Desertion

I force my reaction to stay indifferent, when inside I recoil, knowing she’s right. “You’re talking about giving something freely and easily. You see that happening right here?” I move to denying it anyway I can.

“I’ve seen your love, Jesse. You’ve freely and easily given it to everyone in this family. Your problem is receiving it. Is it so hard to accept someone may want to love you?” She brushes past me and moves down the hall toward Sy’s room.

“Holly, if you knew what was inside of me, it wouldn’t be so hard to see,” I call out, still confused by everything.

“And that is where you should start, Jesse. You stand there with your best fake smile in place, burning inside all alone when no one asked you to.” She opens his door and escapes inside before I have a chance to respond.

What the fuck was that about? I take a moment to gather myself, but it doesn’t help. Holly’s got into my head, and fuck me, I don’t like it.

“Hey.” Bell looks up when I walk back into my room a few minutes later. After Holly’s parting words, it took me a moment to get my shit together. I don’t reply, just move forward and sit next to her on the end of my bed.

“You fucked up tonight, Bell,” I tell her, unsure if I’m talking about earlier or just now.

“I’m sorry, Jesse. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She starts to cry and the need to comfort her outweighs my anger and my concern. I grab her hand and rub small circles against her skin.

“You could have found yourself dead, Bell.” I decide to discuss T and the shit she pulled earlier.

“Oh, yeah…of course,” she stumbles, and I know she thought I was talking about something else. Yeah, I’m an asshole.

“How did you even know where we were meeting?”

“I overheard you this morning saying you would meet them at the diner tonight. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop; it just kind of happened. I swear I wasn’t planning on going, but then I just found myself there. I wanted to see who these people were.”

“Jesus, Bell.” I release her hand and rub my hands over my face.

“What? You wanted to know.”

“You can’t do that, sweetheart. Number one rule here, what you hear inside this club, stays here. You keep your mouth shut and head down.”

“Jesse, I don’t know these rules,” she argues, and she’s right. We’ve never discussed any sort of rules or how to act. She’s just fitted in.

“We have a lot of shit we deal with, shit that’ll never touch you. You’re here with me, and you’re lucky after the shit you pulled tonight, Nix is even letting you stay.”

“He’s not mad?” she asks, and I don’t miss the relief that washes over her.

“Oh, he’s pissed. You’re just lucky he’s married to a woman as big a pain in the ass as you are. Doesn’t mean he won’t want to have words with you. He’s just giving me a chance to rip you a new one first.”

“I swear, Jesse, I realize now it was stupid. I wasn’t thinking. You know how much I want to find Paige. I was just excited we had a lead and wanted to see for myself.”

“Well, your curiosity nearly had some serious consequences. Promise me, Bell, you won’t ever do that shit again.” I pull her closer and wait for her reply.

“I promise, Jesse, I won’t do it again.” I don’t know why I believe her this time, when she only just lied to me, but I do. I know she’s just eager and ready to help, but hopefully tonight was a big enough scare for her.

“I mean it, Bell. You pull shit like this again, I won’t be able to have your back with Nix,” I warn, and watch her nod once.

“Good, now come on, I’m wiped and it’s too late for you to drive home.” I stand and move to flick the light off.

“So are you going to tell me what happened?” she asks, her voice low and tentative.

Pushing aside my anger, I decide I’ll put her out of her misery and tell her what we know.

“They denied any involvement, but we knew they would. Nix has given them twenty-four hours to reconsider their stand.” I climb into bed and wait for her to climb under the covers with me.

“Do you think they’re lying?” She crawls up the bed and nestles under the sheet.

“Of course they are, baby. They aren’t going to come clean and say they took one of ours. Granted, they didn’t know she was ours, but if T wants the truce to continue, then he’s gonna have to work with us.”

“So what do we do?” She sits up and I nearly laugh. Fuck, she’s never going to learn.

“You aren’t going to do anything, Bell. We have it under control.” I push her back down before she can argue, and tuck her back to my front. “Now sleep,” I order, hoping she obeys. If she keeps going, we’re going to end up talking about shit I’m not ready for.

“I really didn’t mean it,” she whispers a few minutes later, dashing my hopes and opening it up all over again.

“We both know you did,” I reply, unsure what else to say.

“I don’t want to lose you, Jesse.”

“You’re not if you don’t expect anything more than I’m giving you.” Her breath hitches at my words but shows no other sign of hearing me.

The truth is, even knowing how dangerous keeping her in my life could be, I’m not ready to give her up.