“I’m not complaining,” she whispers, “please don’t think that, but why can’t you?”
“Because I’m not like him. I’m a lot simpler.” Even now, it remains the truth.
“I don’t believe that,” she insists.
“It’s true.” The guilt gnaws deeper, eating away at my resolve. At this point, I’m struggling daily to count the number of lies I keep to hold my secret to the truths I can reveal, and it’s fucking crippling.
Sensing my discomfort, she traces my jaw in a caress that has me aching while voicing her declaration. “You are anything but simple.”
“My needs are. I don’t want things like other people.” Even if I could imagine a future for myself, I don’t see anything resembling the type of personal future so many others strive for.
“Why? Why train yourself for such simplicity when you are worth so much . . .” My chest caves in with the look she gifts me, the one that makes me feel invincible. “You are so much more than what you let people see—than what you give yourself credit for.”
“That’s the point.”
She holds my eyes hostage with her next question. “Why won’t you let people know you?”
You’re my people. “You know me.”
Her eyes soften to the point I almost look away, the deceit tearing at my insides as she speaks again, nailing me with right-hook sentiment. “And I’m lucky.”
Jesus Christ.
“You are anything but.”
“Please just stop that . . .” she cuts herself off before digging in. “You don’t have low self-esteem. What’s with this glib shit?”
Because if I voice my own fears, I know they’ll manifest by my own fucking doing, and I’ll lose you.
I swallow. “There is so much you don’t know.”
“I want to, Dom. I want to know all sides of you.”
“You don’t, Cecelia, you think you do, but you don’t.” The vow I made strengthens within me that she will never glimpse the dark I do embrace.
“You think I won’t care for you like I do?”
“Things will change.” It’s the absolute truth, and even as knowledgeable as she is thanks to Sean—and as strong as she’s becoming—the flipside of our reality and the life I live under her radar is sometimes too much for me to handle.
“I don’t care,” she declares, palming my chest. “I want in. Please let me in.”
I can barely contain the sting building in my throat as I remain mute. After several beats of my forced silence, she relents. “Okay, okay.” She presses a kiss to my jaw. “It’s hard being with you. It’s just hard sometimes.”
The burn that statement causes has me losing my grip briefly as I let her in on the most important truth, a truth she made fact. “You are in.”
She looks back up at me, and I see it so clearly.
She loves me.
Words seem meaningless compared to what thrums between us, but I see those damning words forming as we gaze at each other, my pulse spiking as I soak in her expression and see it so distinctly, so intently, it’s unmistakable.
She loves me.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
Covering her mouth with my palm, I stop her attempt to voice them because if she utters a single one, I might not ever come back from it. “Don’t waste good words on me.”
She loves me.
Knowing is enough. But I refuse to recite those words unless I can act on them. As of right now, I can’t.
Her eyes search as I keep my palm in place to silence her and think of any way to offset the sting I know I’m causing. “It’s okay, Cecelia. I’m as close to happy as a man like me deserves.”
It’s all I have left for her until I sort through the debris collecting daily between us.
Chest alight with the awareness of her unspoken declaration, we stare back up at the sky, which feels like it’s peering back at us, laying witness. Getting lost, my mind wanders as I engage them, questioning whether the cosmos really has anything to do with our life path—if destiny and fate truly play a role in anyone’s life. Tobias forged our path, and I latched on. I wonder briefly if he saw me with him when he did or if it was his destiny alone that he invited us to be a part of. If that’s the case, it’s always felt right. Felt like mine, just as the woman beside me does. Wordlessly, I ask the visible galaxy comprised of sentinel stars what the future holds for us while knowing I’m stuck in limbo for an answer.
Which is fucking torment.
Tobias’s return is imminent. I can feel it with every fiber of my being. With that coming, our future remains unknown. Even so, I feel the steady beat of my heart driving me forward to face whatever is waiting on the other side of this. What Cecelia and I have is worth standing ground for, but coming clean means exposing Tobias completely and endangering the club—I could never do that. Our purpose is about so much more than our selfish needs and we have livelihoods that rely on the success of our club and lives literally dependent on it. I can’t throw that away or be that selfish.
Therein lies the crux of falling, giving merit to Tobias’s consistent warning of entanglements and this mindfuck of a situation with no viable solution I can conceive of. In this case, the truth will not fucking set us free, but damn us.
“Have you hurt people?” Cecelia asks, bringing me back to the hood, to her.
I answer with silence. That truth and those details are something I might eventually confess with time—if her place is claimed and accepted amongst us. If, somehow, she can forgive me for the lies.
“Do I make you happy? Even a little?”
Stupid question. But I answer it with a slow, deep kiss, pressing that truth into her until she’s thoroughly convinced.
Gathering her from my hood just after, I hoist her to wrap around me, carrying her toward the passenger door, ambling slightly until her breath catches.
Fuck.
“Dom, did you just sway your hips?”
Busted.
Though shrouded in the dark, I see her eyes bugging wide along with her smile. “O.M.G. Did you just dance a little with me?!”
Sighing, I press my forehead to hers. “Cecelia?”
“Yes?” She beams back at me.
“When you call me out for this shit, it stops. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
“That you’re a closet romantic and love it,” she drops drastically. “Yes. I figured that out ages ago. You’re really not that smart nor smooth, King.”
Opening the passenger door, I dump her unceremoniously into the seat. “Date over.”
Her laughter trails me even as I slam the door on it, hiding my grin until I’m in the driver’s seat.
Sean summons us by text just as I hit the main road. Shifting, I turn in that direction catching a flash of Cecelia’s hair in my peripheral. Ripping my eyes from the vacant street, I glance over to see her head resting against the seat, head tilted toward the breeze, gaze trained up at the sky.
This is happy.
Sensing my stare, she looks back at me, a smile cracking her face, and with it, she steals the last unchartered piece of me.
As that elation scores through me, it’s muted slightly by the anxiety that’s been trickling in for the last few days. I’ll make it a point to get ahold of Tobias soon and talk to Sean about how in the fuck we’re going to sort this. I just have to believe my brother will hear me when the time comes.