He was coming tonight.

I hadn’t seen Channing for the last few days—minus a brief moment when he’d come over to Manny’s to help contain a crew brawl Bren had started. Well, some guy’s hand on her shoulder had started it. She took offense, and we were kicking everyone out a few minutes later. The cops had come, the crews split, and over the last week, I’d had to deal with repairing the damage they did to my restaurant.

I was shocked I hadn’t started smoking again.

I was not a happy camper, but Channing’s guys helped speed up the repair process, and now it was Saturday again. We were re-opening, but I was on edge.

Channing texted me to say he was fine after I left him at the gas station, but he’d said he would be scarce for a while. He hadn’t lied.

Besides my temper, I was nursing a hard-on for him. I wondered how many different types of strangulation there were, because he was coming tonight, and that’s what I wanted to do to him. I felt it. It'd been too long for us.

Fight or have sex. That's what he said we did, so when he showed up, I was going to fuck him, start a fight, and then end it all by killing him.

I had it all planned out.

“You're on edge.”

I whirled around to find Brandon. “I'm not on edge.”

I was, and it seemed like everyone was aware of it. Even the customers looked over. We had a party of forty and fifty year olds drinking in the back. They'd been laughing and loud most of the night, but they quieted now.

I swear I saw understanding pass through their group, and a second later, one waved, her underarm fat jiggling as she did. “You go, girl. Ain’t no man worth the stress.”

I winced.

Her friend guffawed. “Except if his name is Channing Monroe. That guy is fiiiine.”

Their whole table broke out in laughter. The first tried to silence it, but another said something else and her margarita snorted out her nose.

They were gone. Off to the land of the buzzed.

I sighed, ignoring my brother's sympathy, and whacked him in the arm.

“Ouch.” He rubbed his biceps.

I motioned toward the ladies. “Call Roy. I don't want any of them driving.”

“On it.”

Roy was our local Uber driver. Chances were high he'd end up parked in our lot anyway. He was smart. He was also seventeen, skinny, and had a face still working its way through puberty, complete with acne and shaggy eyebrows. He had a penchant for blushing anytime a girl smiled at him.

The ladies would love him.

As if proving my point, one of them called out, “Come over here, Brandon. We’ve got a warm bosom to comfort you with. We're feeling frisky.”

More hooting and lewd suggestions followed. My brother actually seemed a little terrified.

I nudged him with my elbow. “Could be worse. Rebecca could still be lurking around.”

He shuddered.

His stalker had stuck around for a week—until she’d gotten a punch to the face during the crew brawl. When she’d mentioned a lawsuit, I reminded her she’d broken in, trespassed, and threatened someone in my home not long ago.

She went away after that, and Brandon was beyond ecstatic.

For some reason, he hadn't thought he would be able to shake her.

“Heather.” Our night manager came up behind me. “I called in more staff for the next shift. We’ve got a few coming to help cover till then too.”

Manny’s was beyond full, even the outside was at capacity, and there was a line snaking into the parking lot.

“Good.”

Ava walked past us, her shoulders sagging. She looked exhausted.

“Did Ava open today?”

“She came in at eleven.”

It was three in the afternoon. She shouldn’t have been as tired as she looked.

“I’m going to send her home. She’s sick.”

Cruz glanced at me, his eyebrows raised. “Two girls called in already. You sure?”

I nodded. “I’ll take her place. She’s going to fall over.” I gave him a hard look. “Figure out what’s going on with her.”

He nodded. He didn’t salute me or clip his heels together, but that was the effect of his response. I gave an order, and he’d fulfill it.

Ava was stubborn and proud. If she could walk, she came in, but she’d been struggling lately. She’d lost some weight. I didn’t want to make any assumptions, but I wanted to know what was going on with her—if it was her health, if she was trying to lose weight for school, if she was up late at night with a guy… Who knew, but I couldn’t have a waitress fainting on her shift.

Cruz would get to the root of the problem, and until then, I watched as he went over to tell her to go home.

She’d been waiting at the counter for an order, and she straightened up as he spoke. Her eyebrows pulled tight and angry eyes looked at me. She shook her head, starting to protest.

I went over, touched her arm. “You can keep the tips, but you have to go.”

“No, Heather. I—”

Her arm was so tiny. I could wrap my entire hand around it, and I hadn’t been able to do that six months ago. “Go and rest. I’ve got it. We’ll need you tomorrow.”

Some of the fight had left her when I reassured her about the tips, but now she started crying. “You shouldn’t have to do this.”

Ava was special. So many waitresses would just take off, taking advantage of their boss’s kindness, but Ava wouldn’t, and that’s why I’d offered it for her.

“Go, Ava. I’ve got this. Your shift was only till six anyway.”

“I know, but…” She sighed, taking off her waitressing apron. She handed it over. “Table One needs their drinks refilled. I’m waiting for Two’s food right now. Three is picky, so always have something extra to refill every time you pass them…” She filled me in on the rest until I shooed her out the door, Table Two’s food in my arms.

“Go. I mean it.”

She nodded, her head bent. “Thank you, Heather.”

I nudged her arm. “Rest tonight. No going out.”

“I know.” She looked back up, determined, and for some reason, I felt she would be better tomorrow.

A few hours later, Cruz filled me in, whispering in my ear as I refilled a table’s soft drinks. “I just got off the phone with her mother. Ava’s got a new boyfriend, and apparently, he’s not the nicest to her.”

Asshole. I didn’t know who he was, but if he was the reason for her dwindling weight, I already didn’t like him.

“Got it. Thank you.”

“We can run interference if he shows up, but Candy just got here to take over for you.” He looked behind me. His voice lowered, “And just in time, it looks like.”

I didn’t need to turn. My body was in tune with Channing, and I felt him. He’d just walked in, opening the door for a group of teen girls. They paused to thank him and erupted in giggles and blushes as they scurried away.

A cocky smirk came over his face, but it faded quickly as he looked for me. He wore a simple shirt over his jeans. It molded over him like his clothes always did, highlighting his broad shoulders and showing the beginning of his chest muscles before falling loosely over his firm stomach.

My damned mouth started watering, which pissed me off, because was I always going to need him like this? It never lessened. It had only gotten worse each year.

“Have a smoke break,” I told Candy as she approached. “I’ll cover you.”

She frowned. “I already did. Cruz said to take over for you.”

My hands tightened around the glasses. I hadn’t felt the soda as it overflowed. I turned my back to Channing, feeling the exact moment his gaze found me. I felt zapped by him as I filled Candy in on the tables I still had open. My tips were in my apron, and I stuffed them in an envelope. Still ignoring Channing, I put the envelope in Ava’s slot and went to find Cruz.

I had to step around Channing, who was about to reach out for me.

“Don’t.” I held up a finger.

I was suddenly pissed at him, but I wasn’t pissed at just him.

I was mad that I’d had to leave him at a gas station to stand off against an MC leader. I was mad that he hadn’t told me what happened after that. I was mad that I didn’t want to ask because I didn’t want to know. I was mad that he was in the crew life, and that sometimes it was beyond dangerous. I was mad because he’d formed the crew life to help my friends, and I was mad that I benefited from that life too.

Mostly I was mad because I wanted him out of that life, and I knew he wouldn’t leave it. He couldn’t leave it.

He kept Roussou safe, but I wasn’t fully whole unless he was with me.

And being him, he knew what was rolling through me. “I was protecting you too,” he said softly.

That was the worst of it—he’d fought that guy, or whatever he’d done, because he’d interrupted our moment. My presence always added to his response, and I suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

Fuck it.

I grabbed the box of cigarettes Brandon had stashed behind the bar and thumbed the lighter along with it.

I couldn’t breathe, so I was going to smoke. Totally made sense.

I burst through the door, already lighting a cigarette, and as soon as it hit my lips, I inhaled so fucking deep that the toxic shit went to my pussy. I needed relaxing, and I needed it now.

“Heather.”

Of course he’d come out behind me.

“Don’t,” I rasped, turning away when I felt him step close to me. “I mean it, Chan.”

He ignored me, reaching around and plucking the cigarette from my fingers.

“What?!”

He dropped it, grinding it out with his foot, and he had the pack and lighter in his hands before I could blink. “No.” He turned his back to me, blocking me out, and then the entire pack of cigarettes was on fire.

“What are you doing?!”

He dropped it in the bonfire pit, where it’d be safe to burn, and took my shoulders in his hands.

Propelling me backward, toward my house, he said sternly, “You stopped smoking for her. You stayed not smoking for her, and I’m not going to be the cause of you going back.”

My lungs were on fire, but not from the cigarette.

My eyes burned.

He hadn’t said her name, but he’d mentioned her, and it was the first time since the night we’d lost her that he’d been the one to do that.

I felt the porch steps behind me and turned swiftly, leading the way to my house.

We went through the door, and Channing leaned back against it, crossing his arms. He wasn’t crowding me, because he knew that’s not what I wanted. Now I was the caged animal. He’d unearthed a shitstorm inside of me.

I shook my head. “You asshole.”

He sighed. “I know.”

I started pacing, back and forth. We could hear the people outside. Some had parked behind the house and were cutting through the back to Manny’s, but they were blind to me. I heard their voices, their laughter, and I hated them.

I hated everything.

I hated him.

“You fucking asshole.”

“Let it out. We don’t talk about he—”

I flung a hand at him. “You don’t talk about her! Ever!” I flicked him my middle finger, continuing to pace.

I was about to explode.

More pacing.

The need to do something violent stirred in me. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to yell, curse, fucking smoke! I needed something, because I was feeling, and I didn’t want to feel.

Goddamn.

I didn’t want to feel, because all I could feel was her again.

How she’d felt in my arms, how tiny she was, how I’d wanted so bad for her little eyes to open.

Tears rolled down my face. I felt them on my arms, but I couldn’t stop.

I couldn’t do anything except keep moving.

If I stopped, I didn’t know what I would do.

I would crumble.

I would collapse.

I would fall apart.

Heather motherfucking Jax did not fall apart.

It wasn’t in my DNA, and I wasn't about to start now.

But it was the silence in my head that killed me. It felt so loud, so pronounced, and it was there because she was supposed to have been crying. Screaming. I would’ve taken anything. Not wanting to hear nothing another second, I pounded my ears and let loose my own scream.

“AGHHHHHH!!!”

He crushed me. Channing’s chest silenced me, and I was caught up in his arms.

I sagged. The fight was gone. I needed to replace it with something else, and he was the only other thing that made me burn.

“Channing!”

He was already carrying me up to my room, pulling off my clothes. He wasn’t even kissing me. This was going to be rough—but then he pulled me into his arms again.

He kissed the right side of my mouth, then my left.

I curled my hands into his hair and gasped, “Don’t! I need it rough tonight.”

“No.” Another soft kiss to my lips, and I felt him sigh against me. His body shuddered. His hands swept back my hair, and he pressed a kiss to my forehead, then held me tight. “I don’t want to fight. I’m tired of fighting, so tired of it.”

He pulled back, and I saw his eyes shining.

“I loved her too,” he said, every word painful. “I wanted what you wanted. I wanted her. I wanted the stupid fucking white picket fence. I wanted the marriage. I wanted everything too.”

A tender hand moved down the side of my face, tucking some of my hair behind my ear.

I cried more tears. I could taste them. They were hot and salty, and I didn’t want them. I wanted to forget them.

I didn’t want to be taken back to that time, but as I struggled, as Channing’s arms tightened, apparently he was going to torture me with it.

He ducked his head to rest his forehead in the crook of my shoulder, and he held me. His mouth moved against my skin. “This is usually the time we fight. You yell at me because I’m not putting you first. I feel like a piece of shit because I know that’s what you deserve, but I’m too selfish to walk, and we go round and round.” He molded me against him, his hand falling down my back, pressing my thigh. “But I don’t have it in me, not tonight. You’re right.”

He lifted his head, and the rawness in him was almost too painful to see. He wasn’t hiding anything.

“I protect my town. I protect my crew. I try to protect my sister, and I am putting all of them above you, and I am a complete asshole because of that.”

But…

But he couldn’t change it.

But he would continue to pick his town, his crew, his sister over me.

I knew it. He knew it. And we were back to the start of our problems.

I tapped his shoulder lightly, to let him know I was a little more sane, and pushed him back a step. I needed some space, and I crossed to my bed. I lay down, not wanting to see him. That would’ve made this worse, because then I would only want him inside of me, and this conversation wouldn’t happen.

“I understand about Bren,” I started, whispering brokenly. I cringed though I knew we needed to say these words. That didn’t make it any better.

“Heather.”

“No. Let me talk.” I waited a beat. He was silent, so I started. “I have watched you love those guys. I’ve watched you become their friend, their leader, and I’ve watched you protect them. I know how many rely on you. I do.”

I looked back at him now, but he wasn’t watching me. He sat next to me on the bed, his elbows resting on his knees and his head in his hands.

“You pushed me away when your mom died. You pushed me away when your half-brother died. Then your dad went to prison. My dad took off. Our little girl died, and we were together for that night. It was just the two of us. No one else mattered.”

His shoulders stiffened.

“She was more than just our daughter. She was the promise you were giving me for our future, and without her…” My voice wavered, starting to shake. “Without her we’re back to how we were before.”

The crew.

The sister.

The town.

Then maybe me.

And I was an ungrateful bitch for not being okay with all of that.

I sat up, resting my soaked cheek against his back. “You and I don’t talk about feelings and shit, but maybe we should.”

He turned around, grabbed my shoulders, and lifted me to his lap. He was so strong. I parted my legs, sinking down on top of him, and he stared right at me.

I saw his pain, his regrets, his indecision. They were usually masked by cockiness, jokes, innuendos, and anything flashy and charming, but not tonight. And despite myself, I felt my love for him blooming inside of me again.

I raised a hand to rest against the side of his face. He closed his eyes, leaning into my palm.

His hand rounded over my hip, tugging me closer. “We’ve got shitstorms upon shitstorms of feelings inside of us. You sure you want to start dealing with them?” His eyes opened. He was watching me.

No.

My answer was immediate. That wasn’t us, but I was a mess without him.

Hot and cold. Fire and ice. Oil and vinegar. We were all of that, but we were also the second half to the other.

I answered honestly. “I don’t want to, but I think we have to.”

He nodded, his eyes heavy and lidded. “Okay.”

I nodded too. “Okay.”

His hand slid over my thigh and dipped between my legs. “Do you realize how hot you are when you’re all pissed?”

I smiled, not answering.

He smiled back at me. “Can we start sharing our emotions tomorrow and share something else tonight?”

Honestly.

This guy. I started to shake my head, not because he was incorrigible (which he was), not because this was the worst time ever (which it was), but because I was going to give in (which I totally was), and I knew I would have no regrets.

Like always, I kissed him.

Who cared about the stupid reopening?

Nothing else mattered, and not for a long time after.