“I treated a sexual assault survivor from a club party tonight,” I say. “And then I walked through your brother’s screwing girls, who aren’t their ol’ ladies, in the spare rooms. I’m not in the mood.”
The softness drains from his face, replaced by his pride.
“You married an enforcer for a motorcycle club,” he says. “You know what this life is.”
“I knowexactlywhat this life is.” I repeated to him.
He studies me. I know what he thinks he sees. He hates that I work at the hospital, hates that I see the ugly side of this life day in and day out. He has asked me to quit more times than I can count, but my job… what I do is the only thing that I have that is just mine.
“I’ve got options,” he adds, “If you will not satisfy my needs, maybeIwill go spend some time in one of the spare rooms.”
I try to hide my reaction, a flinch at his words. Sex is currency here. Loyalty is measured by who you do and don’t touch. But Declan, or I guess I am talking to Clutch right now, has never said something like that to me before. It was a concern when we first started dating, and he reassured me there would be no one else.
I cannot believe he just said that… I swallowed the hurt, trying to reply without the pain showing through, “And you know that I’m not the kind of woman who’d stay if you ever decided to use them.”
His jaw flexes, and I know he knows he fucked up.
I’ve never pretended to be easy. I made all my concerns known from the get-go.
The first time he proposed, I said no. We were in this room, the same sparse surroundings. Same walls vibrating with noise from down the hall. We had a fight when I told him I didn’t want to live here and he thought a ring would fix everything.
I told him I’d marry him when he was ready to build something outside of here, when I knew I would be a priority in his life. He was mad, but I thought maybe I got through to him.
Six months later, he tried again, on his knees in front of half the club like a spectacle. Like if he made it public, I couldn’t refuse. I said yes because he promised we’d make our own space, we would have a life that didn’t just revolve around the club. Something of our own… but that never happened, and we are still stuck in this room.
“You’re tired,” he says, trying to fix what he just broke.
But there’s a difference between tired and dismissed. And I am tired of being dismissed. I grab a towel and head into the bathroom before the conversation tips into something uglier.
The bathroom is narrow enough that my elbow brushes the tile when I turn. I twist the shower knob and let hot water beat against my shoulders.
The girl’s face flashes in my head.
I don’t belong to anyone yet.
I brace my hands against the wall and breathe. I never wanted this life; it was everything I knew to stay away from and yet… Declan. He made it seem like no matter what it would always be me and him. I wanted that.
But I also want a house with a door that locks because it’s ours, not because it’s guarded. I want quiet mornings and slow evenings. I want to come home from a hard day at work and not walk through what I just walked through to get to my room. I want to decide when we have children, not be cornered into it because this is what men here do when they feel their wives pulling away.
He thinks I don’t trust him.
I think he doesn’t see what this place does to women.
When I turn the water off and step back into the room, it’s empty. His boots and cut are gone.
I stare at the empty space as the faint vibration of music travels through the floorboards and a bottle rolls somewhere down the hall. I hear a bang that makes me jump, and then a woman gasps.
I stand there for a moment wrestling with going out there and checking to see if...
He wouldn’t.
But the fact that I even consider it? That’s the crack in our foundation that I don’t know how to fix.
So I climb into bed alone. The sheets are still warm where he sat, smelling like smoke and the cologne he uses occasionally.
From the hallway, a door slams, and a man’s voice rises in laughter thick with alcohol. Springs squeal against a wall somewhere down the corridor, steady and unembarrassed.
I curl in on myself as I stare at the ceiling, the light cutting through the blinds in thin blades.