Page 30 of Summer's Edge

What we had these last two days was amazing. I’ve never had better. But it won’t last. It can’t.

If nothing else, I won’t be the escaped convict asshole standing in the way of her dreams. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of all the ways I don’t deserve to claim her.

I feel too good to think of all that right now. But it is a dark cloud off to the side somewhere. And growing darker.

FIFTEEN

Summer

We spent another day and night alone in the cabin. Naked most of the time. Making love on just about every available surface and everything in between. Every time I look at him I want to hug and kiss him. And every time he looks at me, he does exactly that.

I’ve told him all about my dreams and he’s told me all about his past. Stuff I doubt anyone, except maybe Ruin, knows. Though I doubt it. I think it’s more stuff that has been cluttering up his mind, stuff he didn’t dare say out loud to anyone. Until I came along and listened.

The morning sun is blindingly bright and I’m alone in bed. I can hear him outside, cleaning the grill, humming a song to himself. A song I know too, but can’t name right now.

The bed is so wonderfully warm and smells like him—like wood, fire smoke and grass—that I really don’t want to get up yet. But his arms around me are better so I do.

I grab the last of our iced coffees and walk out on the porch, just watching him work and hum for a while. He has no idea I’m here and starts singing the song he’d been humming for real. I finally recognize it as an old rock ballad that I used to listen to on repeat when I was in junior high.

“Every rose has its thorn,” I join in the singing on the chorus.

Unfortunately hearing me shocks him into silence.

“Keep going,” I say. “I didn’t know you could sing.”

“I can’t,” he says. “As you just heard.”

He’s being modest. He can sing. Probably inherited the talent from his mom.

He drops the rag he was using to clean the grill and walks over, wrapping his arms loosely around my neck and leans down to give me a good morning kiss. Those are always the sweetest.

“We should make the trip to the store again,” I say. “We’re running out of coffee. And chips.”

He just gazes into my eyes, his kind of soft and unfocused like he didn’t hear what I said.

I’m just about to repeat it, when he says, “Ice and a couple of the others are coming to get us in a few hours.”

Hearing the words makes me feel like I’ve swallowed a bunch of cement and now it’s hardening in my stomach.

“OK, good,” I say. “Then we can finally go home.”

“You’re going home with your dad, I’m staying in LA to help Hunter with something.”

“What?”

“Something about getting Trixie’s engagement ring back,” he explains.

But that’s not exactly what I meant by my question. I leave his embrace though I miss his arms around me the second they’re gone.

“Do you have to stay here? Can’t you come with me?”

That’s more along the lines of what I meant by my question.

“This is what I do,” he says. “If they need me, I’m always there. Besides, I haven’t seen any action in months. I miss it.”

I just nod along, since I’m all out of things to say. Obviously, I can’t keep him from MC business. I never thought I would even try. What I really want is for us to just stay at this cabin indefinitely. But I know that’s impossible.

“And I don’t think we should tell anyone about what happened here,” he adds, his voice so low I can almost pretend not to have heard him.

---