Crown turns back to me and holds his arms out to either side of him.
“And then I watch you walk down the aisle with someone else. I hate myself for not speaking up.” He drops his arms by his sides and shakes his head with a frustrated scoff. “I hate myself even more for that, I should say.”
“Crown, I’ll—” I try again, but he cuts me off by lifting his head and looking at me so sharply that the words steal from my throat.
“No, Gidge. Shut up. For once, just shut the fuck up and let me talk.”
I blink at him, but I kind of deserve that, so I do what he asks and stay quiet.
Crown stalks back over to me, his boots loud in the gravel, and then looks down at me. Panting, but not touching. Just watching.
“And now you’re pregnant,” he hisses out, clenching his teeth. “It might be mine. I don’t know. But do you know what fucking terrifies me?” He puts his palm on his chest and leans down so that our mouths brush, but he isn’t kissing me, and I’m dying on the inside. “I realized today that I don’t fucking care. I don’t.” He stands back up again and laughs. It isn’t a pretty laugh. Not even close. “Do you know what Beast said to me yesterday?” he asks, almost absently, but that’s a farce. This is the crux of the whole situation. “He told me that he didn’t give a fuck if it was my baby or not. It was his, that’s what he told me. And it could be ours, but it would never be mine.”
I swallow hard, digging my fingers into my thighs and watching as Crown turns his gaze up toward the smoky sky. It smells like ash out here again, like ruined cities and decimated forests and dead things. The moon is a bizarre otherworldly yellow color, like it’s slathered in butter. It has the faintest orange-red ring around the outside, the edges blurred with hazy clouds.
The fires are getting closer, hungry fingers licking their way toward the valley where our once small but very quickly growing town lies nestled.
Wildfires like this can, have, and are currently burning straight through entire towns.
It’s a real fear.
“He wanted me to choose him, but he doesn’t care if I also choose you,” I explain, unsure why that is, why Beast would offer something like me. But now, standing here with Crown, I figure it out. Because … if Beast told me he needed to see other women in order to get over his jealousy, I’d … I’d do it.
Because I want him to stay.
And that’s what he wants from me. To stay. He better not actually want other women because, well, I’m a selfish alpha female bitch, but I don’t think it’s anything I need to worry about.
Any woman who approaches my men will get her ass handed to her by yours truly.
“So what else can you take from me, Gidge?” Crown continues, stalking over to the helmet and picking it back up. He moves over to me and very carefully places it over my head. “All of it. Take it all. Because the only time I like who I am, is when I’m with you.”
Crown is good at grand romantic gestures, sweeping ones that redefine entire universes. He’s also good at small ones, at one-liners that make my knees quake and my pulse pound. What he just said to me is like a sword to the chest, puncturing my heart and leaving it irreparably altered.
I love it.
I love him.
He turns away and swings his leg over his bike, waiting for me to climb on behind him.
It’s no accident that there’s a cushy backrest for me to lean against. Why would Crown get a bike suited comfortably for two? Not for anyone else. He didn’t buy a farmhouse for anyone else. He didn’t save his aunt’s ring for anyone else.
He kicks the bike to life as I wrap my arms around him, pressing my cheek to his back and struggling to breathe. He did that too fast for me to come up with a proper reply, to tell him that I’ll do it. We can have a baby together someday. Fuck.
The ride back to the house is short but blissful.
We’re alone in the woods, and when we get far enough away from the main portion of the compound, we’re immersed in that endless country darkness that scares city people half to death.
The moon is covered in smoke and far too dim to penetrate the canopy. The only light out here is Crown’s bike.
He takes me back to the farmhouse and parks beside the steps, shutting the engine off. And then he just sits there for a moment. I sit back and take the helmet off, holding it between our bodies like a shield.
