Calder set her foot on his lap. The part of his anatomy that hadn’t stirred since he had awoken in the hospital lengthened under his jeans.
“You are?” His fingers started shaking when she pressed her heel down on his growing bulge.
“Hot thang, you have no idea about the things I can do with my toes.”
One Month Later...
“Are you ready to go?”
Calder locked the sliding glass door then turned to see her waiting by the door, his suitcase already in her hand. It was a sight he would always remember. The woman he loved waiting to leave by his side.
“Almost.” Calder went to the wall in front of his bed, grabbing the pictures she had hung there, despite the administrator’s protests. They were in a row so he would see them first thing in the morning, and so they were the last things he saw at night. And every single time he had seen them, he had wanted to break. He had wanted to break so many times, and he had. And when he had broken down, falling backward into despair, she had caught him and brought him back.
He lifted Star’s picture off the hook, then Crazy Bitch’s, and then Stud and Sex Piston’s family portrait.
They were all waiting for him in Stud’s van, waiting to drive them home.
Tucking his pictures into the outside pocket of his suitcase that he took from her, he let her go first, taking one last look around before turning out the lights.
Holding hands, they walked to Gavin’s door, where Calder paused before knocking.
“Are you sure? It’s your last chance to change your mind?”
Crazy Bitch grinned. “I’m sure.”
Calder knocked, letting her open the door when they heard Gavin tell them to come in.
The friendship they had developed when they had first met had transformed into a bond that had Calder saddened at being released before Gavin.
The man who was staring out the window no longer needed his constant companionship. As close as they had grown, Gavin’s personality had undergone a change after seeing Taylor.
When he had met Gavin, he had been helpless, almost childlike, wanting to please and obey those around him, with a conscience that ripped his soul to shreds because of the things the Road Demons had made him do, destroying the intrinsic goodness that had been Gavin. As the drugs had been gradually reduced, his mind had then become a labyrinth he couldn’t find his way out of. Then Viper, their father, as well as all The Last Riders, had become gossamer threads, making Gavin feel lost in the cobwebs he couldn’t find his way through.
How could he turn to them for understanding when he was afraid they wouldn’t accept the acts he had been forced to commit? He couldn’t even accept them himself.
Taylor’s visit had been like taking a water hose to those cobwebs, taking away his last hope of leading a normal life, decimating what Viper had worked so hard for him to regain—the Gavin they all knew and loved.
Gavin might have gained weight and strength, yet there was now an austere countenance about him that didn’t give away what he was thinking or feeling. It was nerve-racking and, with his body getting larger every day, it was becoming frightening. Calder had several friends who were the same size, but with Gavin, it was in the way he moved silently, the way he could touch something as benign as a soda can and a tingle of fear raced up your spine, as if the man had a lethal weapon in his hands.
Calder wasn’t a praying man, but he said a prayer each night for Gavin. The man had gone through hell. The traumatic years of abuse and the degradation Gavin had dealt with had taken its toll on him. When he had realized Taylor had irrevocably moved on, it had destroyed something inside him. Calder didn’t know if Gavin would ever get it back, but he hoped so.
Crazy Bitch had helped and fought alongside him so he could find his way back. Until Gavin found that person or cause that gave him a worthwhile reason to take one breath after another, he would never be free of his past.
“I thought you two left hours ago?” Gavin closed the book he had been reading.
“We were about to, but Crazy Bitch wanted to ask you something before we did.”
“Gavin, I know this is going to sound silly, but do you have a package or box that Greer Porter gave to you?”
Gavin stood, going to his closet and taking a box out. “He told me to give it to the first person who asked. Shade introduced me to him when I first got here. He came back a few weeks ago and asked me to keep it for him. He told me it was a surprise and he didn’t want them to see it before the time was right. At first, I told him no.” Gavin’s forbidding expression showed that he wouldn’t be so gullible to anyone who tried to take advantage of him again. “But he said I would know whoever would come to pick it up.” He held the box out farther for them to take.