“A priest.” She bursts out laughing, and it’s a stomach-holding, eye-watering, lose-your-breath kind of laugh that has me taking a mental picture. It’s a look I never want to forget.
“Okay, one more and you have to be honest.” I agree, and wait for her to finish laughing. “Who was your first?” That one was easy and one I would never forget.
“Her name was Harper Sloan. I was sixteen and she was thirty. Her dream was to fuck on the back of a bike and I helped her fulfill it. You should thank her; she taught me everything I know.” I wink at Saylor and she smiles at me.
“Maybe I will. Do you know where I can find her?”
“She lives in Georgia. Last I heard she was stripping at Magic City.” I watch her fidget a minute and then ask the typical question all women ask when you talk about previous lovers.
“Was she better than me?” Any other time I would lie, but this is Saylor, so I don’t have to. I grab her hand and kiss the back of it, then tell her the words I know she is expecting to hear.
“Nobody is better than you.” And it’s the fucking truth.
—
“I want to go home” are the words I woke to the next morning.
“Okay,” I tell her simply. There is no place I’d rather be than in Jackpot with her. Home. “I’ll call Shady and get him to book us a flight.”
“What about our car?”
“We’ll buy another one.” She rolls her eyes at me and sits up, reaching to smooth out her long hair that isn’t there anymore. I noticed she did this often. I guess old habits are hard to break.
“There isn’t anything here I want to take with me. I just want to go.” I know she wants to go home, but I can hear the sadness in her voice as she looks around the place that, until recently, has been her home. “I’ve been here for six years and the only happy memories I have here are with you, or have been made since I started treatment. Donnawayne and Jeffery always insisted I go to their place. It’s a lot nicer.” Silence fills the room and I know if I don’t say something, she is likely to fall apart.
“I know this place in Jackpot, Nevada. It’s beautiful. Like the woman who lives there. And the only happy memories I have of it are with her.” She looks at me over her shoulder and smiles.
“Will you take me there?” she asks, that playfulness I’ve missed is back, and it’s promising. I don’t answer her, I just reach over and grab my phone from the couch.
“Shady, we want to go home.”
26
WE FLEW FIRST class, surprise to Saylor, but not to me. I expected nothing less from Shady. When he picked us up, it didn’t surprise me either. But the bike waiting did.
“I heard through the grapevine that someone wanted to ride.” Saylor squeals next to me and throws her arms around Shady’s neck. I glare at him when he returns the hug, and he gives me the finger.
It’s cold here, in the thirties. But I can’t deny Saylor something that makes her so happy. Shady hands her a bag and smiles. “A gift from Sinner’s Creed.” She squats down, opening the duffel and rummaging through the bag full of leathers and boots to keep her warm. I don’t know how they got her sizes, but I’m sure Shady had Donnawayne or Jeffery’s number laying around somewhere for times like this.
“I got you something too,” he says to me, and I follow him to an SUV parked behind the bike. A Prospect sits inside and offers me a nod. I give him a salute, then turn to see Shady holding a leather vest in his hand. “We thought you might like to have this.” My own cut is in the backpack on my shoulder. It goes everywhere I do. But this vest is too small so I know it’s not a replica of mine, just in case I didn’t have it. And where the triangle-shaped creed symbol with the openmouthed, fire-breathing skull was stitched on my cut, this was replaced with PROPERTY OF SINNER’S CREED NATIONAL DIRK.
I take the thick black leather vest from his hands and take a moment to run my fingers over the threads. When I turn it over, a patch consisting of angel wings is sewn on the left side, and on the right Saylor’s name is stitched in white.
Before I met Saylor, I was just a Nomad. Now both of my worlds have collided and in my hand I hold the proof. Despite my attempts to shield Saylor from the violence of the club, she opened her heart and our home to Sinner’s Creed.
She never asked why they did what they did. She never passed judgment on their lifestyle choice either. She accepted them for the men that they were, not the patch they wore.