“Didn’t say it would.”
Her eyes meet mine, and all the years between us collapse. The argument, the loss, the goddamn silence, none of it matters right now.
I need movement. Something to break the pull before I say something I can’t take back. “Drink?” I ask finally, just to have somewhere else to put the tension.
She nods quietly. I grab a bottle of whiskey from the shelf behind the bench, two mismatched glasses from an old toolbox drawer. The sound of the seal breaking is too loud in the silence.
I pour heavy. We drink heavier.
The night stretches. One drink turns into two. The storm outside keeps battering the walls, but it feels distant, like we’re in some bubble between past and present, ghosts and flame.
She watches me over the rim of her glass, eyes steady. “You ever talk about that night?” she asks. “His last ride?”
“Not to anyone,” I admit, the words scraping out like they don’t want to exist.
Her voice softens. “You should.”
I stare at the bottle for a long time before I answer. “He rode out alone. Said he needed air. The club was at half strength after the Valdez job. I should’ve stopped him. But you don’t stop Tama King when he’s decided something.”
Her hand tightens on her glass. “What happened?”
“Silence happened,” I say. “He didn’t say a word that whole morning. Just rode. Checked the perimeter. Looked out over the ridge like he was already half gone. The smell of burnt rubber and summer dust still sticks to that day. When he came back, he told me the last thing I ever wanted to hear.”
“What?”
I take another swallow, throat burning. “That the club will eat you alive if you let it.”
Her eyes shine in the lamplight. “That’s not the Tama I knew.”
“Yeah, well,” I murmur, “maybe you didn’t know the part that broke first.” I pause, knuckles tightening around the glass. “He said something else, right before the end.”
She leans forward, voice barely a whisper. “What did he say?”
I force a breath past the weight in my chest. “Don’t let love make you soft.”
The words hang there, echoing like a ghost. Aria’s eyes glisten, and before I can turn away, her hand reaches out, brushing my shoulder. I tense on instinct, but I don’t move. The touch sears through the chill, quiet, and steady.
“You’re allowed to break, you know,” she whispers.
“Not with this patch.”
“Not even when no one’s watching?”
I shake my head. “Especially then.”
She looks down, lips trembling, and for a second, I see the teenage girl who sat with me for hours studying law and criminal justice when we were in high school. The woman who used to patch my knuckles after bar fights, who used to laugh too loud when I tried to act invincible. Who would be there in my bed after a long, hard night of club business for me to get lost in, to forget about things for a little while.
We talk until the whiskey runs out. About the old days, about rides that felt like freedom before the crown started feeling like chains. She listens, really listens, the way only she ever could. When she finally reaches for my hand, I let her hold it. Her fingers thread through mine, small and sure. The simple contact nearly undoes me. Every instinct screams to pull away before I start believing this could last.
The heater hums, the lamp flickers. The storm has calmed to a whisper. She leans closer, head resting against my shoulder,breath warming the side of my neck. I can smell the faint trace of whiskey and jasmine in her hair.
Her voice comes out soft, slurred by exhaustion. “You’re still that boy who wanted to fix everything.”
“That boy’s dead,” I say quietly.
“Then why are you still fighting his wars?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. Because she’s right.
Eventually her words fade, replaced by slow, even breaths. She’s asleep before the next gust hits the door. I stay there, staring into the fire, her weight soft against me, her hand still tangled in mine.
I don’t kiss her tonight. But when she sighs against my chest and I don’t pull away, I know I’ve already lost the war.
“Too late,” I whisper to no one. The words taste like truth and surrender.
