Page 13 of Trusting Skulls (Rebel Skull MC #8)

Chapter Eleven

Ash

“ N o. I’m not having a party that celebrates my stupidity,” I tell my sister for the hundredth time while glaring at my phone.

Jesse said she’d call. Why haven’t they called?

Willow places her palm against a tree, lifting her face to the sun. “You don’t want to disappoint Jesse, do you?”

“Jesse is busy. She doesn’t have time to throw me a party.” She should be punching my goddamn number into her phone right now.

“She left me in charge,” my sister says proudly.

“Oh, so it’s you who would be disappointed, not Jesse.” Another minute ticks by, and I think my head might explode.

She giggles and looks over her shoulder at me. Her happiness temporarily distracts me from my need to hear Lexie’s voice.

“Do you know how often Jesse leaves someone else in charge?”

“No, but I bet you’re going to tell me.” My phone lights up, jolting my heart for a brief moment, but it’s only Brody.

“Never. That’s how many. I can’t let her down.”

I laugh when I read Brody’s message. He’s telling me he’s going to miss my welcome home party.

Me too, buddy. Me too. Because my only plans are to sneak up and see my girl.

My sister plops down beside me. “Please.” She blinks at me.

“Fine. On one condition.”

She bounces on her butt. “Anything.”

I can see her mind already rolling over a list of everything she’ll need. “Lexie will be there.”

She instantly deflates. Her posture tells me she doesn’t hold that kind of power, even though her husband is the president of the club.

“Willow, I’m dying to see her.”

Her petite hand reaches out and covers mine. “Are you sure about her, Ash?”

“As sure as I am that the sun rises from the east.”

She sighs and rests her chin on her knee. “She’s so opposite of you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You haven’t gotten to see the real her.”

Her foot taps against mine. “Tell me what you see.”

The wind blows through the trees. Both Willow and I tilt our heads, sniffing the clean air. God, I do love it here. Her gaze falls to mine, and she smiles. We’re home.

“After dad died, I felt like we lost our roots,” I admit quietly.

“Me too.”

My heart hurts with the pain I carry over the lost years that Willow and I were apart. I allow myself to feel it, and then I let it pass through me. “I feel rooted here.”

Her sniffles tell me she agrees. I also sense her relief. She’s been worried I would eventually move away from here. “I’ll never leave you again,” I promise.

She nods. The happiness she feels from my affirmation pools at the bottom of her eyes.

“Lexie isn’t grounded, Willow. She needs someone who can do that for her. I want to do that for her. My entire being vibrates with the need to protect her. I can’t explain why, but it feels natural. Like something that was imprinted on my heart from a time I don’t remember.”

Willow stares at me as I look at my phone again. My heart sinks with each minute that passes and I don’t hear from her. I thought we were moving ahead.

“She gave me permission to open one of her letters,” I tell my sister, tapping my phone on my knee. “I need to talk to her about it. Are you sure you can’t convince Jackson to let her come to the party?”

Her shoulders pull up to her ears. “He won’t agree, but no one said you have to stay very long. Maybe you could just make an appearance and then dip out.”

“Yeah,” I agree on a sigh.

“Jesse and Dirk are coming to the party,” she says, nibbling on her bottom lip.

This makes my ears perk up. “They’re leaving her alone?” My heart jumps with worry.

Willow dips her head to catch my eyes. Oh, maybe she’s trying to tell me something without saying it out loud.

“I don’t think they’d leave her alone. Do you?”

“No. I suppose not. Maybe someone else is going to be there.”

Her lips curl between her teeth. She can’t say more.

“Brody did say he can’t make my party. Maybe it’s him.”

She shrugs. “I hear he headed to Reno to meet up with a girl.” Her eyebrows wag up and down.

“Reno is pretty close to Dirk’s cabin.”

“I wouldn’t know.” She plucks a pile of grass, then holds the blades above her top lip, giving herself a green mustache.

I laugh. “You’re the best little sister I’ve ever had.”

“I’m your only sister.”

My phone rings. “It’s Jess.”

“I’ll talk to you later. I’ve got to get started on planning your party!”

I answer, watching my sister stop on her way to the house to talk to a bunny that just hopped on the path. It makes me happy. Willow is living in her very own fairytale.

“Hello.”

“Hi. It’s me,” Lexie says quietly.

Instantly, I feel better. I fall back on the grass and stare at the blue sky above. “I recognize your voice, Lex.”

“You’re home?”

“Yeah. Jackson and Willow picked me up this morning.”

My eyes fall closed, and I focus on the soft sounds of her breath.

So close yet so far. Excitement pumps through my veins, because this is the beginning.

For months I’ve focused on myself. I’ve faced demons I never thought I’d be able to survive.

It’s given me the confidence that I can withstand any storm that comes our way. She deserves no less.

Now, it’s her turn to heal.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she admits.

I take in the inflection of her voice. Now that the alcohol is out of my system, my senses are sharper. She’s nervous. That is something new. She usually takes a monotone stance with me.

It’s exhilarating. It’s just the type of energy we need to make a spark. A spark to ignite the fire that will fuse us together.

I’m going to weld our souls into one.

“I opened the hair pin you carved. It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

I inhale deeply. The smell of the river wraps around me in this moment, cementing it in my mind forever.

My hands twitch at the image she’s conjured.

In my mind, her copper hair is piled messily on her head, held by something I created with my very hands.

The soft tendrils tickle the back of her neck. I’m so jealous of them.

“Are you wearing it now?” I ask, my hand slowly pushing against the ache in my cock when she laughs.

Her hesitation pulls at my heart strings.

A yes answer would be a confession. Why?

Because she never wears her hair up. It makes her uncomfortable.

I’ve put it up myself in an attempt to keep her hair clean when she was getting sick.

She always took it out immediately after.

“Yes.”

She says it so quietly it’s barely a whisper, but the groan that leaves my throat is loud.

I’m not sure what she thinks about it. The silence on the other end could indicate a million things, but I’m no longer holding back my attraction for her anymore.

It’s something I’ve talked to my therapist about. He asked me if I had talked to Lexie about how deep my feelings ran for her. That I wanted to be more than friends. My response was simple. No. I didn’t want her to think I wanted her for the same things every other man wanted.

What he told me changed my whole outlook on our potential relationship.

“You don’t want the same thing. They want one moment of temporary self-gratification. You want endless moments of mutual fulfillment.”

“Will you wear it up for me?”

Her breath hitches, and I hear her drop the phone. I’ve flustered her. Hopefully in a good way. Again, a yes would be admission. A no … a lie.

“Maybe.”

I’ve never grabbed onto a possibility so fast in my entire life.

“Did you read my letter?” she asks, failing to hide the slight tremble in her voice. I sense a new vulnerability within her, but one that’s necessary for us to move forward.

“I did.”

No sound. She’s holding her breath. Her letter was a question. She’s anxious for my answer.

Jesse will never let her call me again if she passes out, so I give her the oxygen she so desperately needs.

“I want both. I want everything. Your actions, your thoughts, your feelings … you. I want you, Lexie.”

Her relief whooshes out in one breath before she speaks. “You can open the next one.”

“Good, because it’s in my pocket.”

A cross between a giggle and a whimper leaves her throat. I make a mental note, because it’s a sound I want to hear over and over again. A harmonic symphony of disbelief and joy.

“I heard you’re having a party.”

I don’t hide my lack of enthusiasm. “Unfortunately.”

“I’m sure it will be fun. Um, if you see JD and Elizabeth, will you tell them I miss them?”

Her voice breaks, and I open my eyes. Willow told me about the bond she’s formed with JD’s wife. It still sounds strange to my ears to say JD’s wife.

“Of course. I haven’t met Elizabeth yet. What’s she like?”

Her words become animated, which is also something new.

“She’s so pretty. Like runway model-type beautiful. But she’s not snobby. She’s one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. JD is so in love with her. She’s a good cook too, but JD makes better eggs …”

As she rambles on about JD and this woman, my heart rejoices. Because everything she’s describing is exactly the type of relationship I want. She wants it, too. I can tell by the way she paints them as a storybook couple.

“I’ll definitely make sure to connect with them this weekend.”

“I want to do something special for them. They’ve been so good to me.” Her words halt, and instantly the temperature changes as if a cloud just stole the sun from her face. “Anyway, I should go. Raffe is waiting for me to go do some weird witchy voodoo stuff with him.”

“Raffe is there?”

“Yeah.”

Hmm. The club is really ramping up their mission with her. It surprises me, but I don’t know why. I guess I thought I was alone in seeing her potential. I mean, of course I know they look past people’s circumstances. They did that for both my sister and me, and now … Lexie.

Now that I think about it, they don’t look past it. They know there’s more behind it, and that’s where they look. They dig until you have no choice but to reveal the rot buried below. It doesn’t scare them.

“He’s helping me work through some things.”

My eyebrows rise in surprise. This may be the biggest revelation of our conversation. She’s working on healing, and more than that she’s accepting someone’s help without me there to twist her arm.

“That’s really good. Raffe is a great guy. My sister praises him as the best father-in-law in the world. Pretty hefty compliment, if you ask me.”

Lexie laughs lightly and I smile, happy that our conversation is ending on a better note than I thought it might.

“I’ll let you go then. Just don’t put any witchy curses on me.”

“I would never.”

“Unless,” I pause, keeping her waiting, an ornery grin pulling at my face. “It’s a love spell.”

Her goodbye comes out in a sultry fluster of words. “Um, okay, yeah. I’ll talk to you later. Goodbye, Ash.”

The phone goes dead.

I pull out the letter in my pocket and carefully open it.

Dear Ash,

Call your dogs off.

Your club is annoying!

Lexie

The birds fly from the trees as I sit up, laughing loudly. I look at her letter again. “That girl,” I say out loud, picturing her stomping her tiny foot, angry that the club has stayed hot on her heels.

But the shortness of her letter leaves me wanting more. I think that’s exactly what she was going for.

I fold it up but notice there is something written on the back. I latch onto it. It’s just a doodle, but to me it’s everything. It’s a tiny drawing of a cup of iced coffee with her name on it.

Before I left for treatment, there were several nights I helped her get home safely after she had partied a little too hard. The next morning, I always left her favorite iced coffee in the cup holder of her car.

My finger traces the heart she drew around it. She never acknowledged it until now. It’s a thank you.

But more than that, it’s a step forward.