesitation. No apology. Just yes, like I asked if he wanted coffee.
I should be horrified. Should tell him to leave, that I can't be with someone who talks about killing people like it's an item on a to-do list.
Instead I ask, "When?"
"Don't know yet. Chuck's working on finding where Crane's hiding. Could be a week. Could be tomorrow."
"And then what? You ride out and murder someone and come home and we just... what? Pretend it didn't happen?"
"I'm not going to lie to you about what I am, Francis. I'm in a motorcycle club. We operate outside the law. Sometimes that means doing things you can't take back. If that's something you can't live with, I understand."
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Give me an easy out. Make it simple for me to walk away."
"I'm giving you the truth. What you do with it is up to you."
I want to scream. Want to shake him. Want to make him understand that I'm not asking him to be someone different, I'm asking him to want to stay alive for me.
But maybe that's not fair either.
Maybe that's me asking him to prioritize my fear over the life he's built, the family he's chosen, the code he lives by.
"Perry died alone," Knox says. "And I keep thinking about that. About what it means to have no one who notices you're gone. No one who's waiting for you to come home."
"You told me that already, doesn’t make it easier."
"I know. But I can't stop thinking about it. About the fact that I've been alone for so many years and I told myself it was what I wanted. But lying here with you, knowing you were awake at three in the morning waiting to see if I was dead... that changes things."
"What things?"
"Makes me want to come home. Makes me want to have someone waiting. Makes me want to matter to someone outside the club in a way that's just mine."
My throat goes tight. I reach out and touch his face, feeling the rough stubble under my palm, the warmth of his skin.
"You matter to me," I say.
"I know."
"But I'm terrified."
"Me too."
We sit there in the bright morning light with honesty between us instead of comfort and I realize this is what I never had with Ben. This willingness to sit in the hard truth instead of smoothing it over with reassurance.
Knox leans forward and kisses me.
It's not urgent like it was hours ago in my bathroom. It's slower, like he's trying to memorize the shape of my mouth.
I kiss him back and feel something shift in my chest, some final wall coming down.
When we break apart I'm breathing hard and he's looking at me like he's making a decision.
"I want you," he says.
"I know."
"No, I mean right now. In the daylight where I can see all of you."
My stomach clenches. It's one thing to kiss in a bathroom at dawn when we're both running on adrenaline and fear. It's another to be seen in full morning light when my body looks nothing like it did the last time he touched me.
"I'm not in my twenties anymore…"
"I know. I was there."
"I mean, my body is different. I'm heavier. Things don't sit the same way they used to."
He reaches out and takes my hand, placing it flat on his stomach. I can feel the muscle there, solid under my palm, but also the slight softness that comes with age.
"I'm forty-seven," he says. "I've got scars. Gray hair. My body doesn't move the way it used to. And I don't care what you look like because you're you and I've wanted you since the morning you walked to the trash bin in those shorts."
"That's different."
"How?"
"You looked good in those shorts."
"So did you."
I want to believe him. Want to take this simple offering of desire and not complicate it with my own insecurity. But decades of living in a body that doesn't meet conventional standards has taught me to be careful about trust.
"Show me," he says.
"What?"
"Show me your body. Let me see what you're so worried about."
My hands are shaking when I reach for the hem of my tank top. I pull it off slowly, feeling the air conditioning hit my bare skin.
My breasts are large and soft, sitting lower than they used to. My stomach is round, pale, marked with stretch marks that catch the light.
I make myself look at him instead of looking away.
His eyes move over me slowly. Not quick, not polite. Really looking.
His jaw is tight and there's color in his face that wasn't there before.
"Stand up," he says.
I do, even though every instinct tells me to cover myself. The shorts sit low on my hips because elastic waistbands are the only kind I can wear comfortably anymore. My thighs are thick, touching from hip to knee.
Knox gets out of bed and comes to stand in front of me. His hands go to my hips, fingers pressing into the soft flesh there. He pulls me against him and I can feel how hard he is through his jeans.
"This is what you do to me," he says. "This body. These hips. This stomach."
His hand slides down to cup my belly, palm flat against the roundness. I freeze, every muscle going tense.
"I want my hands here," he says. "Want to feel how soft you are. Want to know what it's like to touch you without you pulling away."
"I'm not pulling away."
"You're thinking about it."
He's right. I'm standing here rigid as a board, preparing for rejection even though his body is telling me the opposite.
"I don't know how to do this," I say.
"Do what?"
"Let you see me. Let you want me. Ben never... he never looked at me like this."
Knox's hand tightens on my hip. "Ben was an idiot."
"He was a good man."
"I don't care. He was an idiot if he had you and didn't worship every inch of you."
The word worship makes something hot coil in my stomach.