Page 52 of Cocky Secrets

With a frown Bear pulls me closer, “You could look at it like that.”

“I thought they never would accept you, so yes, I choose to look at it like that. It would be so easy to lean into the trauma of what I went through. I’d rather reframe it and see the good that has come out of it… us.”

Bear’s smile comes slow. “You’re something else.”

“So are you.”

“I’d like to take you on a date.”

“I’d like to paint you.”

He laughs, “Oh yeah? You gonna show up this time?”

“Maybe I could do it after our date, on the same night, that way you know I’ll show up because I’ll already be with you.”

“Deal.” Bear kisses me, long and unhurried. “Friday night.”

“Perfect.”

He takes my hand and we walk to the door. I open it as he confesses, “I wish you were sleeping with me today.”

Leaning against the open doorframe with morning sunlight streaming in, I murmur, “Not sure how much sleep we’d accomplish.”

Bear grins, gives me a sexy goodbye kiss, and walks down to his patrol car. I watch until he’s gone, Sofia Sol’s words reverberating in my mind.

TWENTY-THREE

Sage

Training has done more than help make the time go quickly until my date. I’ve got a newfound, growing confidence in myself, my body. It’s crazy because the thing about getting stronger is, at first you feel weak. But then a shift happens. The exercises become less difficult. Today I was able to do a third rep of pushups when yesterday I collapsed at the second. Even though I’m sore, it’s like my muscles were hoping, waiting, for me to use them.

After the final pushup I laugh, “I did it!” and crawl up to sitting on the training mats in our backyard, sunlight blanketing me, adrenaline chasing away the shadows of nightmares I’ve been having.

Sofia Sol stands above me with a look of approval. “Feels good?”

“Feels great. Hard, but great.”

She calls over to the ring, “Atlas, Sean, get out of there. I want to bring Sage in for palm strikes.”

Sean lowers his boxing gloves, “When are you finally gonna start calling me Diesel?”

Soph gives me a look, and I shrug because in my mind he’s stillSean, too. The biker name he earned has never stuck for me. She cuts him a cocky glance. “I guess never.”

Celia tells her husband, “I call you Diesel, baby,” rising up from where she was sitting on the grass, watching everyone. Waiting for her turn.

“I know you do,” he winks at her.

She jumps in the ring and throws a punch at him. He deflects it, laughing and grabbing her, flipping her around and kissing the back of her neck. “You wanna fight me?”

“You know I do,” Celia murmurs.

Atlas grumbles, “Get out of the ring. It’s Sage’s turn.”

“You too, Atlas,” Sofia Sol calls over, grabbing a pair of boxing mitts from a pile stored in the weatherproof cupboard beside our back porch.

My brother shakes his head once and firmly. “I’m going to train her today. You don’t get all the glory, Soph.”

Sofia Sol laughs with a twinkle of mischief. “Fight me for it, Atlas.”

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