~oOo~
Riding home in formation with his brothers, Trick let his mind roam free. It was safe; riding always settled his head. He could lay his thoughts out flat before him, like an array of cards for a game of Solitaire, and contemplate them one at a time. If he could stay on his bike forever, he might keep hold of some piece of self and sanity.
He believed Dora completely; he had no reason not to. To his knowledge, she had not once lied or double-dealt the Horde. His shame at expecting her to be some caricature of a scorned woman had cleared out a lot of trash from that corner of his head. Knowing that something had come out of his ordeal helped, too. As horrific as those weeks had been, he’d been spun to come out of it and be told that it had all evaporated, that there was no record that it had ever happened. Those weeks had broken him, body, mind, and soul, and to know that it was insignificant—maybe that was the worst thing of all.
But it had not been insignificant. It had mattered, more than merely to him.
He was no longer an outlaw; no more deaths to tarnish his already dark soul. He had not betrayed his brothers, and he had not made them subject to La Zorra’s scorned feelings.
He wasn’t sure what she had in mind for Stiles, but Dora had absolved him of any further part in the decision or the outcome, and he was willing to accept that absolution. He felt steady there.
He could face forward and be clear.
When he and his brothers pulled into the lot at the clubhouse, Trick felt, for the first time since the happiness he’d briefly had before, that the future could hold something for him.
He’d thought that all the good in his life had been destroyed, but he’d been wrong.
Now, he had to find the strength to reclaim the most important thing, the first pure happiness he’d ever known in his life. If he could. He’d spurned Juliana. He’d abandoned Lucie. They would both be right never even to look at him again.
How much would he push? How much could he?
Those were the questions in his mind when he dismounted and followed Hoosier, Bart, and Connor into the clubhouse.
And found Juliana sitting at the bar, drinking coffee, talking to Bibi.
She’d turned to the door as they’d come in, and when he met her eyes, he stopped in his tracks.
In her expression he read fear and reserve, and he didn’t know what to say, what he could say.
Bibi gave her shoulder a little push at the same time that Connor turned and hooked his hand around Trick’s neck. “Jesus fuck, T. Enough.” He pulled Trick forward.
Juliana spoke first. “You look better.”
He could only think of two things to say. They seemed like the most important things.
“I love you. I’m so sorry.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
He was still so thin, but he did look better. It was more than his healed face or his smoothed beard, or even his straight posture and squared shoulders. It was in his expression, which seemed calmer than she’d last seen—and not that forced calm he got when he was most upset.
His surprise at seeing her was clear, but he seemed calm. He looked better.
When Bibi had called to coax her here, she’d resisted. Three weeks had passed, and Trick had ignored her all that time. Her worry for him hadn’t abated, but she’d had to try to set him aside or go crazy. Not working, not going to school, with Lucie in preschool, she’d spent most of her time sewing. She’d almost made whole new wardrobes for the both of them.
And she’d still had time to continue her research into torture and PTSD. Her research appalled her, but it made her feel closer to Trick. And more hopeless that she’d ever be close to him again.
But it turned out that Bibi was not an easy woman to refuse. She’d shown up at the complex, Faith and her kids in tow, and now Faith was entertaining three kids in Juliana’s little apartment, and Juliana was here, face to face with Trick for the first time in weeks.
And he’d just told her loved her.
Bibi nudged her again. “Go on, honey.”
But she stood where she was. She’d come this far; he needed to take the few steps that remained between them. If he could do that, then maybe they could face the gulf between them together.
“I’m so sorry, Jules,” he said again. And then he came to her. He stopped just short of touching her. His blue eyes bored into hers, but he didn’t touch her. “Can I talk to you?”
Her eyes prickled, and she blinked away new tears. She’d never been afraid to cry, and in her life she’d had plenty of things worth crying over, but she’d wept more since the day Connor had taken her and Lucie from their apartment than perhaps in all the rest of her life combined.
He lifted his hand and, with his thumb, brushed a tear from her cheek.
She nodded and caught his hand. “Yes, you can talk to me. You always could.”
~oOo~
Trick led her back, down a dark hallway. Juliana had never been in the clubhouse before. She’d been vaguely afraid of it, but it had turned out to be like nothing so much as a big, sort of smelly mancave. Sitting at the bar with Bibi that evening, she’d wondered what it was she’d been afraid of. Had she thought they’d have weapons hanging on the walls and naked women in cages or something?
This part of the clubhouse, though, was a bit more ominous—a dark hall, lined with closed doors. But Trick had her hand in his, and she hadn’t thought that would ever happen again, so she wasn’t worried. He stopped at one, pulled out his keys, and unlocked the door.
Oh—it was just a bedroom. Tidy and plain. A stack of books on the dresser next to the bed told her that this was where he’d been living.
Releasing her hand, he turned and closed the door. “Have a seat.”
She looked around the room: only a straight-back chair for seating. Or the bed. After a second’s hesitation, she chose the bed.
He shrugged off his kutte and hung it from a hook on the door. He sat on the chair, pulling it close to the bed.
And then they just…sat there.
Juliana watched Trick play with his rings for a while. He wore them all again, but he hadn’t put his earrings back in—or, she assumed, his other remaining piercing.
Finally, when it seemed he wouldn’t speak, she said, “I thought you wanted to talk?”
He looked up, one side of his mouth lifted in a sheepish smile. His teeth had been fixed, too. “Sorry. I don’t know how to start. Are you okay? Lucie—she’s okay?”
“We’re both fine.” Juliana heard the chill in her voice; so did Trick—he dropped his eyes again. She hadn’t meant to sound cold, but she was confused and overrun with emotion. And afraid. “We miss you,” she added, more warmly.
“I’m sorry.”
Juliana reached out and grabbed his beard. She lifted his head and made him face her. “I know, Trick. Those two words can’t be the only thing you have to say. You asked if you could talk to me. You can. So talk.”
When still he didn’t say anything. Juliana thought she might scream. And then she realized: he had been buttoning down his secrets, bottling up his pain, burying his demons for years. He had just survived weeks of torture because he’d kept so many secrets. Why would she expect him to let go of all that control in a blink, simply because she wanted him to?
She slid off the bed and knelt between his legs and rested her hands on his knees. “It’s okay. Tell me how you’re doing. Are you better? You look a little better.”
Visibly relieved, he put his hands over hers. “I’m trying to be.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. I just want you to understand that you can tell me anything. You can’t shock me. You can’t make me stop loving you. I hurt for you. I want to help you.”
“It’s just—it’s easier for me to control it if I keep it inside.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I think so. If it’s spoken, it’ll be stronger. I can’t handle stronger.”
She thought he was wrong, that
sharing it would dilute its power, but something in his eyes said that his trepidation was too great to fight now. “Okay. Whatever you need. Why did you want to talk, then?”
“I want to know what I have to do to get back what we had.”
“I don’t think we can.”
He dropped his head, and then, after a beat, he nodded.
She grabbed his beard again and lifted his head. “No. Trick, listen. What we had is in the past. We were only just starting when everything went to hell. What’s happened since they took you, that changed things. You survived something horrendous. I learned so much about you and your life, and Lucie and I made bonds with your family. We’re all different. What’s between us is different. So we can’t go back. But we can go forward.”
Hope entered his eyes, pushing to the side the cloud of disquiet she’d seen in them since he’d been back. “Can we?”
Letting go of his beard, she scooted even closer, and cupped his cheeks in her hands. “I learned something about myself, too. It’s nothing new, really, except that I understand now how it affects us. I’m not good with uncertainty, Trick. It makes my brain chew on itself. I can’t be in the dark. I need you to tell me what you’re doing—the club stuff. I can’t live with you running off and me not knowing why, or whether you’re in danger. I need to know you trust me that much, and I need to know so I don’t imagine so much.”
He shook his head, and she dropped her hands with a huff. That was important. She could live with an outlaw—with this outlaw. She could love him and make a life with him. But she couldn’t live in the dark. The uncertainty would kill her—and them.
But he caught her hands in his and brought them together. “I’m not telling you no, Jules. I’m telling you I’m not an outlaw anymore. I stepped out of that work. I can’t do it anymore. I’m just a bike designer. That’s it. No more outlaw.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’m still Horde, but I’m not signed on to anything but the shop. I’m going to manage the shop and build my bikes—and if you’ll still have me, I’m coming home to you every night. No more worry. For either of us.”
If that was true—of course it was true—then that changed everything again. For the better. It brought stability back. And it would set aside her fears about Mark breaking through whatever restraint the Horde had put on him. The times that he’d come for Lucie, he’d been on his best behavior, but Juliana hadn’t let herself trust it. She knew him, and knew he’d find the first opportunity to retaliate and try to take Lucie away. If Trick weren’t doing dangerous things anymore, but still with the power of the Horde at his back, then she had the best of both worlds: a strong legal stand, and a stronger stand against Mark’s warping of the law. She had friends, too.
“Trick…oh my God. Are you serious?”
“Completely. I can’t anymore. I never wanted it. I’ve never spent a dime of the money I’ve earned that way.”
She leaned in and wrapped her arms around him. His arms came around her, and he stood, taking them both to their feet. For a long time, they stood that way, and Juliana tucked her head under his beard and let herself reclaim the feeling of being in his arms.
Then, her face still pressed to his chest, she voiced the question foremost in her mind. “What about what you told me about being an outlaw and not a criminal?”
He chuckled—a real chuckle, not that stunted, misshapen rattle she’d heard from him in the couple of times they’d been together since he’d been back. “You’re right. I guess I’m still an outlaw, in that way. It’s who I am, the way I see the world. This is my life. But I’m done doing outlaw work. For good. I promise.”
She leaned back and looked up at him, and finally she saw the man she loved, who’d been away from her for months, looking back at her. “Don’t promise.”
He frowned. “No, Jules, I—”
With her hand on his mouth, she stopped his protest. “I know you mean it. I believe you. But we can’t know what’ll happen in the future. So don’t promise. I believe you. I don’t need the promise. And thank you.”
He kissed her fingertips and lifted her hand from his mouth. “I love you, but I didn’t do it for you. I did it because I couldn’t keep going any other way. I did it for me.”
“That’s better, Trick. That makes it more real.”
He brought up a hand and combed it through her hair. “Can I kiss you?”
“Yes. Please.”
His hand closed in her hair, and he bent his mouth to hers. His touch was light; she felt his beard more than his lips. So she leaned in, lifting her hands to his head, tangling in his hair, and pressed his mouth down on hers. When their tongues finally met, he groaned and backed off, dropping his forehead to her cheek.
“I…It’s…it’s still hard to be touched. I don’t know what I can…do. Handle.”
God, that agents of their own government had done this to him. Juliana had no great faith in the law or the government; the reason she wanted to be an attorney was because the system was so deeply unjust and unfair, and she wanted to bring what she could of justice and fairness to it. But still, that they could stoop so low as this? She wasn’t surprised, but she was horrified.
And so incredibly sad for Trick.
She pushed his head back and looked into his eyes. “Did they…?”
He shook his head sharply, but she couldn’t tell if there was denial in that movement. It was more like he was shaking away the very thought before she could utter it. “Nothing of me was mine.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and Juliana understood that he was shoring up his strength so that he could say what came next.
As he spoke, he kept his eyes closed. “I was…subjected, all the time. Even when they left me alone, they had control. They did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and I had no warning, sometimes not even the literal ability to see it coming. I had no control over anything at all. Except staying quiet. And now, touch hurts. They took that away.”
They were still wrapped around each other; her hands were in his hair, and his in hers. She tightened her arms. “Even this touch?”
He opened his eyes. “At first, yes. Not now.”
“You let me hold you when you first got back.”
He nodded. “That felt so good. That was the last time anything did until now. I guess I was still in shock then, and it’s been building up since. I don’t know why.”
“Maybe because you’ve been isolating yourself so much.” She had an idea. “Can we try something? Can we take our clothes off and get in bed and just be close? Nothing else. Let me touch you until it doesn’t hurt. And you touch me, if you want.”
Before he answered, he considered her, his eyes moving back and forth over her face. Then he asked, “What about Lucie?”
“She’s with Faith and the kids. Faith said to call and let her know if I wanted her to take Lucie out to their place for the night. They just adopted a couple of ponies, so I don’t think Lucie will be sad to spend the night at their zoo. I’ll call, and I’ll stay here tonight with you. If you want that.”
“Okay.” He gave her a look then that she couldn’t read.
“What?”
“I didn’t know about the ponies. It’s strange to me that you know something like that and I don’t. I feel like I got left behind.”
She pushed her hands under his flannel shirt and t-shirt; when they touched the bare skin of his sides and back—God, still so thin—he sucked in a breath, and his skin twitched. But she left her hands where they were, firm on him. “You didn’t, though. We’ve all been waiting. Lucie and me, we’ve been right up front, waiting. And while we were waiting, we found a family, too.”
Knife & Flesh (The Night Horde SoCal Book 4) Page 33