thirty-two: in which she will wait, too

"I can't keep touching you like this, if it's just temporary bliss" -The Cab, Temporary Bliss

********************************

Sometime during the night in Jake's room, I woke up and went to use the bathroom. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I noticed the figure sitting on the floor in one corner.

I squinted in the moonlight streaming through the gaps in the blinds, but I knew who it was. "Why are you on the floor?" I hissed, like I was afraid to wake anyone who just happened to be sleeping with my loud voice.

"Doesn't matter," was Jake's reply.

"I need to pee," I muttered, heading into the en-suite and flicking the light on.

I stayed on the toilet for a long time, hoping that Jake would get up and leave like he'd promised ("I'll crash in a spare room"), but he didn't and my butt was going to sleep. I washed up, averting my eyes from the mirror. The glass was cracked, anyway, but I could still see what a tangled mess my hair was in the distorted reflection.

Shaking my head at my vanity, I stepped outside, realizing that Jake hadn't moved from his position on the floor.

"You said you'd find a spare room," I muttered, sitting on the edge of the rumpled bed. I dug my toe in the carpet. The whole room smelled like it'd been thoroughly cleaned with citrusy products.

"Empty rooms are kinda limited now that we're on lockdown," he stated simply.

"So you're going to sit on the floor the entire night?"

"Probably."

I eyed him carefully. He didn't seem drunk or high. Just...tired. My eyes shifted to the comfy-looking armchair, and it occurred to me that he was punishing himself. This was ridiculous.

"Ridiculous?" Jake said, making me aware that I'd said that aloud.

"Just come up onto the bed. It's big enough for the both of us," I told him.

"It isn't."

"Fine. Suit yourself." I crawled up the bed and went under the covers, turning my back to him and closing my eyes.

But I couldn't fall asleep again. He was just...there. Sitting. Watching. How could I sleep knowing that, feeling his eyes on me?

I sat up, uttering the first arbitrary thing that popped into my head. "I noticed you got a new a tattoo."

He answered after a long silence. "Yeah. Got the Phantoms patch re-inked."

I'd noticed the hint of his new tattoo peeking out the neckline of his T-shirt while he was driving. The skin there was red and raw and truthfully, should've been covered up while it healed. I'd wondered what it could have been, then chastised myself for wanting to see him shirtless.

"You can say it," Jake went on.

"Say what?"

"That you don't approve."

I let out a snort. "I think we can both agree that your new club tattoo rates pretty low on any disapproval scale."

There was that silence again, but this time, I broke it.

"It doesn't matter whether I approve or disapprove, Jacob. We're not together anymore. The Phantoms are your family."

"You are my family," he said fiercely, standing. "You're my Silver Eyes."

"Please don't call me that," I whispered, warily watching his approach. He stood at the foot of the bed, hands behind his back as if to restrain himself from reaching out to touch me.

"You wanna know why I'm really here? Why I'm not asleep?" he asked in a harsh voice, making my defenses go up. "It's because I'm scared shitless that if I close my eyes, I'll wake up and find that you're not here. I don't want to feel that way again."

I gulped, pulling my knees up and hugging them. "I'm not going to disappear again."

Jake shook his head. "It's not that. It's...this." He thumped a fist over the left side of his chest. "I wanted to tear it out. I wanted to tear it out and give it to you because it hurt so fuсking bad."

I pulled the covers off me and got off the bed, feeling like I could tear my own heart out because it was punching too hard against my chest and hurting me. I couldn't stop myself from going to Jake, couldn't stop myself from touching him.

The pale moonlight made his eyes seem ethereal as I slowly ran my knuckles along the bristle covering his jaw. He looked surprised, maybe even confused, but then when I touched my fingertips to his lower lip, his eyes shut.

"I love you," I said, tugging his head down slightly so I could put my lips to his.

My eyes slid shut and my hands bracketed both sides of Jake's face, holding him. He kissed me back with a soft groan, sliding his hands deep into my wild hair and cupping the back of my head. His tongue traced the seam of my lips until I let him in, allowing our tongues to touch and tangle and tease. My hands dropped from Jake's face and held onto either side of his T-shirt, fisting the cotton fabric.

Time wasn't a factor as we kissed, but when Jake pulled back, breathing as rapidly as I was, it was pretty obvious we'd been at it for a while. I swayed slightly, disoriented, and Jake reached out to steady me, placing his hands on my waist.

"I fuckin' love you, too, sweetness," he told me, leaning down to touch his forehead to mine. "You're my everything."

I didn't want to point out that I wasn't his everything. Not really. There was the club, there was me... Vying for the top spot in his affections and allegiance.

I held my tongue on this.

"Come to bed with me," I said quietly. "It's your bed, anyway."

"It's ours."

I wrinkled my nose. "No, thanks. The number of women who have been -"

"I've only fuсked one woman in this bed, and I'm looking at her," Jake growled, tipping my chin upward so that I looked at him. "This room is more sacred than my bedroom back home."

I pulled back. "Forget I said anything. It doesn't matter."

He sighed heavily. "Fine. Goodnight." He moved to return to his position on the floor.

"Wait," I said, making him stop. "Take off your shirt."

Jake spun around, trying and failing to keep from grinning. "At least buy me dinner first, Fenton," he murmured, going for the hem of his shirt and pulling it over his head.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Not like that. I just want to see if you got bandaged up. That's all."

"Okay."

I approached him tentatively, my eyes briefly focusing on his motorcycle club's insignia marking his skin.

"I hope you're taking good care of this," I said under my breath.

"Yes, Ma," Jake retorted.

I eyed him through narrowed eyes. "Fine, I'll stop."

"No, don't," he said quickly. "I like it when you worry."

"I despise worrying." I paused. "Will you tell me what happened? How you got stabbed, I mean."

"Maya -"

"Please."

"Knowing my shit won't change anything but the way you look at me. I'm still here, aren't I?"

"Yes - but for how long? How long until you run out of your nine lives? How long until I have to go identify you at the morgue?" I took a deep breath, threading my hands through my hair in frustration. "I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry. I should just shut up. Mind my own business, and...and shut up. Goodnight."

"Babe," Jake said softly, "what are we doing here?"

"I don't know," I whispered back at him, because I really didn't.

"It's one a.m. and we're doing...this." He motioned between the two of us. "I really wanna fuсkin' kiss you again, but I don't wanna do anything you don't want to do. I want...I want to put my nose to the side of your neck and breathe you in because you smell like home. I want to just be around you, forget about all the crazy fuсkin' shit out there and the fact that everything's fuсkin' strange between us and it's all my goddamn fault."

I sat on the edge of the bed, resting my elbows on my knees. "I'm really tired."

I felt the mattress dip as Jake sat down beside me. "I know, and I'm sorry. So fucking sorry." With no effort, he pulled me onto his lap, making me press my right ear against his chest. "I'll make it up to you. When all of this is done, I swear on my mother's grave that I'll make it up to you."

"Not cool," I said with a yawn. "Don't swear on your mother's grave."

He didn't say anything, but I felt his lips on the top of my head before I drifted off.

***

"Daisy, fleek is not a word," Bree declared, folding her arms across her chest as she sat back in the couch. "Try again."

"Come on, Bree," said Baron, throwing an arm around her shoulders and shaking her playfully. "Give the girl a break. Let her have it."

"Fleek, by itself, doesn't even make sense," Bree pointed out. "It's on fleek."

"Jesus Christ, I'll change it to feel." Daisy went back to the Scrabble board on the coffee table and moved the letters around before removing the 'K' square. "Happy?"

"Very."

Bree stuck her tongue out at Daisy and they both laughed.

"Infants," Baron muttered with a wry smile. "Maya, your turn."

"Huh? Oh. Yeah."

I gave the board a blank stare.

"Hey," Baron said gently, "look at me."

I did - and regretted it. God, he looked so much like his brother, but unlike Jake, he'd been shaving.

"My brother's invincible. You know that, right?"

"Nobody's invincible, Baron."

The house was relatively empty this morning, save for a couple Candidates roaming the compound and women passed out in the strangest of places, like the kitchen floor. It felt surreal to be playing Scrabble to pass the time while my boyfriend - ex-boyfriend - went out on a kill mission.

"You know," I began, "you guys don't have to hang out with me. I'm perfectly fine wallowing by myself."

"Really?" said Bree, jumping to her feet. "Are you sure? Because I have icky roots that need attention, stat." She grabbed a handful of her vivid orange hair and made a disgusted face.

"Jesus, Bree, can't you pretend for five minutes that you're not so self-centered?" Baron remarked, looking up at her.

She put a hand on one hip and glared down at him. "I am not self-centered, you asshole. You, on the other hand, always seem to have your head stuck so far up your ass, your -"

"Hey!" I snapped. "May I remind you that there is a minor in your presence?"

"Oh, no, don't mind me," Daisy put in, resting her elbows on her knees to watch Baron and Bree. "They're like Brooke and Ridge from The Bold and the Beautiful. That was my mom's favorite soap opera, you know. When she was conscious enough to watch it."

"Bedroom?" Bree snarled at Baron.

"Whatever," was his reply as he stood.

They were the strangest not-couple I'd ever met and their fights were random and mostly over nothing. I was pretty sure this was a form of foreplay for them.

"What's your favorite color?" Daisy's loud voice pulled me from my thoughts.

She was packing away the Scrabble, her attention on the task.

"Blue. Why?"

"I'll knit you a pair of socks," she said.

"You knit?"

"Sure. It's therapeutic. At least, that's what I've been told." She tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear. "My grandmother taught me."

"That's great."

Daisy looked at me. "It'll be okay, Maya. Things get worse so you can really appreciate when it gets better."

"How old are you again?"

She grinned at me. "My brother says I'm thirteen going on thirty sometimes. Well, like, two percent of the time. Hey, we should watch that movie! It's one of my favorites."

"Sorry, what movie?" Honestly, I couldn't keep up with this conversation. Daisy was making my head spin.

"13 Going on 30. Have you seen it? It came out years ago. It'll take your mind off of...well, everything." She got to her feet and headed for the entertainment system.

"Sure. Pop it in," I mumbled.

After all, I had nothing better to do.

*~*~*

"Another goddamn crucifixion?"

"Somebody tell the Irish that they're not in a fuсking episode of Spartacus."

"This is bullshit. They're snatching Candidates off the streets like they're unaccompanied minors, and we're not retaliating? Fuсk that!"

"Calm the fuck down. You'll get your blood. Just not now."

The loud voices streaming out the parlor faded to low rumbles behind the closed door while I stood outside and waited. I'd been waiting for two hours now and the sun had gone down.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the door finally opened and I could hear the sound of chair legs being scraped along the wooden floorboards as the men stood up. Their heavy footsteps followed.

One thing Catalina had let me in on was that Phantom men respected a woman who could maintain eye contact and hold her own ("They might like pussy, but they don't want a pussy."). So that was what I did - looked every biker that came out the door in the eye. By now, I knew most of them by name, and for the most part, none of them leered at me. Probably only because they knew I was good with both their President and their enforcer.

"Maya, right?" a voice said.

There I went, spacing out again. I hadn't noticed the man standing in front of me until he was...well, standing in front of me. My eyes went to the leather cut he was wearing. VP, it said on the right side.

"Sin?" I said.

He sent me a slow smile, green eyes glimmering. "That's me."

Well, he looked a trillion times better than the last time I saw him. For starters, he wasn't bleeding or unconscious. And he had great hair. The kind that Pantene ads are made of; really thick, silky-looking chestnut hair that framed his face. The only reason I was noticing this was because no matter how many times I'd washed my hair that morning, I still felt filthy. Probably because Jake didn't have conditioner.

"It's, um, nice to see you looking so great. Healthy, I mean. Healthy." I could've banged my head against the wall.

He laughed, then stopped abruptly. "I've been waiting to thank you for days now, Maya," he said sincerely, "so...thank you. For fixing me up."

"It was nothing," I told him. "You really should have gone to the hospital, though."

Sin laughed again before leaning forward and whispering in my ear, "I owe you."

I tipped my head back until it was against the wall. "Nope. No debt. No one owes anyone anything," I said quickly, remembering how Jake wormed his way into my life. "Please, Sin. If anything, I owe all of you for keeping me here. For protecting me. So...maybe, consider your debt paid. Thank you."

He grinned. "You're fuсking cute."

I watched him take maybe four steps down the hallway before a lanky brunette appeared out of nowhere and put her hands on his chest. The perks of being sinfully attractive, holding a position of power, and riding a motorcycle, I guessed.

"You okay?" Jake's familiar voice in my ear made me jump.

"Don't creep up on me," I protested, when I was just glad to hear his voice.

"I wasn't creeping; I came through a door. You're standing beside said door." He arched a brow. "What're you doing? Eavesdropping?"

"No. Waiting."

His face softened. "We're really gonna do this? I thought you were fuсking with me."

"Yes, Jacob. We're really doing this. You promised me this morning."

"Anything for you, sweetheart," he muttered, stretching his arms out on either side of his body. "Lay it on me."

"Thank you," I said through gritted teeth, beginning to examine him.

It's a sad day on Earth when a girl has to pat down her ex to make sure he hasn't been shot, stabbed, or *other.

(*: Burned, maimed, bitten, broken, poisoned)