Page 97 of Brother In Arms

Chapter 33

Rush

I was working on the damn front door I’d been building for Bailey before her fucking house went up. It felt good to be in my shop, but I was nervous today. Today was the day she’d gone to Shelly’s, and the girls were going to tell her the plan I’d hatched to get her dream up and running sooner rather than later.

I decided I’d had enough of the garage now that I’d had a taste of something I’d meant to be doing all along. As much as I didn’t want to turn my hobby of making things out of wood into a job, I didn’t mind selling a bunch of shit I had stored here and out at Point Nowhere. It was just going to end up damaged if I didn’t, and if selling it put me and Bailey closer to trying out a life together, then I was all for it. I think it was time for something new for the both of us.

I looked up from what I was doing and had to smile a little, “How long you been there?” I asked her. She was sitting on one of the high stools at the table in the corner of my shop I reserved for visitors.

“A while. I think I like watching you work,” she said. “Something both captivating and soothing about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She seemed off. A little sad, a lot reserved, and I worried about it. I couldn’t fix the problem without knowing what it was, but I didn’t think it was right to just come out and ask. Not this time. While it would have been fun under any other circumstances to rile her up and watch her go, I didn’t think I’d get that particular reaction this time. It finally hit me what looked wrong about her. It was her eyelashes. They were sort of stuck together and I asked her, “You been crying?”

I dropped my chisel and carving knife and came around the door that was laying flat on its saw horses so I could work on it. She nodded a bit tiredly and slipped off the stool, her arms coming up. I folded her into my chest and held on tight. Her arms went around my waist and she shook with these broken little sobs as she broke down all over again.

Too much. I thought to myself. The meeting had been too much, way too soon. The poor woman was in emotional overload, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. Dad recently dead, brother in jail, trusted family friend found stealing from her, mother pulling a complete one-eighty on the beliefs she’d held Bailey’s entire life due to her own grief… House burning down, getting shot at – fuck. It wasn’t exactly the lifestyles of the rich and famous shit that she was used to. It was my life, the one I wished like hell I could leave behind but when it turned back up like a bad penny, there I was in the thick of it again.

I wish I could say that I regretted it, but I couldn’t. It’d brought Bailey right back to me when I thought I’d never see her again. It’d brought me right into her life to fix it for her the only way that I could, although I found myself wishing we ran like we used to. Had we operated like the old one percent club we’d been there would be a lot more bodies on the floor, sure, but Bailey’s life may have ended up more intact than it was now.

Maybe it wasn’t meant to be intact… the fucking voice of reason whispered out of a corner of my mind. The knife goes through the fire so that it can become hardened steel.

“Shh, I got yah,” I soothed and waited out the storm, because what else could you do?

“I don’t understand why anyone would want to do so much for me,” she sobbed and I chuckled and kissed the top of her hair.

“It’s how we are, baby. We love fierce and we aren’t afraid to live. People like us? We band together. We help each other. That’s the way the world is supposed to work, isn’t it?”

“It’s the way it’s supposed to work, but that doesn’t mean that’s the way it works, does that make sense?”

“Yeah, it does, but I guess that’s part of what makes us rebels, isn’t it?” she laughed, a choked broken sound and I smiled rocking her gently back and forth.

“I’m just so out of sorts,” she said, adding, “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for, babe. Everybody gets overwhelmed sometime.”

“You don’t.”

I laughed, “Oh, trust me. I do. You should have seen the bitch fit I pitched when Nox hooked up with his girl and made her his ol’ lady. Woo boy, not one of my finer moments.” I smiled and said, “But you know what was?”

“What?”

I tipped her head back so I could look at her, “Falling in love with this beautiful woman right here.” I bent my head and kissed her then, and her breath hitched.

Her lips were soft, and she’d replaced that lip balm that drove me crazy. The one that tasted like brown sugar. I almost wish she’d chased it with some bourbon like that first night. I drew back and asked, “You want it here or you want to go back to the room?”

She opened those big brown eyes, panting slightly and said, “Room, take me back to your room.”

“You’ve got it, baby.” I switched off equipment, hitting the button to close the bay doors. I grabbed her by the hand, pulling her out into the afternoon light before the door could come down and hinder our escape. She pressed close to me as we went into the building that housed my room and trailed up the hall. I stuck my key in the lock and we went in, shutting the door tightly behind us.

Bailey turned her face up to mine, and I bent and kissed her. Her fists knotted in the front of my cut and she pushed it back off my shoulders. I helped things along, piece by piece until we were both standing there naked as the day we were born, skins flushed with heat and the need to be a part of each other.

Her fingertips glided over my body, lingering over the spot on my ribs dedicated to the one percent diamond I had there. I asked her softly, “Too much?” needing to know if it was something she’d never be able to get over because that would suck. It would hurt worse than anything that’d gone before, and there wasn’t anything I could do to change it. She smiled and shook her head, and reached up to bring my lips down to hers. I felt a knot of tension I hadn’t realized I carried ease out of the center of my chest and out from between my shoulders. Spine loosening up with relief.

I hauled her fit body up against mine and deepened the kiss, letting my need for her shine through. She smiled against my lips and it was like a flower opening up to the sun, the change in her. I knew in that moment, that I somehow brought her joy. That being with me was the same as it was for me being with her. That we just needed to hold on to that. This attraction went way beyond just having the hots for each other. Some things were just fated to be and we were one of them.

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