“Thank you?” I say, making it a question because I’m not entirely sure what’s happening.
Finn shoves his hands deep into his pockets, hunching his shoulders. “It’s an apology,” he mutters, staring at the floor. “For…you know.”
I blink at him, surprised. “An apology?”
“For yelling at you so much. And when I tried to kill you that one time.” His words come out in a rush, as if he’s afraid if he doesn‘t say them quickly, he won’t say them at all. “When Viper and the Devil’s Rejects attacked us to get Naomi back, we lost men. The club was… they were my family. The only one I ever had. I was just really angry.”
The rawness in his voice catches me off guard. I look down at the misshapen wooden cat in my hand, then back up at this boy, because despite everything, that’s what he is: a boy trying to navigate a world that’s given him nothing but hardship.
“You don’t have to keep it,” he adds quickly, seeing my hesitation. “Just if you like it.”
I close my fingers around the carving, oddly touched by this awkward gesture. “I’ll keep it,” I tell him. “Thank you, Finn.”
A flicker of surprise crosses his face, followed by something that might almost be a smile before his usual scowl returns. He gives a curt nod, then turns and strides away, disappearing around the corner before I can say anything else.
I open my palm again to look at the crude wooden cat. It really is spectacularly ugly. But I’m smiling as I tuck it carefully in my pocket.
It hits me suddenly that that’s the thing about this place, these people. Nothing is as simple as it seems. Not Finn with his anger and his apologies. Not Demon with his taunting words andcomplicated motivations. Not Roman who let me down and has spent every moment since making sure it never happens again.
And not me, standing in this hallway, and feeling just a little bit less alone.
* * *
I find the gym by accident.
I’m not looking for it, not looking for anything in particular, just following the corridors the way I’ve been doing whenever restlessness gets the better of me.
The door is propped open. I hear the clink and drag of weights before I reach it, and then I pass the doorway and I stop walking.
Roman is at the free weights station, shirtless, doing shoulder presses. His back is to me, and I have a perfect, unobstructed view of the tattoos covering his shoulders: the dragon coiling around the Devil’s Rejects skull, and above it the blazing sun I noticed that night in my kitchen. My sun. It still knocks the breath out of me a little.
Physical attraction has never been our problem. Not once in our entire relationship did I look at Roman and feel anything less than a jolt of electricity. Even now, after everything we’ve been through, the sight of his tattooed back flexing with each movement sends a familiar heat coursing through me. His muscles bunch and release beneath his skin, veins standing out along his forearms.
He sets the weights down and reaches for his towel, and that’s when he goes still. A beat passes. Then he turns and finds me in the doorway, and his face does the thing it’s been doing since he forced his way back into my life, the thing I’m not entirely sure what to do with. The hard lines of it go softer. Notsoft, Roman Sullivan doesn’t do soft. But softer in a way that it doesn’t for anyone else.
“Hey,” he says. He drapes the towel around his neck and holds the ends of it loosely in both hands. “You need something?”
I step fully into the room, suddenly feeling awkward and unsure. “No, I was just…” I gesture vaguely at nothing. “Walking around.”
Roman nods as if this makes perfect sense. “Going stir-crazy yet?”
“A little,” I admit. “Can I… can I ask you something?”
“Anything.” The word comes instantly, without hesitation. He sits on the bench, elbows resting on his knees, giving me his full attention.
“What happened to your shop?” The question has been nagging at me since I first realized he’d moved to Billings. Roman’s tattoo shop had been his pride and joy, the culmination of years of hard work and dreaming. The Roman I knew would never have given that up easily.
Surprise flickers across his face, as if this is the last thing he expected me to ask. He’s quiet for a moment, then shrugs one massive shoulder. “Sold it. When I moved to Billings.”
“But you loved that shop.” The distress in my voice surprises even me. “You worked so hard for it. You were so proud of it.”
Roman’s eyes meet mine, and there’s something raw and unguarded in them. “Didn’t matter much after you left.”
That one simple statement knocks the air out of my lungs. I stare at him, trying to process what he’s saying. “What do you do now, then?” I finally ask.
“Mostly?” He tosses the towel aside, running a hand through his damp hair. “Guard you. Come back here for a few hours’ sleep. Do whatever jobs Dragon has for me. Go back to guarding you.”
“But you loved tattooing,” I persist, unable to let this go. “You were so good at it. People came from other states to get work done by you.”