staring at the letters for so long that they lost all meaning. Had I fucked it up? Surely Brennan would’ve corrected me. Wouldn’t have let me waste all that time and lumber. He’d seen the sign plenty of times. He wouldn’t have let me embarrass myself like this, would he?
I was being paranoid. Of course Brennan wouldn’t do that.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t fuck it up. And now, with Coop grinning in such a way that I couldn’t figure out if he was being serious or not, I was really, really doubting myself. But I didn’t know how to ask if he was kidding or not in a way that wouldn’t require me to lay myself bare in front of the entire club.
My chest started to tighten. I just needed to get away.
Fuck. Fuck. I shoved past Coop and toward the back door.
“Hey!” Coop called. “Where you going?”
I ignored him and went back into the clubhouse. I paused in the common area and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, taking a few deep, slow breaths to settle the panic and shame roiling inside me.
“Joker,” Brennan said softly as he closed the door to the back porch behind him. He was alone—and for that I was grateful. I definitely couldn’t handle being in front of the rest of my club, not now. Not like this. “What’s wrong?”
For one crazy moment I wanted to tell him. Or really—ask him. Ask him if Coop was right. If I’d fucked it up. But that would mean admitting that I didn’t actually know. That I couldn’t just look at the sign and figure it out for myself, tell for sure just by reading it. And I couldn’t give that much away. I just couldn’t.
Things were going so well. I liked being with Brennan. I liked this us. And if he knew how fucking stupid I was, how uneducated and pathetic I was, he’d see who I really was. He’d know I’d been lying to him this entire time—that I wasn’t amazing, and talented, and special like he thought. And why would he want to be with me then?
I took another deep breath. “Nothing,” I said. But I kept my back to him. “Nothing, I just—I need a minute.”
“Hey,” Brennan said, still in that same soft, sweet voice, and his footsteps approached me. “Come on, you can talk to me.”
God, I wanted that to be true. But it wasn’t. And I couldn’t. Not about this. “I just—I’m going to go to my room. I’ll be back, just—just give me a minute, okay?”
Even if part of me wanted his comfort, his arms around me, his understanding, I had to get my head on straight first if I wanted to keep my secret—and keep his respect.
20
Brennan
Something was wrong with Joker. Really wrong. I’d seen him shut down and close off plenty of times—but when he got defensive, he usually lashed out. Made some inappropriate joke or teased, or otherwise tried to position himself as above it all.
This was new. He’d closed off entirely after Coop had made that stupid joke. Something about it had hit a nerve, making him so defensive he hadn’t even been able to joke around. Totally shut down. What had it been? The thought that Coop didn’t like the sign? The fear of starting over again? Why had he panicked so much over Coop’s silly joke?
I stared at the tense line of Joker’s shoulders as he waited for me to give in, to leave. Then, I took a risk—I stepped forward and smoothed my hand across that tense line of muscle gently, soothing.
Joker took a shaky breath.
“I’ll come with you,” I said.
Things had been going so well between us. Joker had been opening up to me so easily, revealing the soft, vulnerable parts of himself. And our relationship had blossomed into something fun, and easy, and even sweet at times. Not to mention the sex was still fucking explosive. And now, it seemed like he really needed support—for reasons I still didn’t understand—and I didn’t want him to pull away.
I wanted him to know that all those times he’d been alone, that he’d had to fend for himself, that he didn’t have to do that anymore. That he could trust me to hold him up when he needed the boost.
“No,” Joker said. “I need to be alone.”
My heart sank. Sank deeper than I was willing to admit to myself. I should’ve been prepared for this. I was getting in deep