“So you’re comfortable with that? Sorting your shit out with Dante?” Blade asked as he finished his spiel.
“Yeah,” I said, firmly. “It won’t be a problem.”
“I hope you mean you’re going to fix things,” Jazz said. “Between you and Dante. For real.”
Nods from the other members around the table, agreement whether grudging or enthusiastic.
“It’s not just about the club,” Priest said, his attention focused solely on me. “I don’t want you to set what you want aside for our sake. That’s not how we run this show.”
I wrapped both hands around my pint glass, letting the cool sensation of the condensation ground me. Priest was right. It’d be easy for me to go to Junee and tell Dante we could just pretend none of this ever happened, if that’s what he wanted. Easy to keep backing away so there wouldn’t be any tension between the Crew and Hell’s Ankhor because of the choices I’d made—that we’d made—and never find out what we might still be able to have.
But I didn’t want to do that anymore. I didn’t want to take the easy, comfortable, nonconfrontational way out. If my deepest fears were right—if Dante really didn’t want anything more to do with me—I’d be devastated, but I’d survive. I had my club. And Dante had shown me that I was worthy of love, of being respected and cherished, despite what my brothers had beaten into me.
So I wasn’t going to pretend that I didn’t want to be with him just because I was afraid of being rejected. I wanted him—all of him, even when he was hurting and withdrawn, even when I had to step up and be the one to take care of us for a while. I was sick and tired of letting fear rule my life, of thinking I couldn’t do the things I wanted to do, or have the things I wanted to have.
Because what if he still wanted me, too? I was ready to risk the potential pain for the possibility of being with him.
Priest was still watching me carefully; I nodded at him and held his gaze. “I won’t.”
Blade adjourned church. The members dispersed with nods and a few claps on the back for me.
Raven walked me outside. “Gonna go talk to him now?” he asked.
“Why wait? I know what I want, and I’m finally ready to ask for it.”
Raven grinned, and then pulled me into a brief, hard hug. “I like this new Kid,” he said. “And I kind of have a feeling Dante will, too.”
I could only hope he was right.
29
Dante
I slammed my knuckles into the dough on the kitchen island again then folded it over itself and slammed it again. The repetitive motion that I usually found so soothing and meditative wasn’t doing much to improve my mood. Especially because the cops had gotten to Baxter, Ryder, and Trip before I could, and now I’d never get a chance to drive my fists into their faces like I really wanted to.
I’d spent the past week baking my frustrations out, and since there was no Stella’s kitchen in which to work, I was filling my own little kitchen to the brim. There was bread everywhere, most of it still delicious but a little bit tough due to the fact that I was beating the shit out of every single loaf during the kneading process. This time it was a chocolate babka, as I clung to the weak hope that maybe the sweetness would do something to mitigate the pain. Not that I was able to eat much of it anyway.
The baking was a distraction, but it wasn’t making me feel any better. Emotionally, it was like I was buckled into the backseat of a runaway car, and I didn’t know what horrible turn or plummeting drop it was going to take next. One moment I was wracked with despair from the loss of the bakery, and then regret that I didn’t beat those guys’ asses when I had the chance, and then guilt.
Powerful, suffocating guilt for the way I’d sent Heath away when he’d only wanted to help me.
I paused, resting both palms on the kitchen island and dropping my head. Even just thinking about Heath sent a spike of pain through me, a sharp needling pain on top of the dull, constant grief. I’d been telling myself I’d been giving us both space. I’d needed space to handle the mountain of logistics that the aftermath of the fire required, to remain