Page 42 of Whiskey Shivers

“Hey, you alright?” he asked me softly.

“What? Yeah,” I said and met his eyes, forcing a smile to my lips. He traced some of my long brown hair behind my ear.

“You don’t have to lie to me,” he said gently. “I saw that look.”

“What look?” I asked. I genuinely didn’t have any idea what he was referring to. “I was giving a look?” I asked.

He chuckled deeply and pressed his lips to my forehead and my eyes sank shut.

“I think you’re tired,” he said and he had me there.

“I am,” I agreed.

“Okay, let me see these guys and Alina off and I’ll come help you.”

“Okay,” I murmured.

I honestly just wanted to be alone with him. Iwastired. Alina and I managed to get a lot accomplished. My clothes were put away entirely and just my random personal effects remained – books, photographs, trinkets – that sort of thing.

I was glad I’d managed to snag my good cookware and kitchen things. Those were mostly put away too except for the things that were piled in the sink that needed to be washed.

Hex helped me to my feet. I’d felt much better switched out of his tee and into a loose tee and pair of leggings of my own. More put together, and while not precisely my usual standard of presentable, I gave myself some grace on that and had convinced myself that the men of his club weren’t perving on me. They were just being kind and didn’t care what I’d been wearing when they’d arrived.

Funnily enough, I didn’t take much convincing on that last part. I genuinely believed that was the case. They didn’t care. They didn’t make a big deal about any of this, and I could only imagine what some of the faculty at the school would say. I could already picture Mrs. Moreno, the junior and senior history teacher, clutching her pearls, exclaiming just howscandalousit was that I’d just been moved into thejanitor’shouse and that all these rough-looking men had seen me that morning in nothing but his t-shirt. It hurt my heart a little.

Not for me, but for them. I guarantee you, had it been only the rest of the faculty at Lakeside at my disposal to move me out and give me someplace to go after all that had happened, I would have been on my own with nowhere to go and no one to turn to. I would be without my belongings, strapped into this medieval torture device of a sling brace hybrid thing, and trying to make the best of it on a cot at the homeless shelter.

I wasn’t a battered woman, so I wouldn’t be given shelter there… and maybe, just maybe, some church would take me in but at what cost there? A barrage of proselytizing when all I needed was some time to think and to heal and just process all that had happened to me.

Society was so quick to judge and look down on this man for being ajanitorand adirty biker, when he had been the only one there for me. The only one at my hospital bedside, the one to hold my hand and bring me flowers and… it clicked.

Everything Alina had been saying… Hex didn’t say with words that he cared for me and that he loved me, as much as I longed to hear such things. No, he had been my friend and had shown up. He had done the work and proven time and again at this point, with actions and not words, how much he cared… with gentle touches and light forehead kisses and—

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked when he turned from shutting the door behind everyone. It took me a second to realize I was shaking, and another handful of seconds to realize my face was wet. I opened my mouth to speak and shut it as I was swamped with a wave of gratitude for this man that words simply could not express.

“Baby, talk to me,” he said as I put out my good arm and reached for him. I just dissolved into tears that I could neither call happy nor sad nor anything else. I think it was just all crashing down and I didn’t honestly know what to do with myself.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he chided, and I could hear the alarm in his voice as he wrapped me into a hug and held me close, but still oh, so, carefully.

I sobbed into his soft tee and the leather over his chest and let him soothe me completely, at a loss for words. He shushed me, rubbed my back, and kissed the top of my head until I could catch my breath and speak.

“Thank you,” I said and the words were so tiny, so infinitesimal, when it came to express the gravity of what was in my heart.

“For what?” he asked, holding me out from him so he could get a look at me.

“Everything,” I said helplessly, gesturing amorphously with my good hand.

“Talk to me, baby. You’re scaring me,” he said, and I sniffed and grimaced slightly at the dull and radiating ache taking over from my shoulder.

“Did you take anything while I was gone?” he asked gently, and I shook my head.

“Okay, let’s get your medicine in you and go lie down. How’s that sound?” he asked.

“Will you lie down with me?” I asked meekly and he smiled.

“Absolutely.”

CHAPTERTWENTY

---