That was why I climbed out of bed. That’s why I ripped off the Band-Aid instead of wasting more hours lying in the dark.
The clubhouse was quiet aside from a couple of moans that were coming from the bar, and I shoved them aside because they were pretty standard at this hour.
Yet another reason to get the housing development underway because, dear God, if my kid happened to learn about BJs how Giulia had, then I’d scream.
When I made it to Storm’s office, I saw the light was on underneath the doorway.
I didn’t knock, I just opened the door, coming across a room that had changed since I’d started staying here.
What with him tearing his office apart to find the hidden safes, I’d taken the opportunity to paint the walls again, get a new carpet, and a new sofa that didn’t look like it had chlamydia.
For whatever reason, Storm had decided to keep the painting of the dogs playing poker—I never said he was an art connoisseur—and his menagerie of plants was taking over a good three-quarters of the room, mostly because he’d brought in the ones from the old house too.
I was seriously waiting on the day for him to decide to grow weed. Merging a hobby with business seemed to be pretty standard for the MC way of life.
At first glance, he wasn’t in here, then I found him, standing in the chaos of leaves from a thriving fishtail palm, a false aralia plant, a rubber plant, and a lacy leaf rhododendron—yes, I knew the names now. He had his phone out and was taking a picture of something.
"Cyan will like this."
Jolting in surprise because I hadn’t realized he knew I was there, I queried, "What will she like?"
"Come see," he directed, shooting me a look from eyes that were... well, they weren’t as sad as the first time I’d ever seen him, but they were definitely tired.
I trod over to his side, then peered at where he was looking before I let out a snort. "A ladybug for a ladybug." Well, in this case, a little huddle of them on a leaf.
"Exactly." He smiled at me. "I took a picture for prosperity."
"Surprised you even saw them."
"Was just making sure they were okay for the night."
I cast him a look. "You putting them to bed?" I teased.
He grinned at me, looking surprisingly boyish. "Maybe."
His eyes darkened when he took me in. I guessed it was dumb not to have dressed up for the ‘occasion,’ but I didn’t wear lingerie or anything lacy, just sleep shorts and a loose camisole. Didn’t stop him from drooling over me like I was wearing Victoria’s Secret, though.
The sudden hunger in his eyes, one that overtook his fatigue, more than made up for the hours of waiting in our bed, but still, it prompted me to ask, "Were you nervous too?"
He let out a short laugh. "Crazy, right?"
I shrugged. "Nothing’s crazy if that’s how you feel."
"You know I’m gonna come the second you put your hand on me."
"I don’t know. If that was true, you’d have broken your promise months ago."
He blinked. "True."
Was this really about performance anxiety?
Call me stupid, but I found that endearing. So I backed off, begun to retreat, that was when he grabbed my hand and hauled me against his side. I yelped in surprise, but then tumbled into his arms. Amid the leaves, he held me close as he walked backward so that he could lean his butt on the windowsill.
"Where do you think you’re going?" he rumbled.
I smiled. "Nowhere?"
"Exactly." He arranged me so that I could sit on his thigh while still leaning into his chest. I placed a hand over his heart, and he tipped his chin over my head. "I’m sorry we couldn’t go to Corkscrew Falls."
"Things are too crazy here. I get it," I disregarded, sighing as I twisted a little more so I could better hug him. "I just need to be with you," I admitted softly.
"Truer words, baby girl, truer words." He pressed a kiss to the crown of my head. "I guess I’m scared."
Eyes flaring wide at the admission, I asked, "Scared? Of what?"
"That once I let go, I’ll fuck up."
"You won’t fuck up."
"I might. I don’t want to let you and Cyan down but I’ve been doing that since the beginning."
I frowned and pulled back to stare at him, just so he could see me scowl. "You didn’t fuck up everything."
"No? Well, that’s something then." He rolled his eyes.
Squinting at him, I demanded, "We had plenty of good times and we’ll have plenty more. You’re not going to be bearing the burden of our marriage on your shoulders alone anymore. We’ll be stronger going forward, and I’ll be better prepared to deal with whatever comes our way."
He swallowed. "Everyone’s dead now who could cause a problem."
"God, you’re right. Your mom too?" He’d never mentioned her dying, but neither had he said she was still living.
"I need you to know something, Keira. Before we do this."
"Okay?" I asked warily.
"I would never touch you if I was unclean."
"I quite like it when you’re sweaty," I teased.
His nose crinkled. "I didn’t mean that kind of unclean."
"You mean STDs?"
"I do."
"I never thought you would. Me or another woman." I shrugged. "Was I wrong to think that?"
"No! You weren’t wrong to trust me. I just—" He reached up and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Two years ago, couple months before we broke up—"
"When you started acting weird on me?"
He nodded. "Mom called me to meet up with her. I didn’t realize it was her. She pretended to be Scarlet. I went and saw her, talked to her, found out she was sick. Dying, by the looks of her. She gave me a birthday gift."
Why didn’t I think it was a nice gold watch?
"What was it?"
"She stuck me with a dirty needle."
I jerked to my feet. "Jesus Christ! What the fuck?"
He tilted his head back to look at me. "You don’t say ‘fuck’ a lot."
"I think this merited it." I slammed my ass back down on his thigh. "What happened?"
"She implied that, well, I was going to die too."
My throat felt thick. "She’s dead, right? So I can’t go kill her?"
"She’s dead," he murmured, no small amount of satisfaction lacing his words. "I went and had every kind of blood test under the sun, but HIV tests take time. It’s detectable between one and three months after potential exposure so—"
"You were in limbo."
"I was." He dipped his chin. "I was clean though. It was too late by that point. I’d already wrecked things with you."
"Wait. This went down around your birthday, didn’t it?"
He blinked, nodded. "Yeah. On my birthday."
It hit me then, why he’d been so weird. Why he’d been so distant. Not because he was cheating and pulling away, but because he thought he was dying.
He’d thought his mother had killed him.