A sad smile crosses her face. “He was the first man I loved. The only one actually.”
My throat tightens as I think about Dean. I never told Kincaid I loved him because it would have been a lie, andhe never said he loved me either. But there was someone I loved—secretly, painfully—all those years. Someone I thought about even long after he left town.
“Levi and I came from different worlds back then. Lived different lives. It’s strange thinking we got along so well because you wouldn’t think a biker’s son and a lawyer’s daughter would have anything in common. But no one knows me like Levi.” Aimee starts the car. “At least we found our way back to each other eventually.”
Aimee doesn’t elaborate on what life threw at them in the years they spent apart, and I don’t ask. We all have a past that haunts us. Clearly, I’m not alone. Hearing Aimee talk about her and Havoc finding their way back to each other makes me wonder if that means it’s possible. Can Dean and I do the same?
We drive past the empty lot that will someday be their home. There are stakes in the ground, marking where their house will be.
“So if you and Havoc are good now, why would he think you’d run?” I ask, curious.
“He doesn’t really think I’ll leave,” Aimee corrects herself. “But he understands I’ve been through a lot, and he knows how hard it was for me settling in one place again. He’s trying to make the best of it. That man gives me so much. Sometimes I still have a hard time processing how he could still want me after everything that happened.”
Everything.
She says so little and so much with that one word, and I understand.
Except, in my case, I didn’t just make a mistake. I hurt Dean.
There’s no forgiving what I’ve done, no matter how much I wish it was possible.
Aimee looks over at me. “I don’t know what happened between you and Chaos or where you two are at right now, but I know something has been changing since you got here.”
“Like what?” I ask, turning to her.
“He doesn’t share his room with people. Hell, he doesn’t share his life with people. Those might seem like small things, but for him, I don’t think they are.”
“I don’t think Dean and I are destined for a storybook happily ever after.”
She shrugs. “I wasn’t destined for it either, but do you want to know what I decided?”
“What?”
“Fuck the storybook. Write your own ending.” Her smile draws out my own.
“You said you and Havoc are headed into the city to run some errands?” I ask. “Any chance I can tag along? Unless Dean’s lockdown order confines me to the property line.”
“Fuck the lockdown order,” Aimee says, and I can’t help but laugh. “Just for that, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. If Chaos gives you crap about it, then you tell him to take it up with me.”
“Havoc will agree to it?”
She winks. “You let me worry about Levi.”
10
Chaos
“Who’s the new girl?”Soul drops onto the barstool beside me, eyeing the stage.
Glancing over my shoulder, my eyes land on platinum blonde hair. “Tiffany.”
She’s dressed like a fallen angel tonight. Atoplessfallen angel at the moment as she spins in circles around the pole.
“She’s popular.”
I eye the circle of men crowding the stage around her. “You should see what she pulls in for a lap dance.”
“Oh yeah?” Soul grins at me. “How good is she at riding your lap, Chaos?”
