But he was content. Just to… cuddle.
There was a hard knock on the door.
“Come in!” I called, my body slouching, a little disappointed when Slider came through the doorway.
“Harm!” He beamed, spotting her next to me on the bed. She stood up and rushed over to him. He wrapped her in his arms and squeezed her against him.
“It’s good to see you,” she said, stepping back with a bright smile.
Slider had been spending more and more time away from the club, working nights at X-Rated and offered to do any odd runs or jobs away from the compound. I think he thought if he kept busy that no one would notice his decline, maybe he thought he might not even notice.
I guessed it was also a ploy to keep away from some of the girls who practically threw themselves at the men when they were around, knowing that he would have to turn them down, and people would start to wonder why.
“I need toborrowHadley for a little bit,” Slider said when Harmony asked if he’d come have a drink with her.
She looked over her shoulder at me, and I gave her a tight smile. “We’ll come out soon.”
I knew this wasn’t going to be what she assumed it was, but I also knew that he wanted her to think it was. She stepped out and he closed and locked the door behind her.
“How are you feeling?” I asked as he made his way over and took Harmony’s vacated space on the bed.
“Weak, tired, ill,” he answered, lying his body back on my covers. I turned onto my knees, looking down at him.
“You’re sweating like crazy,” I noted, his hairline damp and his face flushed.
He snorted. “Tell me about it. I’ve been getting these hot flushes. The doctor said women get them when they’re going through menopause.”
“Slider…”
“Don’t say it, Hadley. My dick is limp, I feel like I can barely stand, and to top it off, now I’m having women’s problems. I’ll probably get my period soon. Wouldn’t fucking surprise me.”
I sighed. “You’re doing too much. You should be resting, but instead, you’ve thrown yourself into all this extra shit in an attempt to hide from your brothers. It’s not helping.”
“Nothing is helping,” he growled, clenching his jaw. “I’m going through all this shit. Having a doctor feel me up every week, shooting needles into my stomach… and guess what? The cancer hasn’t fucking changed. It’s still there.”
“It’s a process,” I told him softly. “Sometimes it takes time.”
I remembered looking into it when my dad started, there were no guarantees it would work. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t. It hurt to see him having to go through this. It was like reliving losing my father all over again. I felt tears spring to my eyes. “Please tell them.”
“Hadley!” he snapped. Pulling his body back into a sitting position, he wobbled slightly before steadying himself. “I told you, the club is all I have. Op will stand me down. I’ll lose everything.”
“Maybe you’re not giving them enough credit,” I shot back. “Maybe they would stand by you. Wanting you to keep doing your jobs. Maybe they would support it.”
“And deal with the pity stares and them constantly asking if I’m all right?” he snorted. “‘Cause that’s how I want to spend the remainder of my life.”
“Don’t say that!” Tears burned my cheeks as they fell from my eyes. “This doesn’t mean you’re going to die.”
He turned to me, his eyes blazing. They soon softened when he realized how upset I was. “Hadley… I just can’t do it. Not right now.”
“Don’t make me keep this a secret,” I whispered, praying he would hear me. “Share it with them, let them take some of the load.”
He shook his head. “For now, this stays between us.”
There was a knock at the door and both our eyes widened. “Hadley?” The doorknob jiggled, but it was locked.
My heart sank at the sound of Leo’s voice.
Slider’s eyes pleaded with me to cover for him. He needed his brothers to think he was okay, just the regular old Slider, cracking jokes and fucking.