Page 31 of My Older Biker

"The club has been my whole life. It's what I am. What I'd die for. But now—" I pull back enough to look up at her. "Now I have you. And I don't know how to be what the club needs while also being what you need. I don't know how to walk out that door and risk everything when I have something this important to come back to."

She touches my face. Her palm warm against my cheek. "You do it the same way you always have. You go. You're careful. You come back."

"And if I can't? If something happens and—"

"Then I'll grieve. I'll be destroyed. I'll probably fall apart for a while." Her thumb moves across my cheekbone. "But I'll survive it. Because that's what you do when you lose someone you love. You survive."

"I don't want you to have to survive me."

"I don't want it too." Her voice breaks a little. "But I'd rather risk that than not have you at all."

I stand and pull her fully against me. My arms around her back. Her face pressed against my chest. We stand there in my kitchen under the fluorescent light while the clock ticks past eleven and neither of us says anything.

After a long time she pulls back. Looks up at me. "What are you going to say tomorrow?"

I look over at the notebook. At all the failed attempts to make Perry's death mean something. "I don't know."

"Yes you do."

"No. I really—"

"Dean." She touches my chest. "You just told me. You've been telling me for the last twenty minutes. You just have to say it out loud in front of everyone else."

"I can't say all that. Clint wouldn't—"

"Then say what you can. Say the parts that matter." She takes my hand. "Come to bed."

"I should finish—"

"You're exhausted. You've been staring at that page for three hours. Your eyes are bloodshot. You need sleep." She tugs my hand gently. "Come on. You'll figure out what to say in the morning when your head is clearer."

I let her pull me away from the table. Down the hallway. Into the bedroom where the bed is unmade from this morning. We climb in fully dressed. She curls against my side immediately. Her head on my chest. Her arm across my stomach. Her leg hooked over mine.

My phone glows on the nightstand. Text from Cain. Update on Marrow movement. I should check it. Should stay on top of intel.

"Dean," Zoe says.

"Yeah?"

"Put the phone down."

"I need to check—"

"Tomorrow. Check it tomorrow." Her hand spreads flat against my ribs. "Right now just be here."

I set the phone back down without reading the message. My gun is in the drawer beneath it. Tomorrow I'll bury a brother. Wednesday or Thursday or next week I might have to ride out again. Marrow is still planning. Crane is still dangerous. The violence isn't finished.

But right now Zoe is warm against my side. Breathing steady. Real and solid and here.

"Will your dad be at the funeral?" I ask after a while.

"Yeah."

"You okay with that?"

She's quiet. Then, "No. But I'm going anyway."

"You don't have to. Nobody would blame you for staying home."