I move through the room slowly, still shaking off sleep and the heavy exhaustion that hasn’t fully left me since the hospital.
I toss my scrubs in my hamper and pull out my clothes for tonight.
My favourite pair of ripped jeans, an old black t-shirt and ankle boots.
Clothes I can breathe in.
I shower and go through the motions of getting ready, leaving my hair in loose messy waves.
Then I reach for the cut hanging in the back of the closet.
My fingers pause on the patch stitched across the back.
PROPERTY OF CLUTCH
Declan told me once that wearing it at club events mattered. People needed to see it, they needed to know where I stood. Who I belonged to.
To him.
To the club.
The meaning feels heavier tonight.
The leather is worn and soft as I trail my fingers across the words, across the Dawnbreaker crest. I slide my arms through it automatically and pull it straight and glance once more at my phone.
Still nothing.
I look at myself in the mirror, running my hands down the vest and a memory hits before I can stop it.
The night he gave me the cut.
The first time he proposed I said no.
Not because I didn’t love him, but because everything about the club felt too big, too consuming.. Too familiar in a way I didn’t want to name.
Like stepping into something I didn’t fully understand yet.
The second time he didn’t ask quietly.
He did it in the middle of the clubhouse.
Brothers everywhere. Music loud. Angel watching from the bar.
Declan stood in front of everyone holding the leather vest in both hands.
I remember laughing nervously and whispering, “You know people usually use rings for this part.”
He shook his head.
“A ring is just paperwork,” he said.
Then he held up the cut so I could see the back.
“When a brother gives a woman his cut, it means more than a ring ever will.”
His voice had been steady, certain.
“This means you’re mine for life.”