“I have work to do,” she said, her tone carefully neutral as she grabbed her clothes from the chair.
She didn’t look at him as she dressed, movements brisk and efficient, walls snapping back into place.Havoc sat there, fists clenched in the sheets, watching her retreat.
Every instinct screamed at him to get up, to stop her, to explain himself like a man instead of a coward.Guilt rooted him to the mattress.By the time he dragged himself into the shower, Ivy was gone.
The water was too hot, beating down on his shoulders like penance.He braced his hands against the tile and bowed his head, jaw tight, breathing hard.He saw her face again, the way hope had flickered and then died when he pulled away.
“Idiot,” he muttered to himself.
By the time he dressed and headed downstairs, the clubhouse was stirring to life.Voices echoed, coffee brewed, engines rumbled in the distance.Life went on, whether he was ready for it or not.
He spotted Roach near the bar and made a beeline for him.
“I need you to watch Ivy today,” Havoc said without preamble.
Roach looked up, surprise flickering across his face.He studied Havoc for a long moment, eyes sharp.“King give you a new job?”
Havoc scowled.“None of your business.”
Roach snorted softly.“Funny.Usually when you pawn off your babysitting duties, it means something’s up,” the other biker pointed out.
Havoc’s jaw tightened.“Just watch her.”
Roach leaned back, arms crossing.“You know, she’s a good girl.Smart.Tough.Don’t look like the type to play games,” he said.
Havoc didn’t respond, he ground his teeth together.
Roach hardened his gaze.“If you’re not willing to take her seriously, you shouldn’t mess with her,” Roach had the gall to say.
That did it.Havoc’s temper snapped like a frayed wire.He stepped forward and swung before he could stop himself.His fist connected with Roach’s jaw with a solid crack, sending him staggering back into a table.
The room went dead silent.Havoc stood there, chest heaving, knuckles throbbing.He didn’t look back as Roach cursed and hauled himself upright, shock and anger written across his face.
“I need a ride,” Havoc muttered, already turning away.“Some air.”
He shoved out of the clubhouse, the cool morning hitting him full force.The bike waited, faithful and familiar, and he swung onto it like it was the only thing that still made sense.
As the engine roared to life beneath him, one truth rang loud and merciless in his head.
He was running, and sooner or later, it was going to cost him Ivy.
****
Ivy attacked the walllike it had personally wronged her.She dragged the brush too hard.Her lines were too heavy and worst of all, the colors felt wrong in a way she couldn’t immediately articulate but felt in her bones.
She stepped back, squinting, head tilted, and felt the truth land with a dull, unpleasant certainty.Ivy hated it.The section of the mural she’d been working on all morning felt off.Unbalanced and angry.
The bike’s frame was too sharp, the motion too aggressive, like it was trying to outrun something instead of simply being alive.Ivy stared at it, her jaw tight, and let out a slow breath through her nose.
She never painted like this.Painting, for her, had always been about listening.To the place, the people, the quiet pulse beneath everything.Even grit had a rhythm to it.
Even violence, when it showed up in her work, carried intention and honesty.This wasn’t that.This was frustration bleeding through her hands.
She dropped the brush into the water bucket with more force than necessary and scrubbed her palms over her face.Of course it didn’t feel right.Nothing had since that morning.
Since waking up tangled in Havoc’s sheets and realizing, in the most humiliating way possible, that whatever she’d thought they were stepping toward had only existed in her head.
She swallowed, throat tight.The memory came back uninvited.The way he’d gone still when she touched him.The way he’d pulled away like her fingers were a mistake.
