He’s given me more to think about than any other therapist, but it’s not just his being here or the conversation weshared that makes me feel that all of this is so different, or that if I try to step outside this time, that I might just be able to survive it. I know what’s different.
It’s beinghere.
In the span of fifteen minutes, my life changed forever.
It should follow that it can change again within just a few days.
Chapter 12
Maverick
The house has been more peaceful than any place has a right to be over the past few days. Scythe has made sure that I’m busy with work at the club. When Wizard and Dravin aren’t giving me security stuff to do, Raiden’s sat down with me and started Accounting one-oh-fucking-one training. I’m shit at it, but he’s told me that it doesn’t matter, it’s the willingness to learn that counts.
I don’t know that I truly am willing, but this is one of thosefake it ‘til you make itsituations. There’s absolutely no way that I’m going to stay in Scythe’s house for free and give fuck-all back. It’s not just me that he’s been good to. It’s Loreena as well, and for that, I’ll forever be grateful enough to ram it down and stomach all manner of accounting, no matter how much I actively dislike it.
Loreena’s settled into the basement. She’s busy most of the day with her clients. She comes up so that the three of us can do a fairly late dinner before Scythe usually goes back to the club.
The first night we shared alone together, we watched a movie, but we stayed seated on separate parts of the couch. Last night she asked me a few questions about the club and my job, and I asked her about the therapist. We kept the conversation light, and it never got uncomfortable. She invited me down to play with the cats. I never thought I’d enjoy felines so much. After an hour of dragging strings around the basement for them, they finally tired out.
Scythe had to stay late at the clubhouse tonight and told me he’d get a ride back. He let me take his old Bimmer, even though I know the car is his baby. As much as bikers revile the vehicles they call cages, Scythe babies that silly car. It’s temperamental and burns oil so bad that the whole thing reeks after just a few miles, but he’ll never give it up.
I’m not a praying man, but I sent up a few pleas to whatever might be out there that I made it back here without damaging the thing, and luckily, I did. Loreena expected to have dinner with us, so I offered to pick up something and surprise her.
I asked her if she might give me a few minutes upstairs to get everything set out and make it a real surprise, and she was a good sport about it. She said I could text her when I was ready.
I wanted this to be special, but now that I survey the table with the tablecloth I bought for the occasion, the pillar candles, the bottle of wine, and all the covered dishes from the Italian place downtown, I’m starting to wonder if I didn’t overdo it.
This doesn’t just look like dinner.
It looks like a date.
Even if I present Loreena with the bag of cat food and box of litter I picked up for her, that’s not going to lessen anything.
I start to really panic when I hear her footsteps on the stairs. The basement door creaks open. She can’t see into the living room because it opens into the hall before the kitchen, but my heart starts beating double time.
“Hey,” she calls. “I just wanted to know if you need some help?”
Fuck, I’m not even cooking and she senses disaster. Probably because I’ve been ambling about like a dumbass up here for twenty minutes already. She’s probably half starved. I guess there’s nothing for it. I’m just going to have to sit here and live it down. I can’t just whisk the candles away and snap the cloth off the table, hide the wine, or undo the fact that Italian is a decidedly romantic food.
I think?
Idiot.
I should have got something decidedly less… garlicky.
But that would imply that we’d be doing things other than talking. Although, we could be sitting close together. She might think that I stink like garlic toast and spices.
I’m overthinking this.
I walk over to the hall, though with every step my thoughts ping around in my head, giving me shit and hell and whatever else they can manage. I’m all self-doubt until Loreena sees me and pushes the door open all the way. She steps out and my heart basically stops. She’s not wearing anything fancy. Just some jeans and that oversized sweater she often puts on. Her hair is up in a messy bun and she’s wearing almost no makeup.
My heart resumes, crashing and knocking, only to freeze again when her lips tilt up. The smallest of smiles is enough to bring me to my knees.
Yeah. I definitely have a problem, and I totally fucked up with dinner.
“Help? Uh… no. I don’t think anything can be saved. I just checked and I think I got someone else’s order. I’m going to have to bring it back and get the right one.”
Her smile doesn’t falter. “That’s okay. I’m so hungry that I could eat anything, and if they gave you someone else’s order, they would have had to remake it by now. They’ll just throw that food in the garbage if you bring it back, and that would be a huge waste.”
