Page 84 of Stoker's Serenity

“I guess.” I swallowed hard, my throat growing thick with emotion. “I guess I’m afraid to love like that again.”

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I get that. I really do, and I’m here to tell you, you ain’t gotta love me like that. I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give, Little Orchid. I’m here for whatever you need, and I’m all good with whatever you’re able to give me. Moment by moment, minute by minute, mile by mile.”

I nodded carefully, my eyes leaking, and he smiled at me, pressing my head back to his chest. I sighed out, a shuddering breath, and closed my eyes, listening to his even breathing. Then he started to sing, low and softly, and it was a soothing sound, bittersweet like dark chocolate, a song I’d never heard before, but it didn’t matter. I lay quiet in his arms and just listened as he smoothly sang me to sleep.

* * *

The next morning,I faced the day with trepidation. My hands trembled as I buttoned my swimsuit’s cover up and Stoker watched me from the edge of the bed.

“C’mere,” he said, low and gentle. I went to him and he unbuttoned what I just buttoned and said with a faint smile, “You missed a button, you were all crooked.”

“Oh,” I stammered out a nervous laugh.

“Talk to me, baby. I’m right here, and I can’t help with whatever it is if I’m not in on what you’ve got going on in there.”

“Oh, you know.” I feigned lightness. “Just epically humiliated about losing my shit and about to go out there and face everybody. No getting around it, but it’s only like – the worst.”

I swallowed hard and he swept my face with his gaze and probed at the smarting wound gently with, “Remind you of high school?”

I let out a shaky breath and said, “How did you guess?”

“I hate to admit it, but I was one of those fucking shits. Picked on other kids to make myself feel better. More powerful. Was just hiding my own pain and passing it on from my old man. He was kind of a dick. We get along okay, now. Mostly because we got states between us.” He sighed.

I shook my head. “I can’t believe you were ever as bad as some of the bullies in my school,” I murmured.

“I don’t know,” he said ruefully. “I was a pretty fuckin’ miserable shit. I know that now.”

“And therein lies the difference,” I murmured. “You changed. You wantedto change. I still run into one of my tormentors from time to time and they’re still just as cruel, just as shitty as they were back then. Maybe even worse since…” I trailed off. I had only just wrestled it back into its vault, and I couldn’t be sure I had the door secured all the way. At least not yet.

“Let me tell you something, Little Orchid,” he drawled finally. I cocked my head and considered him as he continued, “Most of the people out there? They had it rough comin’ up. One way or the other. Some of ‘em, not so much, but they ended up going through some serious shit. Everybody we got outside that door is some kind of broken from something. Each and every one of them have lived through something or other embarrassing. Every one of ‘em have either shown their ass at one time or another or had a meltdown like yours.”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” I asked with another nervous giggle. I wiped my sweating palms off on my cover-up against my thighs.

“It is,” he said solemnly. “Maybe I’m just going about it the wrong way. The point is, they ain’t got any room to talk where you’re concerned and if any of them do, I’ll either dredge something out into the light of day to embarrass the shit out of them or barring that…” He raised his bruised and scraped fist and pumped it a couple of times lightly.

“You’ll punch them in the face?” I asked. “Just like that?”

“We’re bikers,” he said with a blasé shrug. “We love a good brawl.”

I laughed, genuinely this time, and said, “Surely not before their first cup of coffee?”

“You’d be surprised,” he said with a wink. “Besides, it’s before noon. Ain’t a lot of ‘em even going to be up; most of ‘em are still drunk, and the rest are going to be too hungover to give a fuck.”

I laughed again, for real, and let him stand and take my hand. He opened the door to our room and stepped out into the hall looking first this way, then that.

“All clear,” he said, and I smiled and followed suit.

When we emerged on the lower patio where the picnic tables were, there were very few people up and having breakfast. A lot of them I didn’t recognize from our club or from the Sacred Hearts’ mother chapter. There were a few exceptions, though.

Radar, from our club, stepped onto the patio from the stairs leading up to the big, back deck where the food was set up. He gave me a nod and raised his eyebrows in a silent query of ‘Are you alright?’ I managed a weak smile and gave a nod of my head, and his tense posture eased and he moved toward an empty table.

“Come on, Orchid. Let’s get some food.”

“’K,” I answered lightly and we went for the stairs.

It was a gentle re-introduction, thanks to the hard partying and it was nice that everyone seemed genuinely interested in how I was doing at first, before dropping it altogether. No one pried, no one made fun of me, or made it into a big thing.

The doctor came over, checked me out and declared me all good.

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