Page 47 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies
I do. I swipe.
The first is from Nico and appears to have been typed with his thumbs and his teeth.
You cannot keep living like this. You embarrass the family. Come home for Christmas and stop playing bakery.
The second is from my stepmother, which means it will be colder in a more direct form.
Your cousin got engaged. We need to talk about your future. I hear things. I worry. I pray for you. Are you going to Mass?The third is Nico again.Men will not want you if you keep behaving like you do. You are not a girl anymore. Stop whoring around.
My stomach hollows, not because any of it is new, but because I woke in a room that smelled like cedar and safety and now I am holding a machine that thinks it knows my life better than I do.
I scroll and the gist repeats.
Settle. Behave. Return. Repent.
The word reckless appears twice, which makes me laugh in a soundless way that is not laughter.
I look toward the door.
The house is quiet.
My heart knocks around my ribs like it wants to run and does not know which way to go.
I think about the fight I would have to have at breakfast if I stay.
I think about how careful I would have to be with the way I say yes to things that feel right. I think about the storm and the road and the way shame looks for a ride when family offers it a seat.
If I keep doing this, I will never hear the end of it.
The line appears in my head like I wrote it in steam on a mirror.
I am not ready to be brave in the way of staying demands.
Maybe not ever.
Not with a phone full of voices that know how to move into the attic of my skull and rearrange the furniture.
I stand. My feet find the cold floor and the need to flee outruns the need to be rational.
I dress quietly, sweater first, jeans next, socks by feel.
I slide the charger free without making the lamp click. I fold the quilt back into place like I was never here.
I pick up the bag I abandoned by the door last night and the weight of it makes my throat close.
I pause in the hall and listen hard.
The shape of a man sleeping in a chair outlines itself against the dusk-blue of the great room.
Roman.
His head is tipped back, mouth a hard line, hand on his stomach like he fell asleep trying not to.
Deacon’s boots sit neatly side by side on the hearth.
Cruz’s jacket hangs on the back of a chair.
The house smells like the end of a party and the beginning of something I do not let myself name.
