Page 145 of X's and O's

Knowing it was way too late for this, I knocked on the door of the large cabin Hawk shared with his family within the Slayers’ compound. It was a nice place, newly built, but they’d nestled it in amongst the blackened trees that hadn’t fully recovered from an earlier fire. There was a lit path that provided safe access to the main clubhouse, but you couldn’t see it through the trees, offering the family some degree of privacy while maintaining their safety. Little girl giggles came from behind the door, despite the hour, and when it opened, Hawk had his older daughter scooped up in his arms, both of them holding dolls.

“Oh, look!” Hayley Jade shouted. “Uncle Reaper is here to play Barbies with us!”

She offered me one of the scraggly-haired dolls that were obviously well loved. I took it, and when Hawk put Hayley Jade down so he could close the door, she scampered off to the living area, where there was a dollhouseset up, amongst a sea of tiny fabric dresses and plastic high-heeled shoes.

Hawk pointed at her. “Five more minutes, kid. That’s it. I mean it this time.”

She nodded. “Okay. I promise.”

He shook his head with a small smile on his lips. “Kara is at Sinners with Hayden, and Gray isn’t back from work yet, though he should have been ages ago. There was some sort of emergency at the hospital he had to stay late for. They’re going to kill me when they get home and she’s still awake, but I can’t help it. I always let her stay up. We have some good chats.”

I couldn’t imagine what I would say to a six-year-old for five minutes, let alone hours on end, but Hawk was clearly in his element as a dad. There was a baby monitor on the coffee table, the video feed showing the sleeping form of their baby daughter, already tucked up in her bed.

Hawk lowered himself onto the floor to finish playing the game, so I did the same, stretching out on the rug and picking up a handbag for my doll since that was about the only accessory she seemed to be missing.

Hawk sniggered at me, but he was busily dressing his in a new outfit, so like he could fucking talk. He shoved his doll’s arm through the tiny hole in a jacket. “What’s up anyway? I’m assuming you didn’t actually come over here to play dolls with us.”

Hayley Jade pouted.

“I definitely came for the dolls,” I assured her.

She rewarded me with the cutest, gap-toothed smile.

I turned back to Hawk. “But I was also wondering if I could borrow your laptop and printer again?”

Hawk gave me a sly smile. “Need to write another love letter to Fang’s sister?”

I screwed up my face at him. “Can we not label her Fang’s sister? They barely know each other.”

“You think that’s how Fang sees it?”

I groaned. “He’s going to gut me for even looking at her, isn’t he?” I cringed at my word choice in front of Hayley Jade, but she went on playing like it was no big deal.

Honestly, growing up in an MC clubhouse compound, she’d probably heard worse.

Hawk made his Barbie walk up the dollhouse stairs. “Probably, but been there, done that. He threatened to bury me six feet under if I hurt Kara, and she’s only his sister-in-law.” He eyed me. “It’s only going to be a problem if you hurt her.”

I sighed heavily. “Kinda already did that.”

“And yet you’re still breathing.”

Probably only because I doubted Fang knew the full extent of how badly I’d fucked up with Violet. But I was trying to fix that, any way I knew how. Hawk had found me surrounded by screwed-up balls of paper a few days earlier, each one a failed attempt at expressing how much I fucking cared about Violet. He’d stood there watching for a moment, then disappeared, only to come back ten minutes later with his laptop. He’d shoved it under my nose and told me to stop wasting all the fucking paper and just use the delete key instead.

He’d been right, but it hadn’t made the words flow any easier. I’d stared at his screen, wondering why I didn’t seem able to write when it had come so easily in prison.

It reminded me of when we’d first become pen pals, and every word had been a struggle.

Until we’d gotten to know each other. We’d opened up. And then suddenly writing to her had been the easiest thing in the world and all I wanted to do.

My heart knew why I was struggling now.

Because I wasn’t being honest.

And so I’d typed the three words I’d been too fucking gutless to say to her face.

I’d told her I loved her.

And then the words had flowed like a river, pouring out of me, hard to stop.