Avery
God was nagging at me. I guessed he thought I had to pay for my sins. My anger. My mouth. The way I talked to him between cries for help and prayers for change.
I got that. I had been a bad girl to too many people, not least Cade, as my fuse ran short.
But give me a fucking break.
Work got busy and I needed the money, but not so much the distraction now. I had another kind. Two, actually. Cade, and when I'd get to see him again. And Whitney, who was going from strength to strength.
Cade was busier than ever. He'd told me how Dax had sent him on a run to clear his head, but this wasn't that. There were things the club was always dealing with, and a Nomad was the one who had to hit the road.
We never got past a kiss or a cuddle before someone needed one of us… and it seemed everyone's needs were desperate and now. I needed time to just breathe, but that only came when I was alone. I didn't want alone anymore. I wanted still-together time. Quiet-together time.
And I was itching for more than that too.
Much more.
I needed my bad boy to show me just how bad.
I hadn't thought about sex in months and now it was top of my mind. I didn't want our first time to be a quickie.
I needed a slow ride.
One I could remember.
But a girl can only wait so long before the waiting becomes its own kind of torture.
When he told me he was coming north again and we should take a ride together, I could barely contain myself.
This was the day.
"I'm riding today, when Cade gets here," I told Whitney.
She winked. "A bike?"
She'd gotten her mojo back. Her fun self. The one where you know there's more life left than you'd been believing.
She was in remission.
Not out of the woods.
Maybe never out of them.
But beyond the trees and into the light.
And I guessed that's all any of us had. The light we could see, not the darkness we either knew was coming or didn't.
In times like these, it made me wish I was an animal. Something that doesn't carry mortality around like a suitcase.
"Yeah," I said. "Bike first. Then animal-Avery after."
I was done thinking.
I needed to feel.