Page 18 of Wrecked By Rev

But logic doesn’t explain the way I feel when I hear him in my kitchen. Safe. Settled. Like I’ve been holding my breath for years and I’m finally allowed to exhale.

I get up. Pull on a t-shirt—his t-shirt, actually, the one he stripped off last night—and pad down the hall.

He’s standing at the counter, shirtless, pouring coffee into two mugs. His back is to me, and I take a second to just look. The ink covering his shoulders, the way his muscles move under his skin, the ease in his posture. He heard me coming—I know he did—but he didn’t turn around until the coffee was poured.

“Morning.” His voice is rough. Sleep and something else.

“Morning.”

He holds out a mug. I take it, and our fingers brush, and even that small touch sends heat through me.

“You stayed,” I say.

“You asked me to.”

“I know. I just—” I wrap both hands around the mug, needing something to hold onto. “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here when I woke up.”

He sets down his own coffee. Steps closer. His hand comes up to cup my jaw, tilting my face so I have to look at him.

“I’m not going anywhere, Angel.”

The words hit me somewhere deep. I blink against the sudden sting in my eyes.

“This is crazy,” I whisper. “You know that, right? This whole thing—you and me—it’s insane.”

“Probably.”

“I spent five years staying away from everything that reminded me of Jonah. And now I’m standing in my kitchen with a Sons of Ruin brother making me coffee like it’s the most normal thing in the world.”

“Is that a problem?”

I think about it. Really think about it—the way I felt last night, wrapped up in him. The way I feel right now, standing in his t-shirt with his hand on my face. The way I’ve felt every morning this week, waiting for seven o’clock, listening for his bike.

“No,” I finally say. “That’s the crazy part. It’s not a problem. It should be, but it’s not.”

He kisses me. Soft, almost careful—so different from last night. When he pulls back, his thumb traces along my cheekbone.

“Jonah would want you happy,” he says. “He’d want you safe. That’s all he ever talked about—making sure his sister was okay.”

My throat tightens. “You talked about me?”

“Sometimes. When he’d had a few beers and got sentimental.” A ghost of a smile crosses his face. “He was proud of you. The way you handled yourself. He said you were the toughest person he knew.”

I have to look away. The grief is still there—it’s always there—but for the first time in years, it doesn’t feel like drowning. It feels like something I can hold without it crushing me.

“I miss him,” I say quietly.

“I know. Me too.”

We stand there for a moment, the grief and the warmth existing in the same space. It shouldn’t be possible. But it is.

“Come to the clubhouse today,” Rev says.

My stomach drops. “What?”

“The clubhouse. I want you to come with me.”

“Rev—”