Page 10

NINE

TOON

"The bear adapts to changing seasons; embrace life's transitions with courage." — Unknown

I hold her while her world caves in. Dia isn’t crying. Not in the way people expect. She just presses herself against me like her bones might shatter if I let go. Her arms don’t even move—just hang at her sides, limp like she’s hollowed out.

Her voice is a whisper into my chest. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

I breathe in her hair, my hand rubbing soft circles on her back. “You don’t have to know right now.”

She shifts slightly. Her forehead presses into my collarbone. “It could be Benji’s,” she says again, like maybe I didn’t hear her the first time. “My cycle hasn’t been regular since he passed. But then it could be yours.”

I close my eyes. The lie I want to tell her perches on the edge of my tongue. But I can’t do that to her. Not to Dia. So I say what I do know without a shadow of a doubt.

“It’s not mine.”

Her whole body tenses.

She pulls back enough to look at me, confusion written in the furrow between her brows. “What?”

I nod once, slow. “It’s not mine.”

Her eyes search mine. She’s trying to understand. “How can you know that?”

She’s not accusing me, simply asking. Her voice is too tired to be angry.

I open my mouth. But the truth—the real reason—I can’t tell her that. Not yet. So I just say, “I know. Trust me.”

Dia stares at me for a long second. Her lip trembles. She looks like she wants to ask again. Press harder. But instead, she remains quiet.

Maybe it’s too much. Maybe it’s easier to believe me than to question anything else right now.

She nods slowly, biting her bottom lip until it goes white.

I brush a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Whatever you decide, I’m here.”

Her gaze lifts to mine, wide and fragile. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I do,” I cut in, firm. “And I want to. Because it’s you. That baby is yours.”

I let the words hang there between us. Truth. Weight. Promise.

Dia leans into me again, forehead to my chest. “I don’t feel strong enough.”

“You don’t have to be strong alone. I’ll hold the line until you can.”

Three days later

We haven’t told anyone, outside of Maritza who isn’t going to share. Dia’s not ready. And if I’m being honest, I don’t think I am either.

This isn’t a clubhouse conversation. It’s not something you bring up between beers and prospects doing cleanup. It’s personal. Sacred, in a way that most of the world doesn’t get.

I park outside her condo in the early morning, my truck idling while I stare up at her living room window. The curtain shifts, and a moment later, the door opens and she steps out.

Dia’s bundled in an oversized hoodie, hair in a bun, no makeup. She looks exhausted, but there’s something solid in her spine that wasn’t there three nights ago. I get out and round the truck to open the door for her.

“You didn’t have to do this today. I can go by myself. Justin,” she tries to keep going.

“I want to,” I say before she can finish.

She blinks like she doesn’t believe me and finally seems to settle in with the idea that I really am in this behind her. She climbs in and clicks her seatbelt.

We drive in silence for a bit. The doctor’s office is across town, tucked into a small strip of medical buildings with names like “Women’s Wellness” and “Family Futures.”

The kind of place I never expected to find myself parked in front of.

But here I am.

For her.

Always for her.

Inside, it smells like disinfectant and flowers. The waiting room is all muted pastels and outdated magazines. There’s a couple across from us, they are young, nervous, with their fingers laced together. The woman’s belly is huge, round, hard and permanent.

Dia stares at her for a long moment.

“You okay?” I ask.

She nods, but her voice is brittle. “Feels real now.”

“Because it is.”

She doesn’t answer, but her hand reaches for mine. She threads her fingers through mine like she’s not even aware she’s doing it. I squeeze.

We don’t say anything else until the nurse calls her name.

She stands. Starts to move. Then looks back at me. “You coming?”

“Always.”

The room is small. Sterile. Covered in informational posters with smiling cartoon fetuses and vitamin checklists. The nurse hands me a gown and tells Dia to get undressed before leaving the room. She does and once I tie the gown, Dia sits on the table. I take the chair. Her legs swing slightly where they hang off the edge. Her hands twist in her lap.

“You nervous?” I ask quietly.

She doesn’t look at me. “I didn’t sleep.”

The doctor enters—woman in her mid-fifties, glasses perched low, clipboard in hand.

She introduces herself as Dr. Alvarado and moves with a quiet confidence I like immediately. She doesn’t look surprised to see me there, doesn’t ask me questions. Just talks to Dia. Asks about symptoms. Schedules bloodwork. Talks about timelines.

After doing the usual listening to her heart, lungs, giving Dia the general stuff, she slides out the stirrups from some magic holes in this table. Then she pulls out the ultrasound machine. The wand comes up and I know my eyes grow huge.

“This might be early,” she says. “We’ll take a look and see what we’ve got.”

Dia lays back. I move closer, standing at her side, her hand in mine now.

I watch her face more than the screen.

The moment it hits her.

The way her eyes widen just a little.

Dr. Alvarado points to a blurry flicker. “There. That’s the heartbeat.”

The sound—fast, steady, unmistakable—fills the room. Dia covers her mouth with her free hand. I feel her grip tighten on mine.

I don’t say anything. Because there’s nothing to say that wouldn’t fall short of this. There is nothing more beautiful than this moment. She’s got life inside her.

And I don’t care that it’s not mine. It’s her.

Back in the truck, we don’t drive right away. We sit there. The ultrasound confirmed her due date is closer than it would be from when we had sex. It is Clutch’s kid. I knew it beforehand, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t a small piece inside of me that wishes it could have been some kind of miracle. Regardless of biology, I’ll be there for Dia and her baby for whatever they need from me.

Dia’s quiet, staring out the window. The ultrasound photo is clutched in her hand, edges already worn from the way she keeps flipping it over, holding it tight, then staring again.

After a long stretch of silence, she whispers, “I’m scared.”

I nod. “So am I.”

She finally looks at me. “Why are you here, Justin?”

The question catches me off guard. “I mean it,” she says, voice shaking now. “Why? This isn’t your baby. This isn’t your problem.”

“You think I give a shit about that?”

“I think you should.”

“Well, I don’t.”

Her eyes start to shine. “You should be out with the club, doing runs, drinking with the guys, finding some girl who doesn’t come with this kind of baggage.”

“Stop,” I say, voice quiet but steel under it.

She quiets.

I reach out, tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. “You think I want some girl I barely know? Someone who won’t look me in the eye and tell me she’s falling apart but still gets up anyway? You think I want less than you?”

She blinks, tears falling freely now.

I lean in. “You’re it for me, Dia. Always have been. I knew it before I had the right to know it. And I’m here now because this is where I belong.”

She breaks. Full sob this time, hand over her face.

I pull her into my arms and hold her while she cries into my shoulder, her tears soaking into my shirt, her body wracked with everything she’s held back.

We get home and she immediately showers and changes into pajamas. The fatigue of pregnancy is definitely wearing her out. She’s asleep on the couch, curled under a blanket, Skye snuggled at her feet. The ultrasound photo rests on the coffee table next to an empty mug of tea.

I sit nearby, lights dimmed, scrolling through my messages.

BW’s sent a gif. Something stupid.

I don’t respond.

Because this right here is more important than any message, or any road right now. I used to love to watch her sleep. IN the beginning before things got complicated, I would be her ride home. She would invite me in. She always fell asleep on the couch in my arms and I wouldn’t dare move so I could watch her sleep. My mind goes back once again.

I’m sitting on the edge or her bed. The room is dark, but there is moonlight peeking in through her blinds catching wisps of hair that are laying across her face.

She’s at peace. This innocence in her face always stands out when she sleeps.

Tonight, it guts me.

Her breathing is soft, lips parted ever so slightly, her arm tucked under her head like she’s curled herself into a smaller version. Behind that softness and sweetness is a fire. A willpower to take down giants. She’s stronger than she looks and sassier than ever awake. But when she sleep, all there is to see is peace.

I ruined us before it even had a chance. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t keep volunteering to be her ride. I damn sure shouldn’t have kissed her again. I never should have touched her with hands covered in blood like mine. My chest aches with it, the way it feels so right to have her wrapped up against me and the way it is so wrong that I allowed it to happen in the first place.

I stand, the mattress dipping ever slightly. She stirs, but doesn’t awaken fully. There is the faintest frown on her face as if she senses I’m about to vanish.

And I am.

I have to.

I pace the small room, once then twice. Hands in my hair, tugging at the strands in some effort to ground me. I struggle to find the strength to do what I should have done the first time she looked at me with pure, unconditional love.

Walk away.

I crouch beside the bed again, watching her carefully. Her lashes flutter, but her eyes never open. Her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. I reach out to touch her face, but stop short with my hand hovering in the air like the mere contact would burn me alive.

I whisper, “I’m no good for you.” It cuts me to my soul to admit. “You deserve, soft. You deserve gentle. You deserve untainted. You need someone who hasn’t spent his adulthood trading pain with men like currency and letting loyalty be measured in scars, all in the name of country and now in the name of brotherhood. I’ve taken a life and I can’t have that touch you.”

I feel tears, real ones building. I keep going. “I love you,” I admit, voice low. “With everything I am, I love you more than anything I’ve ever touched. Love can’t fix damaged. And I’m too broken to take you down with me, darlin’.”

She shifts and I feel like the coward I am. Her lips forming my name in her sleep, another reminder why I have to walk away. It twists inside me, this need to be who she wants and the knowledge that I never can be.

She trusts me with her heart. She trusted me with her body, parts of her untouched, sacred, and untamed. The moment, I crossed that line, I claimed something I had no right to. But I did it anyway. Because the moment she’s in my space I’m weak. I’m reckless, selfish, and every kind of wrong.

I stand up again.

“I won’t do this to us again,” I promise the darkness, “No matter how hard it is, I won’t look back. I won’t stir up your world again. I’m sorry, Dia. I’m sorry I can’t be the man for you.”

I grab my cut from the back of the chair, slipping it on like armor. The weight of it reminding me who I am. What I am.

A Hellion.

A man tied to chaos, commanding it even with blood when necessary.

A man who gave up the right to softness the first shot I took ending a life in combat as a nineteen year old marine.

A man who won’t taint her beauty anymore.

I pause at the threshold, glancing back. She’s rolled to her back, her hand resting over the place where I lay not long ago. She doesn’t know it yet, but this is goodbye.

“I’m sorry.” I whisper.

I’m sorry I looked at her as my salvation.

I’m sorry for allowing myself to believe I could have more.

I’m sorry for every kiss and every time I touched her like she was mine.

She’s not. Maybe she never was.

She belongs to someone better. To a life with hope and mornings that don’t start with a man leaving for a run that may not bring him home.

The club is part of me. I can’t outrun it and I don’t want to. The things I’ve done can’t be undone.

I exit her room and then her home. The cold hits me like a sharp slap in the face. I relish the pain.

There’s no going back now.

I start my bike, the rumble echoing far too loud close to her window. I wait, hoping she doesn’t stir and she sleeps soundly. Then part of me hopes.

I hope maybe she sensed it. When I told her no more but she’s challenged me time and again reminding me every chance she can that we are good together. Maybe she knows this is it. Maybe some part of her always knew we couldn’t work.

A love like this. A love like ours, wild and painful, draped in silence, it doesn’t get a happy ending.

It just burns until it flickers out.

And all that is left is the smoke and ashes.

I hear her stir. She mumbles something, eyes fluttering. I move to the floor beside the couch, sit there, one arm on the cushion.

“You’re not alone,” I whisper. “I’m here, darlin’. And I’m not going to leave again.”

She nods, eyes half-lidded, not even awake enough to answer. But I’ll say it again when she is.

And I’ll keep saying it until she believes me.