I pause with my cup halfway to my lips. As always, just the sound of the new president’s name makes my skin tighten with something between an itch and a shiver. “Why?”
“Big changes.” Pitt gestures between us. “He wants you both to be part of them.”
I cock a mocking brow. “The Iron Flyers 2.0?”
Wings gives me a tentative glance. “If you want to change something, it’s easiest to do it from the inside.”
Did he get that from a fortune cookie or a tattoo flash book?I bite my tongue on the snide question, because I know Wings’ heart is in the right place. And it’s not like I haven’t spent years dreaming of a day when the club might throw open the doors and beg me to come back. “Which reminds me, I have a training session before work. I’ve got to run.”
I dump the rest of my coffee in the sink, but as I start towards my bedroom door, Pitt steps in my path. I breathe in citrus, musk, and the leather of his cut, and if my knees are a little weak, I’m blaming it on my sleepless night. “Abbie, what about Ark? I don’t want to push, but I think you need to hear him out.”
I stare up at him, as immovable as a brick wall, but with that sympathetic gleam back in his eyes. Maybe Pitt’s heart is in the right place, too, and I’m the one who needs to soften up, but it’s hard to fight five years of resentment. “Let me think about it, okay? But if I decide to talk, it won’t be at the club. That’s a hard no.”
He tips his head, considering. “Neutral ground?”
I give him a breezy smile that almost reaches my eyes. “Just make sure there’s plenty of vodka, and I might even stay long enough to drink it.”
Chapter Five: ABBIE
Having come to some sort of halfway agreement about apotentialconversation with the president of the Iron Flyers, I decide it’s a perfect morning for a ride. My Indian queen is lightweight and agile, with a low center of gravity and easy shifting, and despite her smaller size than a lot of club bikes, she doesn’t lack in power for passing. All round, she’s perfect for city driving, and I love the freedom she gives me to zip around traffic snarls and slip between frustrated drivers while they stew in their four-wheeled cages.
But my happy bubble pops the moment I reach the dojo. Kate takes one look at me and bars the doorway, telling me to go home and get a few hours’ sleep. I don’t have the energy to argue with her, and I trudge back to my bike, annoyed that I can’t take my frustrations out on the mat. Which is probably exactly why my sensei doesn’t want me anywhere near it. I sigh as I rub the headache building in my temples and pull out my phone. I open the Meridian Omega Clinic app, but when I check the shift schedule, my name doesn’t appear until the week after next.No onegets that much time off in our understaffed hospital, and I bite my lip as I call the charge nurse’s desk.
Coincidence or some cosmic plan out to screw me?
“Emma, this is Abbie Taylor. I just saw the shift schedule. What’s going on?”
“It came straight from the director,” she says in her no-nonsense tone, her keyboard clicking in the background. “I asked, because we obviously need you here, but he said it was a personal matter.”
I clench my teeth, staring up at the sky so my glare doesn’t incinerate an innocent passerby. “Maybe he could call my landlord, too, and get me a break on my rent.”
“I believe it has something to do with the investigation,” she says carefully. “The butterflies in the bed incident.”
I cringe, because that sounds painfully close to the title of a true-crime episode. “You heard about that?”
“The security team have been very thorough.”
I don’t know if she means Goldie specifically, but it’s worth asking Pitt, since they’re obviously such close friends. “It was probably just a prank.”
“Perhaps.” Emma sounds doubtful, though. “Just take the time and sort things out, alright? We’ll have plenty of shifts waiting for you when you’re done.”
It’s as close as the brusque woman gets to reassuring, and I manage to thank her before I end the call. I tap my nails on my bike seat, fixing my gaze on the asphalt in front of me and waiting for my heart to stop jittering in my chest. It seems like I’m always off-balance these days, angry at things I can’t change, and avoiding the things I can. As a therapist, I know better, and I slump against my bike, staring blindly down at the toes of my scuffed boots.
When did I start becoming such a contrary pain in the ass?
I’ve had years to put my trauma behind me. I know I’m never going to erase it completely, but I’ve adjusted as best as I can, and I have a rewarding job and a nice apartment. Maybe it’s notthe picture-perfect pack life that most omegas dream about, but I’d sacrifice a hundred cozy nests if it meant that I got to be with Wings for the rest of my life.
I open my messages and shoot him a text:Want to meet me for a (cocktail and a dancing emoji)?
I barely blink before he fires back a response:Where and when, beautiful?
Refuel Bar. 8 o'clock?
Can’t wait (butterfly and heart emoji).
Smiling, I mount my bike and point her towards the highway. I ride hard and fast until I reach the turnoff for the Pine Lake Lookout, meandering along the couple of hairpins until I reach the top. I grab a frosty cone from an ice cream vendor and eat it while I watch tourists click away on their cameras. A couple of young omegas ask to take a picture of my bike, and when I suggest they sit on it for the whole experience, they shriek like they’ve just been tossed off the side of the mountain. They insist on taking at least a dozen shots, in more poses than I thought the human body was capable of, then engulf me in a strawberry and lavender hug that makes me wonder if I was ever so young and silly. Is this what it means to not have a care in the world?
When they’re done, I take the slow, winding road down the other side of the mountain, letting the bike wander through back streets until I hit the Greenfields Cemetery. I buy some flowers at a stall next to the gates, then take the ring road around to my mom’s grave. My dad was cremated in club tradition, but my mom is buried under a weeping willow next to her baby sister, and I sit for a while with both of them, scattering dried petals over their graves.
