Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
“You doing okay?” he asks, like clockwork.
“I’m fine.”
“You sure? You look pale.”
“I’m fine, Tommy. Just tired.”
He nods, but he doesn’t believe me. He never does when I say I’m fine. It drives me crazy. It saves me too. It’s a reminder someone cares.
Nights are where the doubt creeps in.
We’ll be curled up on the couch, movie flickering, his hand warm on my hip, and suddenly this fear slithers up my spine.
It’s too good. Too easy. Too steady.
He pays the bills before I even see them. He keeps the fridge stocked. He fixed my car last month—new tires, new brakes, full tune-up—without me even asking. He cooks most nights. He grills on weekends. He folds laundry better than I do.
And me? I sweep job sites and bring home a paycheck that looks like pocket change compared to what he pulls in. I wake up sweating sometimes, convinced I’m still that girl sneaking cash for a fix, empty, worthless, all while pretending to be whole.
I roll over in bed and watch him sleep. He snores, just a little. His jaw slack, his arm heavy over my waist. He looks younger in sleep, like the weight of being a Hellion and a bossman for the family business finally lifts for a few hours.
I ache with how much I love him. And I ache with the fear that one day I’ll blink and he’ll realize he deserves more.
Sundays are better.
That’s when we ride. Just us. No club, no brothers, no prospects trailing behind. Out past the river areas, into the wide open highway road that smells like pine and freedom.
I settle behind him easily now, arms snug around his waist, helmet pressed to his shoulder. The world roars away under us.
Tommy says it’s therapy. I think it’s the best moments of my entire existence. Everything ceases to exist but me and him.
Sobriety is strange.
Three years clean, and I still get cravings. Not often, not sharp like before, but enough to remind me the demon’s still in the corner. A whiff of smoke, a certain bar smell, a nightmare that yanks me back—it doesn’t take much.
But I’ve learned to choose. I choose him. I choose coffee in the morning, sweat on job sites, fireflies in the yard. I choose laughter when he burns dinner. I choose folding laundry badly and hearing him redo it under his breath.
I choose to keep breathing free from the chains of my past.
Tonight, I sit on the porch with a glass of sweet tea, watching fireflies blink across the yard. Tommy’s inside finishing paperwork. My hands smell of bleach and lemon cleaner from the day. My back aches from hauling drywall scraps.
The screen door creaks, and Tommy steps out with two bowls of icecream with one glass bottle of Cheerwine, his favorite soda. He sets one by me, opens the bottle and pours the cherry soda over the vanilla cream, and then settles into the chair next to mine with his bowl now in hand.
We both begin eating our nightly dessert. “You’re quiet,” he remarks.
“Just thinking.”
“Dangerous habit.” He bumps my knee with his.
I laugh, soft. “Do you ever worry this is too good? That we’re… tempting fate?”
He studies me, eyes steady. “Every damn day. But you know what I figured out?”
“What?”
“Life’s brutal and beautiful. Both. We don’t get to pick. We just hold on to the good when it comes.” He leans in, kisses me slow, steady. “And baby, we hold on tight.”
I close my eyes. For once, I let myself believe him.
After our sweet treat, we get ready for bed side by side, face washing, teeth brushing, like two old married people comfortable together.
Three years ago, I was bleeding out in my sister’s arms, thinking maybe I’d never get free. Now I’m here. Clean. Alive. Loved.
Life’s still messy. Still scary sometimes. But it’s mine. And I’m not running anymore. With those thoughts, I drift into a sleep, one that I know won’t last hours, but I’ll let this peace win for as long as I can.
It’s Friday evening when Tommy walks into the kitchen with that look.
I know that look.
It’s the same one he had the night he decided we were going to ride four hours just to eat at a barbecue joint in Greensboro. The same look he wore when he dragged me to the beach in the middle of February just because he wanted me to see the waves roll in with no one else around.
Trouble. That’s the look. Trouble because every time he makes that face, I fall more in love with the man and I worry about the day he realizes he can do better than me.
“Go shower, Tiny,” he says, leaning against the doorway with a grin that makes my heart skip like a scratched CD. “And do your hair. Paint your face if you want.”