I don’t know what I want. That’s always been my problem, hasn’t it? “Okay.”
This is the stiffest we’ve ever been with each other, but leaving the clubhouse and walking through the industrial edge of Hart long before anything is set to come awake, I still feel safe with Wizard beside me.
“I went to my parents’,” he says. “After a long ride of trying and failing to get my shit in order. I don’t know what I was hoping for, but it went exactly like I thought it would.”
My heart squeezes and furious anger sours my stomach. He was hoping for the same thing that every kid wants. To be seen, accepted, and loved unconditionally.
A hard shiver rattles my bones. It has nothing to do with the temperature. It’s still warm, a little close and sticky, the night sky the same bruised black velvet hue it was earlier.
“It was bad,” he adds, needlessly. Toneless, trying to disguise his obvious hurt.
Wizard has to be a thousand times more frustrated than I am. “They’ve never even tried to understand you,” I snap, my anger cutting through the few inches of space between us. Wizard’s so close that our shoulders nearly brush on certain steps. “They refuse to even acknowledge your reality. I’ve heard them say that the club is full of bad elements, that it’s a useless establishment to collect broken and unstable people. They’ve never once used your club name.”
Wizard sighs, shoulders drawing in. He stares forward, so I do too, quickly flicking my eyes away to give him some privacy. The sidewalk is a narrow strip. It’s probably why he’s walking so close to me.
“They’ve always known me as Neal. As their son. Not as a Satan’s Angels member. Wizard’s just a name…”
“How are you not even mad about what I just said?”
“Iammad,” he says, but it’s a whisper. How can soft words carry more weight than a shout or a growl? “I’m mad about all of it. Not the name thing, but the fact they can’t see what’s under their own noses.”
I want to try and fix this for him, even though I can’t. “It’s a cliched saying, love is blind. But it’s true. Your parents can’t see James as the rest of the world does. I’m glad you went there and I’m sorry that it was torture for you.”
Wizard stops dead. His eyes rake over me. I’ve never felt so stripped down, nothing but bones and soul. My own vision doubles and then blurs.
“You tore a hole in the universe, Wizard,” I mumble. I can’t not do this for a minute longer. “There’s always going to be a before and after on the timeline.BeforeI knew.AfterI wasn’t such a blind, terrible, horrible idiot.”
“You were trying to survive. That’s the timeline. Before James. During. After.”
His soft voice wraps around me, but instead of blanketing me, it flays me. My stomach twists. I can’t look him in the face, so I do the cowardly thing and study the narrow sidewalk. I focus on a crack where a weed is poking through. A small bit of defiant greenery in a sea of development.
“I thought maybe we could do something,” Wizard says. He waits for me to look at him, his face mostly blank, but he’s never been able to hide the way he naturally gravitates toward hope. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to bein Hart, but I think getting away would be good for both of us. We don’t have to make big life decisions or answer all the hard questions. We could just take a breath. I’m always here. Always working. I love it, but… I don’t know. Maybe it’s just been a few too many years without a day off.”
He pauses on the sidewalk and turns to me. “The club owns a cabin in the mountains. It’s rustic, but safe. We have security up there. I’ve actually been meaning to update it for a few months, but I haven’t felt like I could get away, and Dravin has been busy. Maverick is new, and his old lady has some stuff she’s still working through, so I didn’t want to send him out there. I could have asked Atlas, but with the store and picking, it’s a busy time for him and Willa as well.”
“You could go and multitask.”
“Wecould.”
I lean in a little bit closer, until our shoulders brush. I steal a glance at him, drinking in the side of his face. He’s golden in the streetlight. Still hard. Beautiful. It’s like I’m seeing him for the first time. Not just with new eyes, but with them both wide open.
“I texted Tyrant to ask him about it before I got back to the clubhouse, and he reminded me Crow and his old lady are going out there in a few days. Tarynn owns a shop here and she’s had the time booked off for almost a year.”
Disappointment I have no business feeling filters through me. I lean back, putting some distance between us. “That’s fine. It’s probably—”
“I called Crow. He doesn’t mind.”
“It’s like, four in the morning.”
“He wasn’t asleep. He said they’d love to have company.”
“Uh, they planned a private getaway, and they don’t mind doubling up?”
“The cabin’s not that small.”
“I think this might be a politewedon’tmind, not a genuinewedon’tmind, because of the brotherhood thing.”
“He really didn’t mind,” Wizard insists.
