Winter turns silent. I wish I knew his thoughts because the silence that sits between us some days steals my breath. When he gives them to me now, they really do suck the oxygen from me. “I need this, Birdie.” Winter pretty much never asks for what he needs. He’s all about giving, and taking care of others. Taking care of me. Especially of me.
I wiggle in his arms so I can face him. The torment in his eyes slays me. Even the strongest men have demons that bring them to their knees. “You need to make plans for the nursery?”
“I need to stop standing still and that’s what this feels like. Fuck, it feels like we’ve been standing still for years.”
My breathing slows. I don’t know what he’s saying here, but I’m fairly sure this isn’t just about baby furniture. “What do you mean?”
“Seven years of waiting for the next part of our lives is a long fucking time.”
“But we’re not waiting. We’re doing stuff to make it happen.”
“Mostly we’re waiting. And I’m okay with that, because I want this baby as much as you do, but we’re pregnant now and I want to prepare for our child.”
I know Winter struggles with IVF, with the fact he can’t fix the problem we have. My man’s strength is that he solves problems; this journey has frustrated that part of him. He does need this, and so I need to figure out a way to give it to him because he gives me the world even when it must be the hardest thing for him to do.
Swallowing down my fear, I nod. “Okay, let’s go look at baby furniture.”
There are a lot of things I’ve wanted over the last seven years. I’ve wanted to give up. I’ve wanted to quit the needles, the pills, the prodding, the poking, the blood tests, the procedures. I’ve wanted to cry myself to sleep more times than I can count. But the one thing I’ve never wanted was to do any of this without Winter by my side.
He makes my world better just by being in it.
He lifts me up when the only way I can see is down.
He has my back at all times, no questions asked.
After everything we’ve been through and everything I’ve not been able to give him, he still chooses me.
I’ll find it within myself to give him what he needs.
21
Winter
* * *
Birdie: We need to change the chemicals we use in the garden.
Me: Why?
Birdie: They contain endocrine disrupting chemicals.
* * *
Jesus, I thought we were done with clearing the chemicals from our house and the clubhouse that she found to be harmful to fertility. The last rampage she went on caused a huge fight; I don’t want a repeat of that.
* * *
Birdie: I’ll make a list. We can do this on the weekend after we go to IKEA.
Me: Ok.
Birdie: What time will you and Max be home tonight? I wanna have dinner ready.
Me: His flight gets in at 3:30pm.
Birdie: Love you. Have a good day, baby xx
* * *
“We’ve got a problem with Striker. One that may cause us some grief with Silver Hell.” Ransom says, drawing my attention back to what we’re doing: waiting for Javier to show with our coke. We arrived ten minutes early, so he should be here any minute.
“What kind of problem?” Striker is the only club member to repeatedly give me headaches. Fuck knows what he’s done now.
“He fucked the sister of one of their members.”
“Fuck. I wish to Christ he’d learn to keep his dick in his pants.”
“You and me both. The only reason I know about this is because their VP pulled me aside last night when I was out, and let me know they’re not happy about it.”
“I’ll talk to Striker and make him fix this.”
Javier’s truck pulls into the old warehouse we use to receive our deliveries. His Bentley pulls in after, and a minute later, he exits it and walks our way. Removing his dark glasses, he says, “Winter. Ransom.”
His guys jump out of the truck and we inspect the coke. Once we’re finished, Javier pulls me aside. “King called me today.” His eyes darken with distaste. “He wants to negotiate a new price.”
Fuck, King could have given me a fucking head’s up on this. “You have a problem with this?”
“I have a problem with King. I thought you and I had an agreement that I’d only ever deal with you.”
“I wasn’t aware King planned on stepping in. I’ll handle this.”
“You do that, my friend, because if I hear from King again, things aren’t going to go well for Storm. Also, I heard whisperings that Zenith are making plans again. Something you might want to keep an eye on.”
With that, he slips his glasses back on and leaves Ransom and me.
“Trouble?” Ransom asks as we watch Javier leave.
“You could say that.” I hope to fuck I can fix it, because Storm will be screwed if I can’t. “He also told me Zenith might become a problem again.” After we thought we wiped them out seven years ago, they started back up in Adelaide. Since they left town and kept out of our shit, and since we wanted to lay low where the feds were concerned, we’ve left them alone. I’ve made sure we’re ready if they ever show up here again, though.
“I’ll get Hunt to do some digging.” He checks his phone as a text comes through and then glances back at me. “You heading back to the clubhouse now?”
“I’m going to find Striker and have a word, and then I’m taking off for the day. Get Hunt to make Zenith his priority. I want to know exactly what those assholes are up to.”
“Will do,” he says before leaving me.
I pull out my phone and bring up King’s number.
“You finished with Torres?” he says.
“Yeah and I would have appreciated some notice that you were planning negotiations with him. He’s pissed that you reached out, King.”
“I don’t give a fuck that he’s pissed. It’s long past time to renegotiate price.”
“Yeah, but he won’t do that with you and you know that. And quite fucking honestly, you should have brought this up with me yesterday so I could start the negotiations with him today.”
“I run this fucking operation, Winter; I don’t need to bring anything up with you before I decide to do it.”
“Yeah, you do run it, but who the fuck runs the day-to-day of it? I’ll fucking tell you who: me. And I’ll also tell you that if you keep this shit up, Torres is walking away. Back the fuck down, King, and let me get this done.”
“You wanna try that again, brother?”
“No I don’t wanna fucking try that again.” Fuck. “I want you to listen for one goddam time in your life because this will be make or break for Storm. We’ve got a good business here; you continue down this path and you’ll shoot it all to shit.”
“This is the path we’re going down so I suggest you either get the fuck on board or step the fuck out of my way.”
The line goes dead.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I stretch my neck and force out some breaths. King and I have had some heated discussions over the years, but this has reached a new level. He’s being fucking stubborn. And foolish. And I’m going to have to go up against him again because someone has to make him see sense. I’ve worked too damn hard on our business to let him fuck it up.