I fell in love with him that day, though I wouldn’t admit it to myself until later. After losing both my parents in a car crash during high school, I’d built walls around my heart. I’d learned how quickly the people you love could be taken away, how little the universe cared about your plans or your happiness.
But Roman had scaled those walls effortlessly. He understood my loss in a way few others did; his father was also dead, his mother gone before he could even form memories of her. We were both orphans in our way, both alone until we found each other. At least at the time, I thought we were both alone.
By the time I realized that wasn’t completely true, he’d already held my heart.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Roman’s voice pulls me back to the present as he settles beside me on the steps, our shoulders touching.
“Just thinking how hot my husband is,” I answer, smiling up at him. “You should work shirtless more often.”
He chuckles, the sound rumbling deep in his chest. “Is that so, Sunshine?”
“Definitely,” I smile, leaning into him.
His arm slides around my waist, pulling me even closer against him. “So what do you think?” he asks again, nodding toward the garden beds. “Worth the wait?”
I turn to press a kiss against his stubbled cheek, breathing in his scent: sawdust and sweat and that indefinable essence that is purely Roman. “I love them. Thank you.”
A gleam enters his eyes, something heated and hungry that still makes my stomach flip. “That all the thanks I get?” he asks, voice dropping lower. “Thought you might have something more… enthusiastic in mind.”
I bite my lip, feeling heat rise to my cheeks. “What did you have in mind?”
His large hand slides under the hem of my t-shirt, calloused fingers warm against my skin as they inch upward. “I could show you,” he murmurs, lips brushing my ear.
My breath catches as his thumb traces the underside of my breast through my bra.
I’m about to suggest we take this inside when Roman’s phone buzzes in his pocket.
He freezes, then pulls it out, checking the screen. His expression shifts almost imperceptibly — a tightening around his eyes, a slight clench of his jaw. To anyone else, he’d look the same, but I know every nuance of his face, every expression, every shift.
“I need to take this,” he says, already standing.
Just like that, the spell is broken. Roman, my husband, becomes Roman, the VP of the Devil’s Rejects MC. He steps into the house, the screen door closing behind him with a soft click.
I remain on the steps, suddenly aware of the cooling evening air against my skin where his hand had been moments before. This is our reality: moments of perfect connection interrupted by the ever-present demands of his other life. His other family.
The brotherhood.
By the time I realized exactly what it meant to love a man with that patch on his back, I was in too deep to walk away. Now, years later, I’ve made my compromises. I don’t ask too manyquestions. I don’t demand to know where he goes on certain nights. I pretend not to notice the occasional bruised knuckles, the hushed phone calls, the tension that sometimes radiates from him when he returns home in the early hours.
It’s the bargain I’ve struck to keep him, to keep us. Most days, it’s enough. Some days, like today, watching him slip into that other life right before my eyes, the distance feels vast and unbridgeable.
I take another sip of my water, staring blankly out into the backyard. My new beds stand ready before me, already carrying the promise of new growth, of life I’ll nurture come spring. A counterbalance, perhaps, to the other parts of our life together.
The screen door opens again, and Roman returns, slipping his phone back into his pocket. His expression is impossible to read.
“Everything okay?” I ask, though I know better.
“Yeah,” he says, taking his seat next to me again. “Just club business.”
I nod, swallowing the follow-up questions that rise instinctively. What kind of business? Is there trouble? Will you need to leave tonight? Instead, I let the silence stretch between us, willing to wait until he either volunteers more information or changes the subject.
He does neither, just sits beside me, close but somehow distant, his mind clearly still processing whatever was said on that call.
I could push. Part of me wants to. But I’ve learned that pushing rarely gets me anywhere with Roman when it comes to club matters. He keeps those worlds separate — me in one, the MC in another — and the walls between them are high and thick.
“I made a pitcher of lemonade,” I say finally, opting for neutral ground. “It’s chilling inside. Want some?”
He glances at me, and I see the gratitude in his eyes — for not pushing, for understanding, or at least pretending to. “Sure.”