“If I do make it to you,” he continued, his hand brushing through my hair, his voice devastatingly casual as if what he said was only obvious. “You also need to know, I’m happy to die for you. If that’s what you need somewhere deep inside, to know that at least someone in your life loves you better than anyone else, that they would sacrifice themselves without fucking blinking if there was even a one percent greater chance of you surviving, then I can give that to you. Keep livin’ reckless, keep throwin’ yourself into situations not knowing and not totally carin’ if you survive. But like I said, you need to know that I do care, very much. I care enough to die for it.”
I was crying again, for what felt like the dozenth time in the past few weeks after years of dry eyes.
It wasn’t that I was unloved, because I was. My family loved me so beautifully that sometimes I ached with affection for them, my heart too burdened by the weight of my regard for them that it didn’t beat right.
It was that I knew how gorgeous love could be because I felt it and I saw the romantic glow of it between King and Cress, Dad and Loulou, even old Buck and Maja, but I’d never had that for myself. And it killed me to admit it, even to myself, but under all that thorny sassy and steely confidence, I sheltered the tender, greedy heart of a romantic.
And for years that heart had yearned for love, not just from anyone, but him, the man who held me wrapped tight in his strong arms. It had seemed like such an impossibility my entire life until he came blasting back into my life, ever the hero, saving me from myself with Cricket just as he had been saving me from myself all my life.
The reality of being his hit me between the eyes. I could feel the warmth in my chest as Lion’s golden love slid over the cracks of strain and longing in my broken clay heart and healed it, made it so much more beautiful than any other heart could be because I was the only one in the world with a love so bright and kind and strong as his.
“You with me, Rosie?” he said after long minutes of allowing me to digest it.
I nodded then tipped my head so I could kiss his strong throat, my lips sealed to his pulse.
He squeezed me gently again and confirmed, “You going to be careful for me?”
I nodded again, sliding my legs between his so I could cuddle even closer. “I mean I’ll look both ways before I cross the street and I won’t get in the middle of an ambush again, but I can’t promise I won’t get into some trouble. I’m, ah, pretty sure it’s just in my nature.”
He laughed into my hand. “Yeah, rebel. My good girl in bed, and my bad girl outside, can’t say I don’t love it.”
“Good,” I whispered, because as much as I’d yearned to be good like him my whole life, I knew I was too biker, too Garro and too me to ever shy away from danger if it meant something important was on the line.
“Good. Now, we’ve got a lot of stuff to sort in the morning, so sleep, Rosie. I’m with you.”
Yeah, he was with me, because he was mine.
And there was no way in hell I was ever letting him go.
But even as the thought drifted through my mind, my heart reminded me of another ache, the one that ached like the loss of a limb.
I was happy with Danner in a way I never thought I could be, but I wasn’t whole.
How could I be when I haven’t seen my family?
Every time they texted and I ignored them, every time they’d call and I sent it straight to voicemail only to desperately check it minutes later for a sound bite of their beloved voices, I felt myself grow hollower.
Carefully, I slipped out of Danner’s sleeping arms just enough to grab my phone where it lay on the bedside table.
I had twenty-five missed calls and over thirty text messages unanswered.
Cressida: Okay, remind me why I love tequila again? I went out with the brothers to celebrate Bat’s birthday and now it’s the morning after and I couldn’t tell you anything that happened last night. We missed you, by the way.
Loulou: Your dad’s drivin’ me fuckin’ nuts, H.R.. Seriously, will you call him back so he stops walking a hole through our living room? I don’t want the babies to fall through it when they come.
P.S. I miss you too.
P.P.S. Did I tell you we wanna give the baby girl the middle name Rose after her big sister?
King: Went to Mega Music today. Shot the shit with Old Sam. Said he hadn’t seen you in a while and he’s getting old, H.R., so I’d fix that fuckin’ now. Come up and spend a Sunday with me like old times. We’ll go to Mega Music and swing by Danner’s old house to visit Susan. Ya know she left old man Danner, yeah? Don’t blow me off, brat, or I’ll drag you up the mountain my-fuckin’-self.
Lila: Miss you, bitch. Know you probably have good reason to stay away, whatever it is. But we all miss you so fuckin’ much. How am I supposed to plan a weddin’ without my biker bitch of honour?
Dad: left texts, voicemails, and fuckin’ emails, Harleigh Rose. Don’t make me send out a fuckin’ carrier pigeon, ’cause I’ll fuckin’ do it. I don’t hear from you in the next twenty-four fuckin’ hours, I’m ridin’ out, pickin’ you up and never lettin’ you leave home again.
My eyes were burning when I finished reading a few of the many texts and my heart felt fatally fragile, constructed of ash, barely held together by Danner’s affection and constant attention.
I knew, without it, I’d break.
My hand found Danner’s body in the dark, resting over the warm, pulsing skin over his tattoo, right over his heart.
I took comfort from it, then texted out the only thing I could in one mass text.
Harleigh Rose: Need more time. Miss you too xxxx.
2017.
Harleigh Rose is 17. Danner is 26.
The stupid guy wouldn’t get the fucking picture and back the fuck off.
“No, I’m good, man,” I told Rick for the fourth time. “Just stickin’ to the soft stuff, ya know?”
I did not, under any circumstances, do hard drugs, especially not the meth that Rick seemed moved by divine force to push on me. He was a cute guy, a little young being only my age, a teenage student at the fancy Entrance Bay Academy where my brother had gone to school. Too preppy for the biker chick in me, too hardcore for the little girl in me that remembered the exact shade of blue her mother’s lips turned each of the three times she overdosed.
“Oh c’mon,” he whined, moving closer so he had me caged up against the wall in the kitchen. “A little’s not going to hurt you.”
“No,” I agreed with a glare. “But I’m going to hurt you if you don’t back the fuck off.”
He groaned, his brown irises thin frames around his blown pupils. “Fuck I love your spunk. Like me a taste of the wild side.”
“Got a boyfriend, bucko,” I warned him, wishing for the millionth time that Cricket had deigned to join me at this stupid high school party, or that I’d been smart enough to go with him to his biker one. But it was the start of my last year of high school, I wanted to at least try to enjoy it while I could.
“He’s not here, is he?” he asked with a sloppy grin before swaying closer.
I turned my head so his wet lips hit my cheek and growled, “Warned you once, I’ll warn you twice and not a-fucking-gain. Back. Off.”