behaved, a new rush of shame and disappointment washed over me. I let the feeling do just that: roll over me like an ocean wave. Feel it, acknowledge it, let it pass. No use fighting it or trying to pretend it doesn’t exist. I didn’t beat myself up for my feelings anymore, or at least I tried not to. It didn’t do anyone any good.
The disappointment passed, and I was left feeling a little beaten down, but fine. My therapist would be proud: It only took three years and a prison sentence to learn to accept my own goddamned feelings.
With a grunt, I pushed myself up off the wall and began to walk. I figured I’d walk to the nearest gas station and call for a cab, or trek to a bus stop if there was one close enough. I didn’t have much with me, just the knapsack I’d come into prison with and the clothes on my back.
But as I rounded the corner to the main road, two bikes were parked on the shoulder.
Two bikes, and only one man.
Tex leaned against his motorcycle with his miles-long legs crossed at the ankle, the sharp toe of his cowboy boots visible beneath the hem of his dark jeans. The dark t-shirt he wore clung to his lean, muscular body—he’d put on some muscle over these three years, I could see it in the line of his shoulders and the cut of his waist.
He rested his big, knobby-knuckled hands on a tarnished silver belt buckle shaped like a star. I couldn’t see his face with his chin tilted down against the sun—he still had that same old Stetson hat he’d had since we’d turned eighteen, practically glued to his head. It was sun-faded from black to gray, but seeing the wide brim of that familiar hat and the plait of his red beard made my breath catch in my chest.
God, I’d missed him.
It hit me like a physical blow, seeing him. Prison was a whole lot of celibacy and a whole lot of pretending not to hear my cellmates jerk off in their beds at night. I’d barely wanted to the entire time—it wasn’t exactly easy to get in the mood in those conditions. But now, seeing Tex’s lithe, toned figure in front of me, it was like my body suddenly remembered how to want.
And God, did I ever want.
I stopped a few paces away from Tex.
He finally lifted his head so I could see his face—a face I’d only seen in memory for three years. Green eyes, high cheekbones, nose crooked from that time on the ranch he’d been thrown from his horse, the gap between his front teeth, his fiery red hair and blond eyelashes. The freckles like constellations all across his skin, from his face, to his shoulders, to his arms that always pinkened in the sun.
His expression was unreadable. Even after all this time, I could never quite predict his reactions. I almost expected to get slugged. After all, if there was one reaction I deserved, it was that. And that’s how Tex usually preferred to solve his problems—quickly, with a little bit of violence. It’d worked for us for as long as we’d been together.
I couldn’t hold his gaze. It was too much, like a boiling hot drink after hours in the snow. I huffed a laugh and glanced down to my shoes. He’d always had my back; I should’ve known he’d be here.
TEX
I’d half-expected Jazz to fall to his knees in front of his bike when he first laid eyes on it. I’d spent the past week tuning it up after it’d sat in Ankhor Works’ back lot, unridden for nearly three years. But he’d barely even glanced at it.
Here he was, standing in front of me in the same jeans and the same leather jacket he’d gone into prison wearing, his knapsack slung over his shoulder, like the past three years hadn’t happened at all.
It was surreal. Like I was stepping out of a dream. Over the past three years, the world had continued to spin, and my life in Hell’s Ankhor had gone on as per usual: enforcing, riding, hanging out with my brothers. And a lot had happened over these three years. After Ankh’s death, it’d been chaos dealing with the Viper’s Nest, and then a whirlwind within the club as my brothers reorganized their priorities. It was as if Ankh’s death had forced everyone to consider what was really important in life.