Page 64 of Apex of the Curve

Chapter Sixteen

Fenris…

I called up Mav just to make sure I wasn’t needed for anything tonight. He put me off and told me to relax and take care of my lady friend and I thought that damn, word traveled fast. Of course, with Little Bird, Marisol, and Dahlia as thick as thieves, that didn’t really surprise me much. All roads led back to Mav when it came to Marisol and Dahlia.

I sighed and looked up, taking another hit off the joint in my hand as I waited for Aspen to come out the back door. I was going to ride, she was going to drive, but I still didn’t much feel like leaving without her.

Today felt good. Like she was hitting the apex of the curve on her grief. That any second, she would come around the bend and follow it out onto the open road of her new beginning. I had yet to brooch the topic of a new lawyer. I had no desire to kick her back into the pit of despair that she’d only begun to crawl her way out of.

She was doing good. Doing much better, much quicker, than I expected. I was glad I’d been right about taking a break from that place, but I knew it couldn’t be forever, that she’d have to go back soon and face the ghosts of memory, and tackle the piles of stuff and the thoughts and whatnot that came with them.

I got the impression that Aspen’s childhood had somehow set her up for failure when it came to her douche lord ex-husband. I cracked knuckles and sighed. There would be no putting a hurt on the asshole. Aspen just wasn’t that way and I was far from wanting to corrupt her so thoroughly as to bend her that direction. Violence was my gig, the thing I had to reckon with. The demon that raged inside my skull and gods be praised; the thing that was finally fucking quiet when I was around this woman.

She had me know peace, a feat that was not easily managed when it came to me, but one she managed to make look like it was as effortless as breathing. Like when she molded the earth between her hands into such beautiful things.

I closed my eyes and pictured her slick fingers, pressing against the mound of shapeless clay as it spun on her wheel – giving it form, giving it life, turning it into something useful and beautiful.

I felt like she was doing the same to me, shaping me into a better person by just her mere presence and it was nice. It felt good, and I liked it.

Like I had meaning again aside from the usual: being a blunt weapon of force.

“Fenris, what’s wrong?” she called from the back door, shutting it tightly and turning back to it with her keys, locking it up.

“Nothing!” I called back, and I went to take another hit off my joint only to discover it’d gone out. I tucked it behind my ear instead as she practically skipped down the back steps to come to me.

“Oooh.” She pulled back and wrinkled her nose.

“Not a fan of the ganja?” I asked.

“Not the smell, I don’t care about it otherwise.”

“Oh yeah? You use?”

“Edibles sometimes,” she said with a shrug. “Helps when my back is all tight.”

“Good to know,” I said with a bit of a smile. “I’d like to get you buzzed and fuck you slow.”

She blushed and murmured, “I think I’d be down to try that.”

“Not outside your comfort zone?” I asked while studying her face.

Yeah, it was, but I could see it before she said it. “It is, but the more I think about it, the more I could come around.”

I chuckled and kissed her temple. “I got a better adventure in store for you tomorrow that doesn’t involve mind-altering substances.”

“Oh yeah?” she quirked an eyebrow. “Where we going?”

“That’s for me to know and for you to find out.” I gave her gorgeous ass a little swat and sent her in the direction of her Prius.

“Meet you back at my place,” I said. “I’m right behind you.”

“Okay,” she agreed softly.

We went back to my place, my pops coming back to the house from the barn calling out to me as I shut off the bike. “Hey, what you two got planned for tonight?”

“Quiet one in,” I called back, and he nodded.

“Good deal, you got the place to yourself,” he said.

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