Hell, even if I did want to give it up, I had no clue what I would do with the rest of my life yet. I'd been tossing around ideas for years, but none of them appealed to me.
You couldn't stop working until you had a plan for your next steps.
And, eventually, Huck's hospitality would run out.
I had to find a car, then I had to plan my exit strategy.
Even if the idea of that made my stomach clench, made my heart feel achy in my chest.
I wasn't stupid.
That reaction was only partly about losing the new connections I'd been making with people I genuinely liked. It was almost entirely over the idea of leaving Che.
Normal people had their childhood crushes fade away. They didn't cling to them a decade later. Which, clearly, was what I was doing. It sure explained that warm feeling in my chest I got each time Che reached out for me, drew me close, pressed a soft kiss to my forehead or temple, when he grabbed me and danced me around the kitchen, when he snuggled in behind me at night right before sleep.
I was mixing the crush of my youth with the physical relationship I was enjoying at present.
Oh, and, yeah, I was really enjoying it.
Sex was always usually pretty decent.
But sex with Che?
It was in a league all its own. And we couldn't seem to get enough of each other ever since that night in the woods. We'd had each other every chance we could get since then.
In bed before sleep.
In the shower in the morning.
In the basement after a rain storm when we'd needed to vacuum the water out a hose in the window. I didn't know whose genius idea it was to put a basement in a house in a state with such a shallow water table, but I guess I couldn't complain too much because if there hadn't been a literal mini-lake down there, Che and I wouldn't have been able to go down there. And then we played the "how quiet can you be while I give you multiple orgasms with my mouth, fingers, and dick" game. Which, admittedly, was becoming a favorite of mine.
Oh, and, you know, there had been the time on the kitchen island.
Anytime I walked into the kitchen, my mind flashed back to that. I just barely resisted the urge to yelp and tell people not to touch it, even though I'd cleaned it with bleach and water. Three times.
If there was one flaw in the clubhouse, it was the lack of privacy. Or walls thick enough to allow you not to worry about noise carrying.
I wasn't sure why I cared so much. The women McCoy, Seeley, and Remy brought to their rooms certainly didn't mind being as loud as they pleased. I guess the difference was, they tended to sneak out before the club even got up in the morning. I had to go downstairs and have breakfast with these people. I wasn't sure I could look them in the eyes after they heard me beg Che to fuck me harder.
But, yeah, the sex was good.
And that mingled with my old feelings for him were making me feel conflicted about needing to leave eventually.
But that day would come. We would fix the issue with the Triad and Yakuza. I would locate and work on a new car, maybe with Che at my side, and then I would have no excuse not to go.
By then, too, I imagined Che and I would have finally gotten our fill of each other.
There would be nothing to stay for.
As hard as that may be to admit.
"I would prefer it if you maybe shot one of us a text, so we know what you're up to next time."
"I was just picking up some dinner," he said, shrugging.
"At a place that is a good twenty or thirty-minute walk from your place," Che said. "That's not the best area to walk around."
"Booker told me that I already look homeless, so I was probably safe."
Of course Booker knew.
Arty's admiration of the man was famous in the club. Even though Huck had been the one to take Arty off the street, to provide him with his first round of equipment that would eventually lead him to the career he had now. There was just something about Booker. I'd noticed it immediately when I'd met him. It was a certain badassery mixed with mystery and confidence, all wrapped up in a lovely personality. I understood why Ayanna had been so taken with him. I also got why she had so many ups and downs since the breakup. It couldn't have been easy to lose a man like that, even if he wasn't providing you with everything you needed.
"Just a text in the future, that's all I'm asking," Che pressed, reaching out to grab me around the waist when I moved to take a step to the side.