Lucy

 

Blade was out of jail. I knew because he’d started calling me at regular intervals. He was blowing up my phone. He’d call me in bursts. There would be a few calls, and he would stop for a little while. Then, he’d call me again, a bunch of times back to back.

 

I had gone to the gas station next door to grab a cup of coffee and a muffin for breakfast. I sat on one of the benches outside the bus station and ate my muffin while I drank the warm, comforting coffee. I needed a shower. I needed a hot meal. I needed a real bed to sleep in.

 

Blade started calling me again. He had all the things I needed. If I just answered the phone, everything I needed would be mine again. I’d get the shower, the hot meal, and the bed. And, even better, I’d get Blade with them.

 

I stared at the screen of my phone. Blade had offered to adopt my son, even without knowing I was due to have a boy. Blade had told me he would take care of my child and me. He wanted to raise my son as his own, as if the boy hadn’t had a different father.

 

“Fuck it,” I said aloud and swiped the screen to answer the phone.

 

I was quiet when I first put the phone to my ear. I froze. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to answer Blade’s call.

 

“Lucy?” he asked. “Are you there?”

 

“Yeah,” I said, astonished at how weak my voice sounded. I was tired. I had taken a long bus ride to get to this place in the middle of nowhere. I hadn’t slept on the bus or on the benches, not well anyway. And as far as I could remember, the muffin was the first thing I’d had to eat since I left his house.

 

“Are you okay?” he asked almost frantically.

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“Where are you? I’ll come and get you,” he said quickly.

 

I remembered the sign behind the register at the gas station. “Riverdale, at the bus station.”

 

“That’s over a hundred miles away, Lucy! How the hell did you end up there?” he asked, sounding both shocked and a little angry.

 

“I took the bus. That’s why I’m at the bus station,” I told him, maybe a little bitchier than I meant to be.

 

“Okay, I’m on the way. You stay right there. It’s almost a two-hour trip from here. I’ll be there as soon as I can be.” I could hear in his voice that he was already moving. He was walking quickly to wherever it was he was going, probably out to the car.

 

“Okay, I’m not going anywhere. I’m tired, Blade,” I told him.

 

“Relax. I’ll be there soon.”

 

“Okay.” We paused, like there was something else we both wanted to say before saying goodbye. Neither one of us wanted to be the first one to say it, it seemed, so we hung up instead.

 

I had a pocket full of cash, and I was sitting at the bus station waiting on my boyfriend or lover, or whatever I was supposed to call him, to show up to take me home. I could have moved on. I could have grabbed a hotel room and started looking for a job, a place to stay, or a ride to the next town. I could have started my life over and used the money to get above everything that had happened.

 

I laughed at myself as I waited. I wasn’t as independent as I thought. I wasn’t as strong as I thought. But to be fair, I was also carrying a child. I was far enough along for them to know the sex and, given my size, I was liable to start showing soon. Once the baby came, I wasn’t going to be able to work easily.

 

Running from my father wasn’t the answer, anyway. He was going to follow me eventually. I wondered what he had on Dylan to make him side with him. If I was going to stand up to him, though, I was going to need Blade’s help.

 

I sat and mulled over my situation until I saw the black Charger pull up in front of the terminal. My heart skipped a beat. I wasn’t sad anymore about everything that was going on. I knew we were going to make it right.

 

“Need a ride?” Blade asked, rolling his window down.

 

I was thankful we didn’t have a tearful, heartwarming reunion. I was relieved he’d greeted me with humor. I still climbed into the car and reached across to wrap my arms around his neck. “Thank you so much for coming to get me.” I could already hear the life returning to my voice. I truly was grateful to have him back with me.

 

“What were you doing?” he asked with a crooked smile on his face, as if he were more amused by me than anything.

 

I had really expected him to be angry with me. To see the care and concern in his eyes, the relief from having me back with him, I knew right away that everything was going to be okay. I was right where I should have been the entire time.

 

“I-I don’t know,” I told him. I shook my head. “I panicked, I guess.” Thinking back, I really had no idea what I had been thinking by running off like that.

 

“Well, we have a long drive ahead of us. Do you want to get something to eat before we hit the road? Maybe we can talk a little then and start getting to the bottom of all of this,” he said. Underneath his relief, I could see that he knew something else was behind my flight from his house. He knew something had set me off. I wasn’t prone to panic attacks or anxiety, anything like that.

 

“Oh, I could definitely use some food,” I told him.

 

He laughed. “You mean to tell me you took all that money from my closet, and you didn’t buy yourself anything to eat? You just sat in the bus station? What the hell, Lucy?”

 

If he was angry, he was covering it up well. If he had been angry, I supposed the relief was enough to change his mood.

 

I shook my head and fought back a sudden wave of tears. I had no idea. Suddenly all of the panic I had felt after seeing Dylan seemed so irrational. I had been running out of fear, not out of my usual sense of bold independence and rebellion. I needed to stop trying to analyze everything I was doing because I was getting it wrong. I needed to figure out, instead, what was going to work best for me, for my child, and for my relationship with Blade.

 

“Look, let’s get you something warm to eat. There’s a restaurant right up the road. You’ll feel better after that. Then we can go from there,” he said in a comforting voice.

 

I sank back into the leather seat and let him take me away from the bus station. He took me to the nearby restaurant he’d mentioned, and we sat in a booth together. It wasn’t anything special, just a little diner where people passing through could easily grab a quick bite to eat, which was exactly what we were doing.

 

It felt good to have warm food in me again. It felt good to have Blade there with me and to know he was looking out for me. He didn’t ask for me to return the money I had taken. He paid the tab and let me eat instead of trying to get anything out of me.

 

I didn’t know how to tell him that Dylan had shown up at the hospital, but I knew once I did he’d see straight through the stunt just like I had begun to. He’d see that my father was behind the whole thing, trying to get me to come home or, at least, leave the Vicious Thrills.

 

It wasn’t fair that my life had been turned upside down, but at least I had someone there to set it back right side up. While I ate, I reached across the table and took his hand in mine. He still didn’t try to pry. He just held my little hand in his. His touch told me he was glad to have me back. It reiterated what he’d said before, that he was going to protect me and take care of me.

 

I sat back after the last bite of food and pulled my hand away from him. I let my eyes look into his. Again, I caught him staring at me with love and relief in his eyes. Every time he looked at me, it was like he was seeing a great piece of art for the first time. There was a hint of wonder in his expression, as if he couldn’t believe I was right there in front of him, but I was.

 

I blushed and a small smile lifted the corners of my mouth. Everything I had wanted and needed had been right there in his eyes the whole time I’d been running trying to find safety.

 

I took a deep breath and sighed. He didn’t have to say anything; I knew it was time to let him know everything that had happened, everything I didn’t want to admit because it had become embarrassing.

 

Once again, the biker thug was saving the day. Once again, the man who was supposed to be a dirty, womanizing criminal was turning out to be the gentleman, the knight in shining chrome.

 

His stare and smile were becoming unnerving. While it was flattering to have him admiring me the way he was, it also felt like he was simply waiting on me to say something. I took a sip of my drink.

 

“Can we talk in the car?” I asked him. “I don’t feel comfortable talking about it in public.”

 

“Sure. We can talk whenever, wherever you want, but we do have to talk about it,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

 

There it was. It wasn’t anger. It came across more like concern. He was concerned as to why I had run, and rightfully so, I guessed. I had left him high and dry, and I had run out on one of the top members of the MC. I could have really screwed things up.

 

“Okay, let’s talk on the way back,” I said with a deliberate sense of finality.

 

“Sounds good to me.” He put his napkin on the table next to his plate. He slid out of the booth and held his hand out for me. “Are you ready to go?”

 

“I guess I am,” I said with a laugh. He wasn’t giving me much choice, it seemed. His behavior said it was time to go, regardless of how ready I really was. What he really meant was it was time to talk.

 

I took his hand and slid out of the booth to follow him out of the diner. I felt safer just being next to him. He was broad and tall, and he always dressed so his muscles were obvious through his shirts. No one was going to mess with us. No one was going to try anything with him around. It felt good.

 

Plus, I was going home. That felt good, too.