I didn’t get a chance to reply, he righted us in bed, pulled the covers over us and tucked me close.
“Go back to sleep, Laurie,” he murmured.
“Okay, honey.”
His arms gave me a squeeze. “Sweet dreams, baby.”
“You too, Captain.”
I settled into him and fell asleep before he did.
I didn’t wake up once.
*
It wouldn’t be for weeks when I would realize I’d stopped waking up at all when Tate was home with me. It was only when he was away that I was restless.
It was Tate who made me realize this and he did it when he walked into the bathroom one morning while I was brushing my teeth wearing nothing but my undies. He stopped behind me, slid an arm around my stomach and pressed into my back.
My eyes went to his in the mirror and I noted instantly he had something on his mind.
He didn’t make me wait.
“You keepin’ somethin’ from me?” he asked.
I blinked, pulled the toothbrush out of my mouth then answered, “No.”
His arm gave me a squeeze, a physical warning, and he gave me a verbal warning through the way he said, “Babe.”
I stared in his eyes, finished brushing, spit, rinsed, wiped and tried to turn but Tate kept me where I was, facing the mirror with his arm wrapped around my waist.
“Tate –” I said into the mirror.
“I don’t like you doin’ it alone.”
“What?”
“The night.”
I shook my head and asked, “Sorry?”
“I don’t like you facin’ the night alone. You wake up, I don’t, I’m tellin you now, babe, you wake me.”
That was when it hit me and I stared at him in the mirror, silently.
I did this for awhile, long enough for him to get impatient, give me a squeeze and prompt, “Got me?”
“I’m not waking up,” I whispered, stunned, still staring at him.
There hadn’t been a time I could remember when I didn’t wake up, not since I was a kid. Maybe for a night or two but not regularly. My mind had tortured me, and my sleep, since forever.
“Come again?” he asked.
My hands went to the basin and I held on.
“I’m not…” I shook my head in disbelief. “Tate, baby,” I was still whispering, “when you’re here, I don’t wake up.” I felt the sting of tears in my eyes and kept whispering. “It’s only when you’re gone that I –”
His arm went loose, his hands came to my hips, he stepped back and turned me to face him then stepped back in, his arm going back around me, his other hand coming to my jaw.
I tipped my head back to look at him.
“Honey –” he started and a tear slid down my cheek.
“All my life,” I interrupted him, “since I could remember. And now I’m not. Not while you’re around.”
“Laurie –” he whispered, his thumb moving to wipe away my tear.
“You’re…” I swallowed, “you’re it.”
“I know, baby,” he murmured, his forehead dropping to mine. “You’re it for me too.”
“No,” I told him. “You don’t get it. You’re the something special I’ve been looking for. And what I was looking for was what I needed to put my mind at ease.”
“Ace –” he started but I fitted myself to him and slid my arms tight around him.
“I knew it but I didn’t know it. Now I know it.”
For some reason, suddenly his head came up and he stared down at me with such concentration and for so long, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“What?” I asked.
“You aren’t goin’ anywhere,” he stated and I blinked again.
“What?”
“This is good enough for you.”
I shook my head and squeezed him with my arms. “Tate, you aren’t making –”
“You don’t just believe I can do anything, I can do anything, for you.”
I stopped breathing.
“Fix your sleep,” he stated.
I stared.
“Fucked up my whole life, made shitty decisions, almost fucked up my son’s life, but not you. I can do anything when I’m with you.”
“You could before,” I told him.
“Not until you.”
“Tate, you –”
“The day you rolled into town, babe, you saw me with Neeta. The next day, the day I met you, that’s when it began.”
“It isn’t.”
“Fuck,” he hissed, his voice so intense it was nearly physical, “wish Dad coulda met you.”
I stared at him, stunned speechless when it hit me my beautiful, badass biker had been broken.
And I’d fixed him too.
“It broke you,” I whispered.
“What?”
“When you lost the game, it broke you. You were on your way to self-fulfilled prophesies too.”
He stared down at me and I held my breath for his reaction.
Then he said softly, “Yeah.”
“You didn’t think, without the game defining you, that you could find a good life.”
“No.”
“And, for whatever reason, I didn’t think I was worthy of something special so I never found it, until you.”
His bizarre response to that admission was, “Thank Christ.”
“Sorry?”
“Babe, you let your college boyfriend show you you were somethin’ special all along, right about now, I wouldn’t be standin’ in my bathroom with you in my arms. I’d be fucked.”
“Well –”
“Jonas would too.”