Page 95 of A Murderous Crow
“Make you a deal,” I said.
“I’m listening,” she sat back, attentive.
“First available weekend, we go, but I’m long overdue for a long ride – we take the bike.”
She looked thoughtful.
“It’s two and a half hours,” she mused. “I can agree to that.”
I pulled up my calendar on my phone on the spot, “If it makes you happy, then let’s figure it out now. There’s no time like the present,” I said.
We went back and forth for a time and settled on a weekend that was three weeks from now. Both club and real estate life preventing us from doing anything sooner.
“Thank you,” she said with a smile as she typed it into her phone.
“Of course,” I said, and I would be lying if I said that for some reason, I was exceedingly nervous; but honestly, it would be a good dry run because I was almost certain that introducing her tomyfamily would be a minor disaster. Notwithstanding, she worked for our main competition. My father could quite possibly go apoplectic on that fact alone.
I didn’t care.
We finished our supper, washed the dishes together, and curled up on the couch which was very strange to me. Comfortable, for sure, but with no rigidity or structure.
She covered us with a chenille throw and we cozied up in front of the television, where we discovered we had similar tastes in what we liked to watch. We settled on a true crime documentary on the Murdaugh scandal out of South Carolina, and I’m not sure when it happened, but we both woke, late into the night, warm and cozy together; the television asking if we were still watching.
“Come on baby, guess I’m staying at your place tonight,” I murmured, and kissed the top of her head. She groaned and shifted against my side and sighed.
“I don’t wanna move, but we have to,” she said.
I chuckled and murmured back, “Me either, and no, we don’t.” I set the documentary to keep playing the next episode and we cuddled on her too-comfortable couch and slept.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Savannah…
The next few weeks crawled by at points, and sped past at others.
It was a bit tumultuous in places, the club demanding Corvus’ time on several evenings, but I quickly realized that living as neighbors and having my own space really did have its advantages. I didn’t feel… lonely and as totally in a strange place as I would have if I was in Corvus’ apartment. Somehow, being in my own space, even if it was new and only steps from his door, as I was surrounded by my belongings as I was? It was less weird for me somehow.
I was grateful for that as we adjusted to this new normal of being so together, and so quickly.
Still, I don’t think I’d spent but a single night alone in my bed, or his… every night, he would come to my room and crawl into bed with me, or I would be at his place, in his. The one night, he came in, just as I was leaving, looking worn as he went to change to get ready for work.
I’d asked what’d happened, and where he had been, and he’d held me close, kissed my forehead gently, and had simply said it’d been club business; and club business meant it was none of the ladies’ business if they could help it.
I’d took his meaning perfectly and had touched his face and told him that if it was a heavy burden, that I would listen to what he could impart; that I didn’t want him to carry everything alone. Even if I didn’t understand it. Even if I couldn’t necessarily contribute in any meaningful way, I wasalwayshere to listen.
He’d held me tight, kissed me gently, and said I was getting the ride of my life that night for that answer, which had made me laugh – and boy did he deliver; even given how exhausted he was.
Now today was the day, and I nervously packed a backpack he’d given me with outfits to last me the weekend that wouldn’t take up too much room, as he had to pack his clothes in it, too. Thankfully, he had packed first, so I just had to fit my things into the bag that was left, which there was still a considerable amount of room since I didn’t have to pack certain things like toiletries. I still had plenty of that sort of thing at the farm.
I was dressed to ride in almost all new leather gear. The jeans and the shirt was my own, but the leather jacket and chaps were a gift from Corvus, as were the boots and the gloves. I met him downstairs.
In the intervening weeks, his bike had returned to the courtyard and he waited at it for me, looking as nervous as I’d ever seen him.
The skies were overcast, but the forecast hadn’t called for any rain. At least not today, and it was supposed to be sunny and clear at the farm.
My family didn’t know we were coming, it was going to be a surprise, and I could almost already hear my mother’s outrage when we pulled up on the motorcycle.
My room was my own at the farm, and always would be. It was a family rule that we always had a room, a place, at the farm.
