Page 118 of Tank's Agent
"I know how it looks." I held the jacket out, turning it so he could see the words. "And I know what you went through with Cross. The ownership. The control. The way he made you feel like a thing instead of a person." I met his eyes, held them, lettinghim see everything I was feeling. "This isn't that. I don't want to possess you. I don't want to control you. I want everyone who sees you to know that you're under my protection. That if they hurt you, they answer to me. That you're not alone anymore, and you never will be again."
Tyler's hand reached out, touched the leather. His fingers traced the letters of my name.
"You know how this usually works," I continued, my voice rougher than I'd intended. "You were there for Kai's ceremony. The club, the patch, Hawk presiding. Everyone watching." I shook my head. "But that's not us. That's notyou. You've had enough of your life being public property." I pressed the jacket into his hands. "So this is ours. Private. Just between you and me. Hawk already approved it—I asked him last week."
"You asked permission to claim me?" Tyler's voice was strange—not upset, just... processing.
"I asked if the club would recognize you as mine. Under my protection. Part of my family." I cupped his face in my hands, tilting it up so our eyes met. "You're not my property, Tyler. You're my partner. My equal. My—" The word caught in my throat, too big and too simple at the same time. "My everything. The jacket is just a way of telling the world what you already know."
Tyler was quiet for a long moment. The wind moved through his hair. The water glittered below us. Somewhere in the distance, a hawk circled on the thermals, patient and free.
Then he shrugged out of his old jacket, theborrowed one that had never fit right, and slipped his arms into the new leather.
It fit perfectly. Like it had been made for him. Like it had been waiting.
He turned, showing me his back—the Phoenix patch, the white letters, the declaration that anyone who saw him would understand. Then he turned back to face me, and he was smiling. That real smile, the one that cracked his face open and let the light pour through.
"Property of Tank." He said the words like he was tasting them, testing their weight on his tongue. "I can live with that."
I pulled him in and kissed him—deep and thorough, pouring everything into it that words couldn't capture. When we broke apart, his eyes were shining, and mine probably were too.
"Come on." I climbed back onto my bike, kicked the engine to life. "Let's take the long way home."
Tyler mounted the Shovelhead. The cherry red gleamed in the fading sun, and his new jacket—hisjacket now, forever—creaked softly as he settled into the saddle. He looked like he belonged there. He looked like he'd always belonged there.
"Race you?" His grin was sharp, challenging, alive.
"You don't stand a chance." But I was smiling too, the wind already pulling at my hair, the road stretching out before us like a promise.
Tyler laughed—bright and real and free—and the Shovelhead roared to life beneath him.
We rode out together, side by side, into the golden afternoon. The desert opened up around us,vast and endless and full of possibility. Danny's bike sang beneath the man I loved, and I thought about ghosts, about grief, about the way life keeps going even when you think it can't.
You'd like him, Danny. You'd like who I am with him.
And I hope, wherever you are, that you're finally at peace.
The road unwound before us. The sun hung low on the horizon. And for the first time in longer than I could remember, the future felt like something to ride toward instead of something to survive.
We had each other. We had the club. We had two months of healing behind us and a lifetime stretching ahead.
That was enough.
That was everything.
THE END
