She’d lost people already, so of course that was a worry.
“I want to tell you I’m a grizzly bear and we’re hard to kill, plus I have my brothers at my back, but I get that you were with the Owl King before and he had an entire kingdom at his back. All I can tell you is that bears are a lot harder to kill than owls. From what I understand, Able was a good king who looked out for his people, and he died a valiant death. Small comfort for those who loved him, I’m sure, but he went first in battle and died with honor.” I leaned against the door frame. “I’d still want to kick his ass for some of the things he did to you if he was alive, though.”
She pulled her hair up and stepped into the shower without saying anything else. I stretched out on the bed to wait for her. When she came out of the bathroom five minutes later, she had the panties and bra on, and she smelled of soap. No scents. Just a clean, sexy swan.
She opened the closet and I stared at her ass while she talked. “Are we staying in to eat, or going out?”
“Someone told me about a new surf-and-turf place out near the old mall. You can get seafood and I can get steak. Wanna check it out?”
“Sure. Give me ten minutes to get dressed and I’ll be out.” She motioned me out of the bedroom, and I closed the door on my way out. I’d started to ask why she wanted me gone, but I was smart enough to know that — at least while she was deciding whether to live with me or not — I should give her some privacy when she asked for it.
Dementor
“Two nights a week at my house,” she told me shortly after our food was delivered. “I don’t care which two, and they don’t have to be concurrent.”
I put my fork and steak knife down. This had come out of the blue. I hadn’t planned to have this conversation quite yet. “You’re saying you want to keep it as is, except two nights at your place?”
“Not exactly, but I’m saying the rest of the conversation isn’t necessary if we’re going to be in your apartment every single day and night. That’s me in your world, and maybe my world is boring, but there’s a jetted tub and a much better kitchen at my place, plus I have trees around me. I want you in my world at least a little. Two nights a week is around a quarter of the time. That gives us three quarters of the time at your place. I realize you have obligations that mean you need to be there, so I’m good with spending more time at your apartment and not trying to divide it evenly.”
I’d had to leave the bed on more than one occasion when the control room called for me to check on a potential problem, so she understood why I needed to be close. They rotated through the list for small stuff, and called several of us out for bigger problems. Sometimes I was gone ten minutes, sometimes two hours. Most problems happened in the evenings and at night, though. So long as we were at the apartment on at least one of my full nights off, I could probably swing being gone two nights a week every week.
“So long as the MC isn’t having security issues, that should be doable, but if we go to war with another group then I won’t be able to.”
“Okay. I get that.”
“What else do you need to change?”
“I need more space to hang my clothes, and more drawer space too, if I’m going to stay.” She blew out a breath. “And it’s a little embarrassing to admit, but even though I only bring enough to get me through the week, I need a better place to store my shoes.”
“We don’t have any empty two bedroom apartments right now. I can move us to the top of the list, so when someone moves out, it’s ours. Until then, we can put one of those mobile closet things in the bedroom, and I can see about clearing out more drawer space. I can easily reach the top of my closet, so I can put things up there.” I nudged her foot with mine under the table, and she put her foot on top of mine. It’d kind of become our little thing, and my heart threatened to melt every time I felt her shoe resting on my boot. Silly, but there you go.
“What I’m hearing,” I told her, “is logistics more than emotions. How do you feel about me after spending a week with me? I’m closer to you. It makes me want to move forward even more.”
“Ditto. Honestly, my biggest issue is that I’ve enjoyed my freedom so freaking much for the past year. Well, not the first two or three months, but then I got used to it, and not having to report in with someone before I left the house felt great. In my father’s house, they had to know where I was every minute. Things were even more restrictive under Able’s rules, and I hadn’t thought that possible. The idea of having to check in with you before I can leave bothers me, and knowing that if plans change when I’m out, that I can’t just go with the flow, but will have to double-check with you first...”
I got the impression she was too frustrated with the thought to finish it, and that wasn’t good, but I wasn’t prepared to bend on this one.
“You aren’t asking if you can go, you’re just letting me know where you’re going. Same deal if plans change — you just need to let me know.”
“But you aren’t going to let me know where you are every second.”
We both knew I wasn’t, so I just looked at her and waited for her to finish her thought.
“If you aren’t going to check in with me constantly, I’m not going to check in with you.”
“And if we can see each other’s phone locations?”
“You don’t carry your phone with you when you patrol at night. You don’t always take it when you and your brothers ride together. It’s not an equal exchange.”
“Here’s the thing. It’s never going to be equal. It just isn’t. Some things will weigh in my direction, others will weigh in your direction. I’d venture to say our orgasm ratio last week was fifteen to one in your favor, but that was perfectly okay because I enjoy watching you come unglued. This week, it went the other way, and that’s okay, too. It’s life. Some weekends we’ll be with your friends the whole time because of derby stuff, other weekends we’ll be with my friends most of the time because of club activities. We take life as it comes to us. If we try to make it fair, we’ll drive ourselves crazy. I need to know you’re safe. I need to know my enemies don’t have you somewhere doing horrible things to you. We both come to the relationship with different needs, and I need you to humor me in this.”
She took a long drink of her wine and then a few bites of lobster before she responded. “Okay. Point taken. It’s childish to think every single thing can be made fair or exactly parallel. The fact of the matter is, though, that I’m going to resent having to constantly check in. It might make it sting a little less if you were doing it too, but it’s still going to be something that’s...” She put her fork down. “This might be a case of your needs and my baggage being at odds. This is a prime example of the baggage I’m dragging along behind me, and I’m fully aware of that, but it isn’t like I can just pretend it isn’t there. If I have to constantly check in with you, I’m going to resent it.”
We’d both drawn a line in the sand. Not good. How could I soften my line? I stared at my plate a few moments before telling her, “Okay. We put the location thing on both our phones.” Mad Dog was going to have to be okay with it for at least a few months. “I have your schedule and I mostly know how and why it might deviate now. If I see you somewhere that concerns me, please answer my text. If you’re going somewhere dangerous, or somewhere that just feels as if you should let me know before you go, please do, but that’s a request and not a requirement. That’s it. I won’t ask for more.” Yet.