I stopped exactly twice today to rest my feet, drink some water, and eat. That’s literally it. I’m already feeling lightheaded. Maybe I should just call him and tell him I’m done? I can’t go back to the farmhouse by myself, too risky.
“Well, what I can say is—” Nellie starts, pausing at a knock on the door. She waits as it opens and in walks Crown. Relief washes over me as his gaze finds mine, flicking over me once as if to see that I’m okay before turning back to Nellie again. “I was just talking about you,” she says, gesturing at him and acting as if fifty-plus members of the club—essentially her extended family—aren’t dead. I get that it’s a coping mechanism but watching her act like nothing happened here three days ago is weird and dystopian as fuck. “The girls are all excited to see you back on the market.”
Crown just stares at her before looking at me again.
I look right back at him, waiting. Give me something, you stupid prick. Anything at all.
“Am I?” he asks after a few seconds. “On the market?”
“I don’t know, Calder,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning back in the chair. “Are you?”
Nellie looks between the pair of us, supremely confused. Not that it matters. She can go and gossip to whoever; she can even tell Cat. Because he already knows. And he knows not just because of Gaz’s fat mouth, but because I’m married to Beast and Crown was still willing to put a gun to his president’s head to keep me safe.
“I don’t understand,” Nellie hazards with a nervous laugh.
“We’re working something out,” I explain, but she still doesn’t get it. She won’t. A lot of people will be able to sit there and listen to us spell out exactly what’s going on in our relationship and not understand. And that’s okay. They don’t have to; it isn’t about them.
“You should’ve called it a day hours ago,” Crown warns me, getting that annoying VP voice of his on. “I was watching to see if you’d self-regulate.
“I ate and drank; I rested.” Barely. “And I was about to call it.”
He stares at me like he doesn’t believe me, and Nellie nervous laughs again.
“You’re a hard worker, Gidge, but you need to work smarter, too.” I almost roll my eyes and just barely manage to keep it together. He’s speaking to me not as Cat’s little girl, but like a soldier under his command; I can respect that. I’m independent and strong-willed, not stupid. Well, not usually. “Let’s go home.”
Nellie gives Crown an odd sort of look.
Home.
The word reverberates through me in the strangest of ways.
Home. I’d love to have a home again. A real home. And I don’t mean a place with four walls and a door. I mean people. People are what makes a place home.
“You never answered your own question,” I say, standing up from the chair. “Are you on the market, Calder?”
He gives me another look and then glances down at my mom.
“Sorry, Nellie, but you can tell the girls that it was over a long, long time ago. It’s Gidget for me.” He looks up at me with this forlorn, almost sad sort of expression on his face. “It’s always been Gidget.”
“I’m sorry?” Nellie asks, but Crown is already slipping out the door and I’m following after him. I hesitate briefly to dance back a few steps and press a kiss to my mother’s cheek.
Likely the first time I’ve done that since I was nine years old. It weirds me out just as much as it does her. But I don’t regret doing it. Because fuck, who knows? Nellie might be the one lying dead tomorrow. I might be. Any of us could.
Besides, the last time I kissed her cheek, she reeked of alcohol and the cologne of a man who most definitely wasn’t my father. This version of Nellie, at least, is an improvement.
“Tell the girls that nobody’s back on the market just yet. And if I have my way, none of them will be.” I stand up and head out before she can stop me, jogging to catch up with Crown just outside the doors.
The part of the clubhouse that Gaz blew up is on the other side of the building, but I went over earlier just to look at it. It seems that the explosives were intentionally placed on the gift table.
That blast was meant for me and the boys, or at least for me and Beast. That much I know for sure. I only wish Gaz was still around so we could torture all the particulars out of him.
I wonder if that’s what Beast is doing now? Torturing Gaz’s lackeys for information. Wouldn’t surprise me.
“Have you made a decision yet?” Crown asks me, pausing beside his bike and toying with a helmet. I’m standing just behind it, watching him and wearing Beast’s jacket on my shoulders, his ring on my finger.
