Reeve (The Henchmen MC 11)

The final kind.

Why that idea gave me a pang in my chest, yeah, that was completely beyond me.THREEReeveI knew what was coming when I got back to the compound.

That was likely why I had driven around, using up a tank of gas, for an hour and a half, just aimlessly going through the old side streets I had known all my life.

Normally, long drives were for thinking.

For me, at least today, they were for not thinking.

I needed to clear my head.

I needed not to let my mind go where it wanted to go.

That shit needed to stay locked up tight.

I couldn't let stupid little daily life moments bring them hurdling to the forefront again.

But this next part, this was inevitable.

I had barely gotten into my bedroom and pulled off my coat before I heard the door opening and closing behind me.

I took a deep breath, so deep it burned my lungs, hoping it would help brace me for this confrontation. Turning, I saw Cyrus leaning against my door, hands tucked into his front pockets, looking perhaps as uncomfortable as I was feeling.

We were brothers. We talked.

The talks about this, though, yeah, they were rare. Because Cy knew me, he knew that drudging the shit up was not what I wanted. And maybe because he didn't have Wasp around to back him up if things got too real for him, he generally just let me have my peace.

But I had a woman in the compound this morning.

And she was not some chick I happened to take to my bed when it seemed like it was something I was supposed to do, something I needed to do to seem well adjusted enough, normal enough, something that had to happen so I could keep passing off as a fully functioning person.

"She's not your type," Cy said, tone a little cautious.

See, Cy didn't like heavy. As far back as I could remember, Cy was the light to a heavy darkness that was often blanketing our house with a father who was away on club business a lot and a mother who resented him to her very marrow. Then, later, his brutal death followed by our mother's steadfast determination to make sure none of us ever turned out even remotely like him. She was the whip. She was the disappointed forehead creases. She was a well-meaning heart with really shitty, really harsh execution.

The house was not a happy one.

Wasp and I had always taken on a bit of that darkness, had let it become a part of us.

Cy didn't.

Cy refused.

Cy made it his life's mission to be a spark.

And as such, everyone flocked to him, to his warmth, to his carefree lightness.

He never got comfortable with uncomfortable conversations, with having to have the tough talks.

With Wasp by his side after things... just after, he had managed to try to comfort me, try to drag me out of my hole.

This was maybe his only attempt on his own.

"No, she's not," I agreed, moving to sit off the end of my bed, knowing this was going to be unpleasant, trying to put as much physical space between us as possible.

"I like that about her," Cy went on. "She's, I dunno, can a person be airy? Because... she's airy. Like a breath of fresh air, you know?"

Well, if this was how this was going to go, I could certainly steer the conversation to Rey in general instead of Rey and me.

Because there was no Rey and me.

There never could be.

Relationships were not in the cards for me.

"She lives in that old Victorian down by the creek. That was her grandmother's place."

"I can totally see that," Cy agreed, smiling a little. "Is the place still overrun with animals?"

"Dogs, cats, parrots, a goddamn tortoise in the kitchen..."

"What's she do?"

"Dunno. She walks dogs. And housesits. And she fixes furniture, but I don't know if that is a hobby or if she sells it and shit. She's, I dunno, a jack of all trades, I guess. I figure that that house is paid off already, or she'd have to have a steady job."

"You didn't ask?"

"I gave the woman two rides, Cy, that's all. I came out of the shop last night, and she was fucking under my car, trying to wrangle a kitten out from the undercarriage, so she could take it home and nurse it. Then she kinda just... got in the truck and pointed me in her direction. That's fucking it. I took her home. Same thing today. She gave me my coat back, so I drove her to her job, walked a damn dog with her, and drove her home. It's not what everyone is thinking. I've given women rides home before."

"Yeah, when they're drunk and stumbling out of Chaz's. Or when they break down on the side of the road."