Chapter Nine
Willa
I woke to the weight of Nitro’s arm across my waist, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm against my back.
The room was still dark, just the first hint of morning light seeping around the edges of the curtains, but I could see enough to make out the shape of him -- one arm thrown above his head, the other curled around me with a attention that felt new despite the hours we’d spent together the night before.
His skin was warm through the thin cotton of the sheet, his breathing even and unhurried, his body a solid line of heat against mine from shoulder to knee.
I lay still for a moment, gaze on the ceiling, waiting for the familiar clench of regret to arrive.
The urge to reframe what had happened as a mistake, to brace for the disappointment that came with the morning after.
It didn’t come. That absence -- that particular void where regret should have been -- was what finally moved me.
I eased out from under his arm with careful, deliberate slowness, each inch measured and controlled.
His hand flexed once when I shifted away, fingers curling into the empty space where my waist had been, but he didn’t wake.
His face, relaxed in sleep, looked different -- the control he wore like a second skin stripped away, the hard edges of his jaw softened, his mouth slightly open.
He looked younger somehow, or maybe just more human.
My feet found the floor without a sound, toes curling against the cool hardwood.
I slipped from the bedroom without looking back, a decision made without thinking it through.
I quickly went to the room I’d been using to pull on some clothes, then made my way to the kitchen.
It was cool in the early morning. I moved to the back door instead of the coffee maker, twisting the deadbolt with careful fingers and stepping out onto the small concrete porch.
The air hit me immediately -- sharp with early spring chill, carrying the scent of pine and motor oil that belonged to this place and no other.
I stood with my arms crossed over my belly, my bare feet cold against the concrete and watched my breath cloud in front of my face.
The compound was quiet at this hour -- just the occasional sound of a distant door shutting, the quiet hush of a place not fully awake yet.
The clubhouse stood at the center of the property, windows dark except for a single light in what I guessed was the kitchen.
Beyond it, the trees rose in a solid line, their branches still bare from winter, their shadows stretching across the gravel lot where the club’s bikes sat in careful rows.
I stood there for one long minute, then another, my jaw working through something I didn’t have words for yet.
My body felt different -- not just the awareness of the twins shifting inside me or the pleasant soreness from the night before, but something deeper.
As if the distance I’d been keeping between myself and everything in Nitro’s house had finally begun to dissolve.
Behind me, the door opened with a soft click that seemed to land in the center of my chest. I didn’t turn.
Didn’t need to. I could feel him there, his awareness brushing against me the same way it had since I first arrived.
He didn’t speak. He walked through the doorway at an easy pace and took up a place beside me at the porch railing, close enough I could feel the heat from his skin.
He was shirtless, a pair of low-slung sweatpants the only thing between him and the morning air, his feet as bare as mine against the concrete.
His hair was sleep-mussed, one side standing slightly up where it had been pressed against the pillow, and the stubble along his jaw had darkened overnight into something closer to a beard.
He looked, somehow, both exactly like himself and completely different -- the same control in his posture, but something softer in the angle of his shoulders, in the way his gaze moved over my face when he thought I wasn’t looking.
We stood there for a long moment, then another, the quiet around us lacking the restless edge it once carried. Not comfortable yet but no longer strained. Just two people who didn’t need words to know exactly where they stood.
Then he turned and went back inside, his movements unhurried, his bare feet silent on the hardwood.
I heard the cabinet open, the refrigerator door, the sound of coffee being measured and water being poured.
Not rushing, not performing, just the rhythm of a man who’d decided what he wanted and was simply, finally, acting on it.
I followed him after a moment, drawn by the smell of coffee.
He was at the counter when I came in, his back half-turned to the door, his attention on the coffee maker rather than on me.
But I saw the exact moment he registered my presence -- the slight pause in his movements, the shift in his stance that created space without actually moving away.
He poured two mugs without looking at me, his movements unhurried and precise.
Black for him -- no cream, no sugar, nothing to soften the edge of it.
For me, he reached for the small container of almond milk I’d mentioned liking once, days ago, and added just enough to cut the bitterness without making it sweet.
He set the mug on the counter near my hand without comment, the handle turned toward me, then leaned against the opposite counter with his own, his attention on my face.
We drank in silence -- not the distance we’d been keeping since I’d arrived, but something different.
Something that felt, impossibly, like the beginning of a routine.
The coffee was perfect -- strong enough to cut through the fog of the morning but not so bitter it made my jaw clench.
I wrapped both hands around the mug, letting the heat seep into my palms.
The distance between us was smaller than it had been the day before -- just a few feet of counter rather than the half-room we’d both been insisting on.
Neither of us acknowledged it out loud. Didn’t need to.
The attention he was paying me -- the calm patience of a man who already understood something I was still trying to figure out -- made words unnecessary.
The kitchen was warm with morning light and the scent of coffee and the attention we were paying each other.
The refrigerator hummed. The clock on the wall ticked.
The house creaked around us -- wood expanding in the morning heat, pipes settling into place, all the familiar sounds of a home people genuinely lived in.
I took another sip of coffee, letting the warmth spread through my chest, and met Nitro’s gaze over the rim of the mug. He reached for the coffee pot, refilling my mug without being asked, his movements unhurried, his attention complete.
Nitro nudged me gently. “You hungry?”
“Always lately,” I admitted.
“That’s my girl.”
Heat crept into my cheeks at the casual way he said it, like the words belonged there. Like I belonged there -- the thought didn’t scare me nearly as much as it probably should have.