Page 77 of Cruz

I rest my helmet against his back and close my eyes for a few seconds. I’m not scared. That realization hits harder than I expect. I spent so long telling myself that I didn’t need anyone else, that it was me and Liam against the world. My own personal wants always took a back seat. Not that I was a martyr or denying myself. Just that part of me was secondary. But now…

I’m not scared.

That doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing. I don’t. I’m still learning how to love a man after twenty years of not needing one. I’m still figuring out how to be someone’s partner when I’ve spent so long making sure I could survive without that. I’m still adjusting to the idea that my son is now an adult and is making his own way in the world, but it’s a privilege seeing him as the man he’s become.

He’s growing into himself. Into the club. Into the man he wants to be. He still comes home. He still sprawls on my couch and eats half the contents of my fridge. He still kisses my cheek in public, even when the guys are around, and no one gives him shit for it. He still asks my opinion, even when I know he’s already made up his mind.

But there’s something steadier in him now. The guilt about the trouble he brought to Hart hasn’t vanished. Maybe guilt never fully goes away when it’s tied to love. Maybe it just becomes less sharp. Less like a blade and more like a scar you touch sometimes to remember what happened. Besides that, all he did was see something he shouldn’t have. The only thing he did wrong was not to tell someone about it straight away.

Jackal and the club haven’t had any more contact. We’re not naïve enough to think that he’s out of our lives for good. But we coexist, and he never made the connection between Liam and his nightclub, so as far as my son’s involvement goes, that’s a closed book.

Cruz slows the bike and turns down a narrow road lined with trees. It climbs gently, winding up toward a lookout I didn’t know existed. When he parks, the sudden absence of motion makes the world feel too quiet.

He shuts off the engine and the silence rushes in. I don’t move right away. My arms are still around him, my cheek still against his back. He covers my hands with one of his.

“You okay?”

I nod, then remember he can’t really see that. “I’m good.”

He turns slightly. “Good good, or trying not to hurt my feelings good?”

I laugh, breathless and shaky. “Good good.”

His shoulders ease.

We get off the bike, and this time I’m a little less ungraceful. Cruz takes off his helmet first, then helps me with mine. The cold air hits my flushed face. My hair’s probably a disaster, but Cruz looks at me like I’ve just stepped out of some ancient myth instead of off the back of a motorcycle with helmet hair and watery eyes.

“That was…” I trail off because I don’t have a word.

“Too much?”

“No.” I look back at the road we came from. “It was kind of perfect.”

His expression shifts and softens. He takes the helmets and sets them on the bike.

The lookout isn’t fancy. Just a wide gravel pullout with an old wooden rail and a view of Hart tucked below us. The town looks small from here. Small enough to hold in a hand. Small enough to protect. My café is somewhere down there, tucked into its brick corner with Prissy probably sleeping on the blanket Cruz gave me, completely unbothered that her humans have gone out into the world without her permission.

The clubhouse is down there too. Liam is there right now, helping Wizard and Maverick with some security upgrade that I only half understand. He told me about it over breakfast with a mouth full of toast, trying to sound casual and failing because he was excited. He likes being useful. He likes learning. He likes belonging. He’s actually planning on going back to college, which, not wanting to sound like a proud mom, made me feel like my heart was going to burst. He still works at the club’s auto repair shop, but now he wants to get into cybersecurity, so when he has any free time he’s usually hanging out in Wizard’s office.

I still worry. Of course I do, and no doubt I’ll spend the rest of my life worrying about my son and his choices. But the worry no longer feels like it’s swallowing me whole because I trust him to make the right decisions.

Cruz comes to stand beside me. His shoulder brushes mine.

“You’ve gone quiet,” he says.

I give him a look. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

His lips twitch. “Fair.”

“I was thinking about Liam.”

His gaze goes to the town too. “He’s doing good.”

“He is.” I fold my arms, tucking my hands under them for warmth. “He’s happy. It scares me a little less than it used to.”

“I’m glad.”

“I still don’t like the idea of him on a bike.”