Page 8 of Held-
We form a chain, passing boxes from the truck to the church steps. The toys are good quality stuff—none of that dollar store bullshit that falls apart before New Year's. Video games, bikes, dolls, sports equipment. The kind of Christmas haul that would make any kid's year.
I'm hauling a particularly heavy box when the side door of the church opens, and a woman steps out. Not another church lady in pearls and judgment—this one's different. Younger, maybe early thirties, wearing jeans and a sweater that’s way too big for her. Her dark hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail, and there's something about the way she carries herself that catches my attention. Like she's bracing for impact.
Our gazes meet across the parking lot, and I feel something shift in my chest. A recognition that doesn't make sense, because I'm sure I'd remember a face like that—sharp cheekbones, full lips, and eyes the color of spring leaves caught in sunlight. Pretty, but not in the manufactured way of the women whousually populate places like San Salona. This isrealpretty, the kind that sneaks up on you.
She's watching us with a mixture of surprise and something else—relief? Hope? It's not the usual fear or disgust we get from civilians.
“You the guy in charge?” she calls out, walking toward me with purpose.
“Depends who's asking,” I reply, setting down my box on the church steps.
She stops a few feet away, close enough that I catch a hint of her perfume—something light and floral that makes me want to lean closer. “I'm Cecelia,” she says, and the name hits me like a punch to the gut.
Cecelia Montgomery. Of all people to greet us...it had to be her. Fuck. I'm suddenly seventeen again, watching her from across the high school parking lot while she laughed with her friends, all of them wrapped in that golden bubble of belonging I could never penetrate.
“Holy shit,” I mutter, the words escaping before I can stop them.
She tilts her head, studying my face. “Do we know each other?”
“Brayden Cole.”
Recognition flickers across her features, followed by disbelief. “Brayden? You're...” Her gaze drifts from my face down to my cut with the Heaven's Rejects patch prominently displayed, then back up again. “Different.”
I almost laugh at the understatement. The last time she saw me, I was a skinny kid with a chip on my shoulder and a juvenile record. Now I'm VP of an MC that makes cops nervous in three states. Yeah, I’d say I was different.
“Yeah, well. Fifteen years will do that.” I gesture toward the boxes. “My aunt said you needed some help.”
“Your aunt...” Her voice trails off as she looks past me to the truck still half-filled with toys. “Wait—all this is from you? From your...”
“Club,” I finish for her, watching as she takes in the full scope of what we've brought. “Yeah.”
The disbelief on her face is almost comical. I can practically see the gears turning in her head, trying to reconcile the scrawny kid she knew with the man standing in front of her. I have to admit, I like the way she’s looking at me. More than I fucking should.
“I don't understand,” she says, shaking her head. “Jillian said she asked for help, but I never imagined...” She gestures at the truck, at my brothers still unloading boxes. “This is incredible.”
“Don't get too excited,” I warn, hefting another box. “It’s good business for the club. Holiday cheer and goodwill.” But even as I say it, I know it's bullshit. “And, well, for the kids.”
“Business?” She raises an eyebrow. “What kind of business involves donating toys to churches?”
I shrug, not wanting to explain that sometimes the club does legitimate charity work to balance out the less legitimate activities. “The kind that keeps my aunt off my ass.”
She laughs—actually laughs—and the sound hits me harder than it should. It's not the polite twitter I remember from high school, but something real and warm. “Your aunt can be persistent when she wants something.”
“Persistent is one word for it. Bull in a China shop is more like it. Where do you want all this?” I ask, nodding toward the boxes stacked on the church steps. My brothers are still unloading, the pile growing higher by the minute.
“Inside, follow me.” She turns and heads for the side entrance, grabbing a box from the stack as she passes.
I pick up another heavy one and trail after her, my eyes automatically dropping to the way her jeans hug her curvesas she walks. Fuck. Some things never change. I'd spent half of junior year stealing glances at Cecelia from the back row of English class, watching her twirl her hair around her finger while she took notes in her ornate handwriting. Daydreaming about how that hair would feel threaded through my fingers with her pretty little mouth wrapped around my cock while that shit head of a boyfriend watched me defile her.
Shit. Don’t think about that, asshole. The last place you need a fucking hard-on is at a church. Stamp your ticket to hell even harder, why don’t you?
I follow her into the fellowship hall, the familiar smell of lemon polish and old hymnals hitting me like a time machine. The room is depressingly empty.
“You can put them anywhere there's space,” she says, setting her box down on one of the tables. “We'll sort them by age group later.”
She bends over to open the box, and I force myself to look away, focusing instead on the wall of plaques commemorating church picnic winners.
Movement catches my attention, and I glance toward the doorway. One of the church ladies is hovering there, her face pinched with disapproval as she watches us. Her hand clutches at the cross pendant hanging around her neck like she's afraid it might spontaneously combust in our presence. Her gaze flicks nervously between the MC patches on our cuts and the boxes we're unloading.