I realize too late that it’s Gabriel. He scans the emails with a frown, and it doesn’t occur to me to stop him. Or object when he opens the attachments.
He studies the divorce petition, then the contract Jerry has sent. Nodding as though it’s a done deal, he hands the phone back. “Do you need a pen?”
“Wouldn’t do me much good. They’re electronic documents.”
“A hypothetical pen, dude. I’m just trying to tell you we all want you to stick around.”
“We?”
“Eve. Tanner. And whatever makes them happy makes me happy too.”
Contracts and divorces be damned, I have no intention of going anywhere. I’m not the one who works out of state. “I’m sticking around. What about you? I love Eve and Tanner too, and they need you, man.”
“I know.” Gabriel reaches over the bar and pours himself a glass of red from the nearest bottle. He holds it up to the light and frowns at it. “Is this the good stuff? I only drink beer and soda.”
“I don’t know. Ask Tanner.”
Gabriel snorts. “He doesn’t know either. But to answer your question, I’m sticking around. I’m tired of being snarled up in a job that nearly gets me killed for no good fucking reason. If I was saving the world, I could live with it, but all I’ve done the last few years is line the pockets of rich oil dudes and miss the fuck out of my girl and my brother.”
“So we’re both staying?”
“Yup. Which is just as well. I don’t think your boy is of the mind to let either of us leave.”
Tanner is with us before I can respond. I can’t tell if he knows Gabriel is staying yet, because their relationship is still a mystery to me. They communicate in grunts and intense stares, or they bicker like schoolgirls. There’s no in-between, but god, they love each other.
I snag Gabriel’s stolen wine and sip it. It’s rich and red and tastes like Christmas, another fast approaching holiday I’ve done nothing about. I think about Thanksgiving and the warmth and contentment that surrounded us then. It has nothing on how I feel right now and I’m almost scared of what the future holds. Of how much my heart can expand before it explodes.
It’s quite the image, and I laugh at myself as Tanner wraps his arms around me from behind and leans heavily against me. He buries his face in my neck and breathes me in.
I reach for him and find his bare hip beneath his T-shirt. “All right back there?”
He nods, then grips my shoulders and spins me around, ignoring his brother entirely. “I really fucking love you.”
I take his good hand and squeeze it. “I know, mate. I love you too.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Six months later…
Tanner
Jax is setting up the tent with one hand; the other is still pointing his camera at the squirrels playing in the trees above us. I want to tell him to pay attention to what he’s doing, but I swallow it down and park my ass in the sun instead.
I tip my face to the sky, absorbing the kind of warmth that only Jax can match. Then I open my eyes and soak up my surroundings. We’re at the highest point of Black Claw, and my heart still thumps as if it’s the first moment I’ve been outside since the accident. But it’s not. We come up here all the time, and I’ve learned to accept the sporadic anxiety that still haunts me. My biggest problem is hating myself for letting it control me for as long as it did. For the impact it had on the people I love too.
Deep breaths cleanse my soul. Guilt remains my nemesis, but I’ve learned new tools to deal with that too. Therapy is a drag, but it’s working, so I go every week and continue my quest to be the best man I can be.
“I’m glad we waited until we’d known each other a while to do this shit together.” Jax drops down beside me, without his cameraandhis shirt.Awesome.
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“Cos I can’t fucking cope with how hot you are in mountain-man mode. It’s, like, six levels up from sexy bartender.”
“I’m still a bartender.”
“Yeah, but you gave me time to build up to peak mountain man.”
By “doing this” he means spending every free day we have out here together. I never took the job Kai Fletcher offered me—I love the bar too much—but Jax took his job with Jerry, and I help him as much as I can. And he helps me just by existing, so it’s a win-win. When the weather’s bad, we sleep at the cabin, but on days like this when there’s not a cloud in the sky, we sleep under the stars with only canvas between us and the big wide world. “I dig that you like the way we live now,” I say, punctuating my words by pulling him on top of me. “I’m just sad we weren’t living this way all along.”
