outside the Elkin Lake clubhouse, tugged off my helmet, and paused as I began to untie my duffel from the pannier over the back wheel.
Star, Eli, and Nix were laughing as they walked up the stairs to the clubhouse front porch, bags in hand. They didn’t seem to be too bothered by being displaced from their apartments, but I still felt guilty. I shouldn’t have ignored Xavier for so long. I was the damn co-president and I’d gotten cocky, thinking I could handle it. And now the entire club was paying the price.
“Hey,” Priest said, hurrying down the porch stairs. He’d left the motel before me, saying he needed to ensure the empty rooms were fit to have visitors. Just another pang of guilt for me, too, giving Priest extra work to do. Still, even after spending only a few hours apart, I was relieved to see him. His expression softened with concern as he approached. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, then set my teeth into my lower lip thoughtfully. “Just a little pissed.”
“At Xavier? Hell, yeah, you should be.”
“No, no,” I said. “At myself.”
Priest tilted his head curiously. “You know this isn’t your fault.”
“You can’t say that,” I said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I was the one who blew off Xavier’s harassment in the first place, even as it became worse and more frequent. Hell, you had to convince me even he was even a threat at all!”
“That still doesn’t make it your fault,” Priest said. “You were trying to keep your business private. No one blames you for that.”
“I know they don’t,” I said. “But my actions have uprooted some of our members, Priest. We’re not safe in our own home.”
His hand fell to my shoulder. He’d been doing that a lot recently—touching my shoulder, or the middle of my back. It was such a gentle, grounding gesture. One that I was beginning to rely on a lot.
“I know it doesn’t look like much,” I said, “it’s not as fancy as the clubhouse, sure, but—it’s home. It’s my home. I raised Dante there. Our entire club made it our home. And the thought that I’ve uprooted my family just because of some dumb hookup—” I cringed and toed at the dirt. “Some president.”
“Yeah,” Priest said. “I understand.”
I paused. I’d expected Priest to huff and puff and reiterate that I was doing just fine—the way Blade would. But Priest just smiled, his hand still on my shoulder.
“I know what it’s like to feel like you’re letting the club down,” he said, quietly. “Feeling like you missed something—let something slip through the cracks, and now everyone else has to pay for your oversight.”
Something in my chest felt like it was cracking open. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s exactly that. How could I have missed this? How could I have not seen this coming?”
“We can’t do it all, as much as we try,” Priest said. “We’re always going to make mistakes. Part of the gig. And, all things considered, this one is pretty manageable so far.”
“So far,” I said. It was still a relief to hear it, though—not someone telling me that I was still a good president, but Priest telling me that, yeah, this was a mistake, but it was one we’d recover from.
“And honestly,” Priest said, “the motel is overdue for a security upgrade. But you know we weren’t going to get around to it until something like this happened.”
I barked a surprised laugh. “Well, you’re not wrong about that.”
Then, Priest moved his hand from my shoulder, but only to swing his arm around me and tug me in for a rough, hard hug.
“Do you really want to spend the night in one of those guest rooms?” he asked with a grin.
“Honestly? Not looking forward to it,” I admitted.
“Come on,” he said. “Crash at my place again.”
Before I could answer, Priest was deftly unfastening my duffel from the pannier and swinging it over his shoulder. He quirked an eyebrow at me.
He really did understand how I felt about this whole situation—the messy mix of guilt and embarrassment and desire to improve. To serve the club as best I could—to not let them get dragged into my mistakes and failures. I didn’t have to explain it, and he knew he didn’t need to reassure me that I was a capable president.
The foundation of our lives was the same. There was so much I didn’t have to explain. There was so much textured history between us, rich and unspoken—something that had taken decades to