“So?”
“So...” Saint shivered, the demon in his throat snatching his words, but he seemed to be in the mood to fight it, and he won. “Rubi believes inyou. But it’s probably never occurred to him that you want this. If he knew... he’d probably see his whole fucking existence in a different light.”
I needed more than that, but Saint was done talking. He closed his eyes, meditating or whatever the fuck he did with his brain when he got like this, until he decided we needed to go home.
And by home, he meant the house I shared with Rubi, not the compound where I’d planned on waiting for the lorries to come in.
Inside, I discovered why, and Rubi was on me in the hallway before I’d shut the damn door.
Shirtless, damp hair tied back in a man-bun messier than mine, he filled the small space, going straight for my pockets.
He retrieved my phone. “These suckers work better if you turn themon.”
“I forgot.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Chattypants. But don’t worry about any of that. You’re home, Riv. That’s all I fucking care about.”
Rubi tugged me into his arms and we fit together, our wildly different bodies pieces of a puzzle that wasn’t broken anymore. For a long time now, we’d been whole. But our story wasn’t over, and I sank into his embrace with Saint’s words echoing a loop in my brain.
Ask him. Ask him. Ask him.
Rubi kissed me, and I fell a little harder into the heady daze that always snared me when we were home alone. The happy trance that had fuck all to do with sex and everything to do with the peace in his hazel eyes as he released me and led me to the living room. To the sight of the map books and pencils spread out on the coffee table and the half-eaten bag of Doritos beside them.
I’d missed dinner.
And lunch.
Probably breakfast if I thought too hard about it.
My stomach growled. I swiped the Doritos before Rubi could get in my face about it and dropped onto the couch beside him. “What’s that?”
I pointed to a neat stack of files that seemed out of place among the road shit I’d grown up with.”
Rubi’s gaze glanced over it. “Admin bollocks.Boringbollocks.”
“What about the rest? Cos if you’re mapping out another haulage run, I might have to set fire to every rig in that fucking hub.”
“Or...” Rubi spread his hands. “You could use that noggin of yours for good instead of evil. What am I usually doing when I get these vintage beauties out?”
The map books and road atlases that had belonged to our parents long before satellite navigation existed. “You’re planning a ride?”
“Theride,” Rubi corrected. “For the whole club, now the sun’s peeking out again. Tradition, innit?”
Not for the last few years. The council had been too caught up in war and death threats to risk it. But things were different now—everythingwas different.
Even me.
Even him.
Nerves rattled me. The Doritos sat heavy in my stomach, but I kept eating them. For him. For me. Forus.
Everything for us, forever.
“It’s happening soon.” Rubi broke into my thoughts. “Cammie wants the future to start now, and he wants to do that by going back to our roots.”