Kitty Kitty (Souls Chapel Revenants MC 5)

“Souls Chapel Revenants MC. Apparently it had already been semi-formed before I arrived. A few ‘members’ were there already. I haven’t met any of them yet. You were my first stop,” I explained.

Her shoulders slumped slightly.

“Are you sure about this, Sin?” she asked. “It sounds like a lot of… pressure.”

I shrugged. “Being in there without…” I stopped myself from saying ‘without you there.’ “It’s really hard. I would do just about anything not to be in there anymore. It was killing me.”

She nodded once, her spine stiffening slightly as she looked at me for a long time before coming to a decision.

“I don’t mind you coming to doctors’ appointments and stuff,” she looked up at me. “But I think you need some time. My original plan still needs to stay in effect. I’m here if you need to talk. Need to assure yourself that I’m well. But take some time to think. To make sure this is really what you want.” She gestured to herself. “I don’t need dates. I don’t need false platitudes. If you’re going to be in our life, you need to be in it. And I think that you need to find yourself, get yourself settled, before you add me and this baby into the mix.”

I wanted to argue with her, but she was right.

I didn’t need to be starting anything with her right now, anyway. I had a hundred million things that I needed to do.

But none of those things was more important than this.

“Blaise,” I said carefully, feeling like I was talking to a scared puppy and not a grown woman. “What is this really about?”

She swallowed hard. “What are you talking about?”

I knew there was something more.

Something she wasn’t telling me.

But I didn’t know what that something was.

“I just think you need time,” she murmured. “I don’t want you to jump into it without first knowing what you’re looking for at the finish line. I don’t… I think we both need some time to settle in. You just got out of prison today. You need… time.”

I had a feeling she wasn’t giving me the whole picture.

But I wasn’t really going to argue with her.

If she didn’t want me around yet, I’d give her that play.

“You’ll still be here once I get everything straightened out? You won’t totally hate me because I’m still getting my footing?” I wondered.

She rolled her eyes. “Sin, I’ve waited all these years. I can wait a few more months.”

I felt something inside of my chest tighten.

“I don’t want you to think that you can’t come to me. If you have a problem, let me know. I’ll handle it,” I urged.

She snorted. “I’ve been taking care of myself all these years just fine. I can do a couple more months.”

Her words, for some reason, made my heart hurt.

“I know one thing, Blaise,” I said as I hefted myself off the counter. “I’ll be back. I don’t want to be in the dark here. I want to be around. I want this. I want you. That’s never changed.”

With that, I let myself out of her door, and headed toward the street where I’d left my bike.

When I got on, I looked toward the front window where I could see her peering out.

I waved and knew that I’d be back.

Maybe not tomorrow, but soon.

• • •

BLAISE

I picked up the phone, tears running down my face, and waited for him to pick up.

“You better be freakin’ right,” I said. “Because I think I might’ve really just pissed him off.”

Johnny sighed, then started reiterating what he’d already told me. “From what Coke told me, they had a really shitty childhood. Coke said that their parents, before they died, were really strict. Forced them to be obedient in every way. First the father died, then the mother. They moved to the grandparents that the dad learned the absolute obedience from. Then he went from one strict household to another when he went Army. He spent years in the military being told what to do. Then he spent even more years in the pen being told what to do. I just think that it’d be a good idea to let him come to this decision on his own, that’s all.”

The decision on whether or not to stay with me. To not be forced into a decision that might or might not make him hate me the rest of his life.

CHAPTER 7

Life update: still a mess.

-text from Blaise to her daddy

BLAISE

Four weeks later

“Stupid, stupid, stupid car.” I kicked the tire as I watched smoke billow from the hood in great huge plumes. “I hate you.”

I really did hate the car, too.

I’d been telling my dad for years that the damn car was an asshole and hated me—seriously, the car was perfectly good each time I took it in to get checked out, then bam, right back to being a dick the moment it’s no longer under someone else’s hands—but no.