Tildie sets her glass down. Leans her forearms on the bar.
Those amber eyes—warm, knowing, the eyes of a woman who fled an abusive ex and rebuilt her whole life behind this bar and fell in love with a club president when she wasn't looking—hold mine without flinching.
"What did you say?"
"I told him I'm my own woman."
"Good. Because you are." She pauses. "Leah, I'm not going to sugarcoat this. Loving a man in this club is hard. The danger isreal. The secrets are real. The nights when they ride out and you don't know if they're coming back—those are real. I've lived it. I'm living it. Every time Ruger walks out that door, a part of me holds its breath until he walks back in."
"So, you're talking me out of it."
"I'm telling you what it costs. There's a difference." She takes another sip. "The way that man looks at you? That's not casual. That's not a club brother being friendly with his SAA's little sister. That's a man who's been alone too long and just realized he doesn't have to be. And that's terrifying for a man like Coin, because he's spent ten years convincing himself that being alone is the same thing as being strong."
I stare at my whiskey.
The amber liquid catches the low light of the bar, and I think about his hands.
Scarred, rough, gentle with his daughters.
The way he held my hand on the porch like I was something worth holding onto.
The way he saidthat's the problemlike wanting me was the hardest thing he'd allowed himself to feel in a decade.
"He's got things going on," I say carefully. "Things he won't tell me about. Garrett's been at his house doing guard duty and nobody will explain why."
Tildie's expression doesn't change, but something behind her eyes shifts.
She knows. Of course she knows—she's Ruger's ol' lady.
She probably knows more about what's happening than I do.
But she won't tell me, because that's not how this works.
The women carry what they know and they don't spread it, and Tildie respects that line even when it's hard.
"When he's ready," she says, "he'll tell you. Men like Coin don't shut you out because they don't trust you. They shut you out because they're trying to protect you from the weight of it.It's stupid and it's frustrating and it comes from a good place, and you'll want to strangle him for it. Trust me."
"Speaking from experience?"
"Ruger had a war brewing with Striker before I even knew what I'd walked into. By the time I understood how bad it was, I was running through tunnels under the compound with bullets flying and Sarah bleeding out beside me." She says it matter-of-factly, the way you talk about things that almost destroyed you once you've survived them. "But he learned. They learn. Slowly. Painfully. Like men do."
I almost smile.
"Go home," she says, collecting my empty glass. "Sleep on it. And Leah?"
"Yeah?"
"You're wearing his flannel."
I look down. The flannel. Coin's flannel. Still on me, still warm, still smelling like cedar and leather and him.
"I know," I say.
"That means something."
"I know."
She smiles and goes back to wiping down the bar.
