Epilogue
Nitro
I’d been at the kitchen table for two hours with a stack of papers in front of me -- club financials Beast had forwarded over.
Nothing urgent, just enough to keep my hands occupied while my body figured out how to heal.
My reading glasses were pushed up on my nose, and I tapped my pen in a slow, irregular rhythm against the table’s edge as I worked through the numbers.
The bullet wound in my side pulled tight when I leaned forward -- not painful exactly, but present, a constant reminder of what had happened and how close I’d come to not making it home.
The doctor had been clear: six weeks before I’d be cleared for normal activity, maybe longer before I could ride again.
The tissue damage had been significant -- the bullet had torn through muscle before exiting clean, leaving a path through my body that would take months to fully heal.
I shifted carefully in the chair, bracing my left hand against the table’s edge to ease the movement, and returned to the column of figures I’d been checking.
The kitchen was quiet -- just the soft hum of the refrigerator and the occasional creak of the house settling into late afternoon.
Outside, the compound had hit that lull between breakfast at the clubhouse and whatever the night would bring -- most of the men gone on runs or already at work, the women gathered at Lyssa’s for the weekly book club I’d been told, in no uncertain terms, I was not invited to join.
The screen door opened -- no knock, just the sound of the latch releasing -- and Willa stepped through with her phone in one hand and a reusable grocery bag in the other.
She’d been out with Whisper -- a trip to the farmer’s market in town, an errand that had stretched into most of the afternoon.
Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, dark strands coming free around her face, and there was a flush across her cheekbones from the heat.
She moved through the kitchen with the care of someone learning to accommodate a changing center of gravity.
The babies were due in less than two months -- one boy, one girl, the sonogram images still folded in my wallet -- and the pregnancy had reached that stage where movement had become its own kind of negotiation.
Willa leaned slightly back as she walked, one hand braced against the small of her spine, the other pressed against her belly.
She set the bag on the counter and opened the refrigerator, bending carefully at the knees rather than the waist as she reached for a bottle of water on the bottom shelf.
Her maternity shirt -- one of mine, actually, an old gray Henley she’d claimed after outgrowing most of her own clothes -- rode up slightly at the back as she straightened, revealing a strip of skin at her lower spine.
I watched her pour the water into a glass -- no longer observing her out of habit or vigilance, but because every small thing she did had started to matter to me -- and felt warmth spread slowly through my chest. The bullet had missed my heart by inches.
The surgeon had said it twice, as if making absolutely certain I’d heard him.
Three inches to the right and I wouldn’t be sitting at this table, wouldn’t be watching Willa move through my kitchen, wouldn’t be waiting for the two lives growing inside her to make themselves known in the world.
She turned with the glass in her hand and caught me looking -- not the quick glance away or the careful redirection I would have managed before we grew closer, but with the kind of attention that turned ordinary moments into things worth remembering.
She crossed to the table, setting the water beside my papers with a movement that brought her wrist into brief contact with my shoulder.
“Thirsty?” she asked, her voice casual, her attention on the papers rather than my face.
I nodded, not quite trusting my voice, and reached for the glass with my right hand -- the one that didn’t make my side pull tight when I moved. “Thanks.”
She was already turning away, one hand pressed against the curve of her belly where one of the twins had shifted position.
I’d learned to read the changes in her expression -- the slight furrow between her eyebrows that meant discomfort, the way she held herself when the babies were particularly active, the moment when she went completely still, her attention narrowed to the single point where life was happening beneath her skin.
Now she moved to the counter and began unpacking the grocery bag -- peaches and plums, a jar of local honey with the farm’s label hand-written across the front, a bundle of fresh herbs tied with kitchen twine.
She handled each item with patient precision, never careless or rushed -- not fussy or performative, just fully present.
I set my pen down and watched her, the column of figures forgotten. Six weeks since I’d been shot. Six weeks of careful movement and restricted activity. Six weeks of Willa moving through my house, my life, my understanding of what the future might hold. Not pushing. Not rushing.
The house had always felt lived in. I’d never been the type to keep a place spotless and untouched like nobody actually existed there. But lately, new pieces had started weaving themselves into the life already inside those walls.
A second toothbrush sat beside mine in the bathroom.
Willa’s boots stayed by the front door more often than not.
Whisper had shown up with a collection of cartoon-character mugs after finding out about the twins, and somehow they’d taken over the bottom cabinet shelf like they’d always belonged there.
Small things. Quiet things. The kind of details that shouldn’t have mattered nearly as much as they did.
Except every time I noticed them, something settled deeper inside me. Because the house no longer felt like it belonged only to me. It felt like it belonged to us.
Willa reached for a bowl in the upper cabinet, her movements careful as she stretched, one hand braced against the counter for balance. The shirt rode higher, revealing more of the curve where her waist had been -- not gone, exactly, but transformed, expanded to make room for what was coming.
She glanced over her shoulder, catching me watching again. I caught the glimpse of a faint smile. “They’re active today,” she said, her voice carrying none of the edge it had held in the early days. “Think they know you’re watching?”
I pushed back from the table -- carefully, mindful of my side -- and crossed to where she stood at the counter.
I stopped behind her, close enough that the heat from her body reached me through the thin cotton of my shirt, and rested my palm against her belly where her hand had been.
The movement was automatic -- not thought through or decided on, just the gesture of a body finding its natural position.
The twins shifted again -- a distinct, rolling movement that traveled beneath my palm from one side to the other -- and I felt my breath catch, the recalibration of a man whose understanding of the world had just expanded beyond what language could hold.
Willa went completely still beneath my touch -- not tense, not pulling away, but present. Her head tipped back slightly, coming to rest against my collarbone.
We stood together in the kitchen’s fading light -- her body tucked against mine, our hands resting over the babies -- and for once neither of us tried to retreat from what was happening between us.
* * *
Willa
One week later
The evening settled around us like something physical -- warm and heavy and solid in a way that made the edges of the room feel closer.
I was tucked against Nitro’s side on the couch, my legs drawn up as far as my belly would allow, his arm stretched along the back cushions behind me.
The television was on -- some documentary about deep-sea exploration that neither of us was paying attention to -- and the lamp on the side table threw a pool of amber light across the coffee table and onto the hardwood beyond.
Down the short hallway, the nursery door stood half-open -- painted sage green three weekends ago by a rotating crew of Kings who’d shown up with brushes and drop cloths and the focus of men who’d decided something mattered.
Through the gap, I could see the corner of a crib -- assembled last Tuesday by Nitro and Beast. I knew there were two, both waiting empty, sheets tucked military-tight at the corners, the mobiles Whisper had brought over hanging motionless above them.
Lately, the house carried a softer, more settled kind of quiet. The refrigerator hummed to life in the kitchen. The air conditioning clicked on with a soft thunk, sending cool air through the vents in the ceiling.
I shifted against Nitro’s side, trying to find a position that didn’t make my back ache or put pressure on the spot where one of the twins had wedged a foot beneath my ribs.
The babies had been active all day -- rolling and kicking and shifting with the insistence of two bodies running out of room -- and my body had reached that stage of pregnancy where comfort existed mostly as a concept rather than an experience.
Nitro adjusted without being asked -- his arm moving from the back of the couch to around my shoulders, his hand coming to rest at the curve of my lower back where the muscles had been tight since morning.
The movement was automatic -- not thought through or decided on, just the gesture of a body that had learned to anticipate mine.
His palm was warm through the thin cotton of my shirt, his fingers spread wide across the small of my back, his thumb making one slow, unconscious pass along the ridge of my spine.
We both went still. The television murmured on -- a narrator describing bioluminescent creatures in the deep ocean, voice pitched to convey both wonder and scientific precision. The lamp continued to burn, its light steady against the walls.