I’ll admit, there’s a part of me that’s slave to this culture and its traditions in a way that makes me wonder if this is the right path to take. Beast is my husband now. He’s mine. I’m his. I shouldn’t be getting on Crown’s bike, and I certainly shouldn’t be offering to carry a baby for him at any point in my life.
“About?” I query politely, and he sighs, looking up at me like he’s exasperated. But there’s a certain glint in his eyes that I believe he’s been intentionally hiding from me all along; it’s a glint that says he likes me this way, defiant and angry and annoying.
“About me,” he says with a low, masculine laugh, shaking his head. Crown lifts his gaze over to mine. “I want a kid, Gidge. That’s it. Just one.”
“Is that what I’m worth to you?” I ask softly, my voice whisper quiet on the wind. I’m not actually upset. I get it. He’s giving up everything else, so why not just this one thing? But I can’t help it. I always have to push back. I always have to try just a little harder. It never ceases to keep me out of trouble, but it is what it is.
I want Crown to fall for me completely, irreversibly, just like I’ve fallen for him.
Because I can’t possibly be the only fool in love between us.
There’s a long stretch of silence there, another pause in the fabric of reality, another moment where everything goes still and it’s just me and Crown and the hush of the woods at the edges of the parking lot. Nothing else matters but for this feeling between us, this invisible red thread of fate that keeps pulling us back together even when we’re both running in opposite directions.
That’s when it happens, in that contemplative quiet. He breaks, and I’m there to catch all of his pieces and meld them with my own.
Crown lets out a sound and drops the helmet to the gravel beside his motorcycle, leaning over and putting his palms on the seat of it.
“How much can you possibly carve out of me?” he chokes, like he’s in physical pain. His eyes are squeezed shut, and he’s visibly shaking. “How much, Gidget?”
“I don’t know what you mean—” I start, but Crown lets out such a sharp, horrible laugh that I stop. I shouldn’t lie like that. I do know what he means. I do.
“You always push, push, push,” he says, speaking so low that it’s almost impossible to hear him. I take a step forward and he turns his head toward me, green eyes ablaze. “I’ve tried so hard to stay away from you. But you always chase. You come at me when I’m drunk or I’m low or I’m hating myself so much that it hurts to breathe.”
He stands up and turns toward me, making me gasp when he snatches my wrists in his hands. Those beautiful eyes search my face, looking for something that I hope he can see as plain as day, even if our only light is dusky and diffused, falling from one of the clubhouse windows.
“I give up my morals,” he whispers, eyes getting half-lidded, almost dreamlike. “By fucking a sixteen-year-old girl and then pushing her aside because I’m still trying. I’m telling myself that she needs to make her own choices, that I can’t influence the things she does.” He slides his thumbs along my pulse points, and I swallow hard. “I lie to my president and betray my brothers.” He closes his eyes, and I see suddenly how hard this has all really hit him.
It was no small thing for Crown to do what he did. He loves this club. He even loves and respects Cat, is proud to call him president. And he’s given all of that away for me. For me. And all he wants is a baby.
“I’ll—” I start, prepared to offer that up as easily as I breathe. But he cuts me off with this punishing kiss that tastes like tears. They couldn’t possibly be mine, right? But then I realize that they are and that’s okay.
Life is painful, and it doesn’t make you weak to feel alive, to hurt, to show others how you feel. Connection is what makes it all worth it.
“I would’ve taken you far away from here,” Crown whispers against my mouth, breathing heavily, struggling and fighting and yet, still falling. For me. Hard and fast enough to break bones. Spiraling. “So you could live with that boy.” He lets out a harsh laugh and releases me, turning away and raking the fingers of both hands through his hair.
Seeing a man who’s usually so composed but is currently having a breakdown … it’s devastating for me.
I look around, but it’s black as pitch out here, and there’s nobody nearby. I can hear the heavy buzz of chatter from inside the overcrowded building, but that feels like a whole universe away from this.
