Page 19 of Saint Nick
“Because I don’t want to die without you knowing that I never stopped loving you,” she whispered, voice breaking. “And because I ran out of time to be brave.”
The words slammed into him like a blow. He wanted to reject them. To throw them back at her like shrapnel. But beneath the anger, beneath all the years of bitterness and rusted steel, something shifted inside of him. It was something small—something still alive deep inside of him. Hope.
It would’ve been easier to hate her. God, it would’ve. But standing here with her hand clinging to his like it might keep her tethered to the world, Nick couldn’t hate her the way he wanted to.
He dragged a hand down his face. “You don’t get to justshow up in my life again and fix twenty-five years with a few words.”
“I know,” she whispered. And for once, she didn’t try to explain it away. The air in the room settled heavy between them—not forgiveness, not understanding. Just truth. Ugly, sharp, and real. Nick let out a shaky breath and sank into the chair by her bed. His pulse still hammered like it wanted to break free of his skin. But he stayed, and for now, that was enough.
Nick squinted at the brightness of the fluorescent lights in the hallway. He pushed the door shut behind him and leaned against the cold wall, pressing his palms flat against the painted plaster like it might hold him upright. His chest felt hollow as he tried to catch his breath. The sound of the machines still rang in his head, sharp and steady—beep, beep, beep—like it had branded itself into his memory. He dragged a shaky breath in, and it tasted like metal and antiseptic. God, he hated hospitals.
Sandy had followed him out of his mother’s room and didn’t say anything at first. She just stepped out beside him, not standing too close to him, giving him enough space to breathe. She had that quiet kind of presence that didn’t demand anything from him and didn’t try to fix him. She was just there, lending her support, and he appreciated that more than she’d ever know.
Nick stared straight ahead at the polished floor. “She looks so fucking small,” he said finally. His voice was rough, like gravel. “Like time chewed her up and spit out whatever was left.”
Sandy turned toward him. “I know that was hard for you, Nick. But you did great.”
“She said she loves me,” he whispered. His fingers flexed at his sides. “After everything that I went through as a child, she just said it like it was easy.” Sandy’s hand found his. She didn’t lace their fingers, didn’t squeeze. She just touched him, seeming to need the contact as much as he did. Her hand in his was a steady weight, giving him something solid to hold onto as he worked through his pain.
He let out a bitter laugh that shook loose from somewhere low in his chest. “I spent half my life wishing I could hear her say those words to me, but hearing them now just hurts.”
“That’s what the truth does sometimes,” she murmured. “It hurts before it heals.” Nick tilted his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Her words didn’t fix things for him, but then again, she wasn’t trying to do that. They cut through the noise in a way nothing else could.
She slid her hand fully into his, threading their fingers together, and it felt like a healing balm to his soul. He squeezed back—hard enough that she’d feel it, soft enough that it wouldn’t hurt. “You don’t have to forgive her today,” Sandy said. “Or ever. Just take your time, and the rest will work itself out.”
Nick let out a low sound. Not quite a laugh, not quite a sob. “That’s harder than it sounds. She doesn’t look like she has a lot of time left, honey.”
“I know,” she said.
He opened his eyes and looked at her. The hospital lights turned her hair to gold at the edges and softened the worry in her face. He could see in her eyes that she wasn’t pitying him. She was just offering him comfort. It was why he knew that bringing her along was a good idea. She did that for him—comforted him, and the way that she looked at him made him feel things that he’d never felt for any other person—ever. And God, that felt dangerous.
“She’s not the woman I remember from when I was just four years old. In my head, she was different, you know?” he said quietly. “She’s smaller, weaker, and seems more human now, if that makes any sense.”
“That’s usually the way it goes,” Sandy said. “You were just a little boy when you lost your mother, so of course you’re going to remember her differently than she actually was.” His throat tightened. For years, he’d imagined this moment as something violent or final—yelling, walking out, slamming the door on the past for good. He hadn’t expected it to feel like this—standing in the middle of a storm that had already blown through.
Sandy leaned against the wall beside him, their shoulders brushing. The contact was barely there, but it steadied him in a way nothing else did. “Hey,” she said softly. “You don’t have to know what to do with all of this right now.”
Nick exhaled slowly. “Good. Because I don’t.”
She smiled then—small and gentle. It was the kind that didn’t demand anything from him. She was just offering him a place to land. He let their silence stretch out between them. The ache in his chest didn’t fade, but it settled into something he could hold without breaking. And when she finally tugged his hand, leading him down the hallway toward the exit, he didn’t fight it. He was ready to leave his past behind him. She was right—he didn’t have to decide what to do about his mother today. But he knew that sooner or later, he’d have to make some hard and fast decisions about the woman who had just left him to grow up in the foster care system.
Having Sandy beside him was exactly what he needed. Andfor the first time in a long damn time, Nick let someone walk beside him instead of going it alone. She had quickly become his everything, and it was about damn time that he told her exactly how he felt about her. He wasn’t just falling for Sandy; he was already in love with her, and giving her the words was exactly what he needed to do.
SANDY
Snow still clung to the edges of the world outside, the kind that refused to melt even when the sky went pink with the setting sun. Inside Sandy’s little house, everything smelled like cinnamon and sugar, and the tree she’d decorated alone the week before now glowed against the window, reflecting in the glass like something out of a memory she hadn’t let herself hold in years. For the first time since her mother's death, she was ready to celebrate Christmas, and that had everything to do with the biker taking up space in her living room.
Nick was on the floor beside the couch, legs stretched out, an empty mug on the coffee table next to him. He’d ended up here without either of them really planning it, and there was no way that she’d change anything about her current living situation. If Sandy could use her Christmas wish to keep him there forever, she would. One snowstorm, a few burned cookies, too many Christmas movies later, and he felt stitched into thewalls like he’d always belonged there with her. She wore one of his old flannel shirts that she found in his suitcase of things that he brought along with him to spend Christmas with her. The sleeves rolled to her forearms; her hair was still damp from the shower and pulled up in a messy bun. She never thought that she’d find a man she felt this comfortable with, but she had—Nick. She felt at ease in a way she hadn’t ever felt before.
Sandy curled up at the other end of the couch, a blanket wrapped around her legs, watching the soft light from the tree catch on the lines of his face. He wasn’t wearing his usual armor—no sharp edges, no guarded stare. His walls were finally down, and she saw the real Nick. He was still a little tired from their road trip and a whole lot undone from the rollercoaster that they had been on with his mother. But they survived—together, and that was how she planned on doing everything in life now—with him by her side. She just needed to get up the nerve to ask him to stay with her once Christmas was over.
“Do you always make too many cookies?” he asked, one brow raised as he eyed the mountain of sugar cookies cooling on the counter. She had stayed up baking most of the night before, after they got home from the hospital. Stress baking was her go-to move, and now, she had a biker with a hearty appetite to eat all the cookies she made. Honestly, it was a win-win.
“Only on holidays,” she said with a grin. “And sometimes on Tuesdays. Honestly, it depends on how much stress I’m under. If I’ve got a big deadline looming, I bake. So, yes, I make too many cookies every other week.”
He huffed out something that almost counted as a laugh. It made her chest warm. “I’m sorry if the hospital and my long-lost mother stressed you out, but I’m loving the sugar cookies, honey.” He had already downed a plate of them.
“I’m glad that you like them. And I’d go through all that stress again to be with you while you needed me.” She looked him over, hoping that he’d tell her just how much he needed her, but instead, he just nodded his head and shoved another cookie in his mouth, causing her to roll her eyes.
