Page 47 of Fastlander Fighter

Captain seemed happy to just sit in the moment with her, and for the rest of her life she would remember this.

He’d been right. He could be addictive. He could make her forget everything.

Captain could be the size of a mountain and blot out everything in the world outside of him.

Sloane nestled closer to him, and he responded by wrapping his strong arms around her. “I’ve got you,” he murmured against her ear.

He didn’t know it, and she would never say it out loud, but those were the most important words any man had ever uttered to her.

Chapter Fourteen

This was the first week since the divorce that Sloane hadn’t cried. Captain was a huge help in distracting her while Ruger was at his dad’s for his custody time. She was feeling more and more like her old self, but also she was discovering a new self she hadn’t ever considered.

For the past year, she’d gotten lost. Perhaps it had started way before that. Perhaps she’d lost herself in the years she’d been confused about her value, but now? She could tell she was getting stronger.

Maybe it was the company she was keeping. She’d spent the last four days with Captain, and two of those nights had been spent up at the trailer park he lived at, hanging with the Fastlanders. The ladies there especially were bringing out her old, fun self.

A knock sounded at the door, and she smiled to herself and pushed off the sofa where she’d been writing in her journal. Captain would be standing there with a bag of something. He hadn’t said the L-word, but he had an obvious love language, and it was gift-giving.

The smile she wore faded the second she pulled the door open. Ryan stood there.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Drop-off,” he said, gesturing to where Ruger was running from his car, his little backpack bouncing this way and that with every step.

“He’s supposed to be in school,” she said, squatting to scoop Ruger up in her arms in a hug. “Heeeey, buddy. I missed you so much! Did you have so much fun at your dad’s?”

“Kind of,” he said, his eyes going serious as he leaned back.

“Ru, go to your room,” Ryan said. “I need to talk to your mom.”

“No, you don’t,” she said, setting Ruger down. “You aren’t supposed to be pulling him out of school early, Ryan. What are you doing?”

“I figured I would save you the drive and do the drop-off here today. Before your little fuck-boy gets here.”

Her eyebrows arched up and her fist itched to bash him across the jaw.

She cleared her throat delicately and looked down at Ruger, who was glaring at his dad. “Hey buddy, can you go in the other room. I’ll be right there, and we can make a snack together.”

“Journaling?” Ryan asked as she watched Ruger meander toward his room, looking back at her a couple times with a somber expression.

Sloane hugged her journal to her chest and glared at him. “What the fuck, Ryan. You shouldn’t call Captain a fuck-boy in front of Ruger. That’s not okay.”

“Yeah, well—”

“Stop,” she demanded. “The divorce paperwork is set in stone. I moved my whole life back here and moved the boundary lines so you could move forward, and I didn’t owe you a damn thing, Ryan. But the compromise was we have a set schedule with Ruger, and we are to do drop-offs in a neutral location.”

“Well, I don’t understand why we had to do that.”

“Because you kept hitting on me after our divorce and confusing me, and confusing Ruger, and probably confusing your new wife.”

Ryan shoved his hands deep in his pockets and that charming, gets-what-he-wants smile she used to fall for stretched across his lips. “Come on, Sloane. I made a mistake. I realize that now, but I can fix it.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, flustered. “Please leave.”

He stepped into her space, and she backed into the apartment as he leaned against the open doorframe. “You remember what we were like in the beginning. We were fire and gasoline, in a good way.”

She couldn’t find a single intelligent word to respond. She didn’t remember it like that at all.

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