His eyes meet mine. “Need time.”
“Don’t we all.”
His eyes flicker with hurt again. “You should have come to me. You should have never suffered like that.”
“No, maybe not, but seeing you broken hurts me so much more. I just wanted to protect you.”
“Not your job,” he says, his voice rough. “Not your job, baby. It was mine, and I fucked it up.”
“Jacks?”
We both look over to see Mom at the door, a robe wrapped tightly around her, her eyes filled with tears. I stand, because I know she’s the only person who can fix him right now. I lean down and kiss his cheek, then I whisper again, “Forgive yourself, Daddy. I need that from you.”
Then I turn and walk over to Mom. She pulls me into her arms, and we hold each other for a good long time. When she lets me go, I give her a weak smile. “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” she says.
“Don’t be. I’m going to be okay.” I look to Dad. “Right now, he isn’t.”
Her eyes go to him and her face falls.
“Be with him. Tomorrow we’ll talk, okay?”
She looks back to me. “I wasn’t there when you needed me. I won’t let that happen again.”
I take her hand and squeeze it. “Lucas is waiting for me right now. Tomorrow, we’ll talk. Right now . . . he needs you.”
She nods, tears trickling down her cheeks. I hug her again and then step out of the shed. I turn and look back in before leaving to see Mom climb onto Dad’s lap. He drops his beer bottle, puts his arms around her waist, and I hear the pained sound he makes from deep in his throat. She holds him, and I know she’ll fix it for him.
She’s his one. She can fix anything.
Even this.
CHAPTER 34
NOW – AVA
It’s been three weeks since my major meltdown at the club, and things have slowly started getting better. My dad isn’t happy with me dating a cop, but he’s also in the position where he gets little to no say about the matter. My mom really likes Lucas, and so do Skye and Mercy. Danny and Max act like any good biker boys, and lecture me often about the matter.
It doesn’t matter. Lucas is everything.
Dating him is like coming alive. It’s like that first breath when you’re drowning, and it’s like laughter on Christmas morning. He’s kind, he’s sexy, and he takes care of me.
We connected that day in the club. We dug through any barriers and found that we are two of the same, fighting the same battles. I never thought I’d learn to breathe again after Bethy, but Lucas is showing me that there is indeed life after horror.
We’re taking things as slow as possible. Mostly we get together on his days off and go out, just getting to know each other. I can’t say the same for the nights. It’s in those times when Lucas and I connect, truly feel each other. Everything he withdraws and hides comes out when he’s inside me. Something explodes between us and creates a connection that gets stronger by the second.
Finally, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.
“Ava?”
I jerk from my thoughts and see Michael leaning over my desk. I had to work late tonight, some big case he’s got going that he needed help with, and the longer the evening went on, the more tired I became, tending to slip off into my own little world.
“Sorry,” I say, doing a quick glance around to see that everyone has gone; it’s just Michael and I.
That makes my skin crawl in an unnatural way.
“Have you finished my papers?” he asks, sliding his rump onto my desk. I want to reach over and slap him off.
“Yes. I’m just checking them over now.”
“It didn’t look like you were checking them over; it looked like you were thinking about something else. We’ve had this discussion before, and I asked for you to keep your personal life outside of work.”
Jerk.
“I wasn’t doing anything, sir,” I say as kindly as I can, all while wanting to uppercut his chin. “I was thinking about, ah, what I was going to eat on the way home.”
He studies me. “If you like, I can get us some food and we can eat together.”
I’d rather poke my own eyes out with a fork. “No, that’s okay. I’m sure you’ve had a very long night and have someone waiting at home for you.”
Wrong thing to say.
He leans over and runs his finger—yes, runs it—up my arm. “Actually, I don’t, but