And High slammed out of her office thinking precisely that.
But the blow had been delivered.
And he’d walked through her house and he’d seen how she’d changed, how she lived like a ghost, how she was nothing like the woman he thought he knew her to be.
So he couldn’t stop the nagging at the edge of his mind that Millie hadn’t cut him out but instead he’d lost her and he hadn’t only done it back then but he’d done it again now.
His Millie was gone.
In every way she could be.
*??*??*
Later that night, when High had switched out his bike for his truck, he went back to Millie’s.
Not her house.
The alley.
He knew it was stupid.
He didn’t care.
He told himself he needed every bit of ammunition he could get in this war and that crate was full of ammunition.
He wouldn’t allow himself to believe he went back for a different reason.
But when he got to the Dumpster and got out of his truck, he saw the crate was gone.
He lifted the lid on the Dumpster and saw that it hadn’t been emptied nor had the crate been thrown into it.
It was a decent crate, could be used for a lot of shit.
Someone had stolen it and stolen High and Millie with it.
Likely they’d toss all the photos. Three years of living a dream, gone.
He got back into his truck, his gut roiling, his hands clenching the steering wheel with fury.
She’d dumped them.
And now they were gone.
And as he drove away, High decided the bitch would pay for that too.
Twenty-two years ago...
Logan woke to an empty bed.
He blinked away sleep, looked to Millie’s nightstand and caught the time on her alarm clock.
Then he threw back the covers, got out of bed, and walked out of their bedroom.
He didn’t find her in the second bedroom, a room she’d set up as a place she could study.
He knew why he didn’t find her there. When she did late nights like that, she did them at the dining room table downstairs so any noise she made wouldn’t disturb him.
Unsurprisingly, he found her where he knew she’d be but he found her slumped over, cheek to a notepad, books open everywhere, dead asleep.
He moved around the room, shutting off lights, before he moved to his girl.
Gently, he lifted her away from the table, then up in his arms.
As gently as he did it, she roused.
“Wha...?oh man,” she muttered drowsily. “Did I crash?”
“Yeah, baby,” he replied, moving from the living room into the foyer to the stairs.
“I can walk, Snooks.”
Logan felt his lips curve up.
Snooks.
The boys called him High.
Millie didn’t call him High.
She called him Logan, Low, and Snooks when they were in company and when they weren’t.
But she called him Snook’ums when no one was around.
It was goofy and it was cute and it was all Millie.
He loved it.
Halfway up the steps, he stopped and put her to her feet but he didn’t take his arm from around her.
She slid hers around him and they walked up the rest of the stairs together.
“You get done what you needed?” he asked.
“No clue. I don’t remember when I crashed, but I’m guessing...?no,” she answered.
Logan’s lips didn’t curve up at that.
They tightened.
It was finals. She was taking a heavy second semester schedule in hopes of graduating in three and a half years rather than four so they could start their life and their family and do it without delay.
She was also still working part-time at the mall. She made dick but no matter how often he told her she should do it, she wouldn’t give up the job.
She also wouldn’t give up on him, the Club, their life.
She was all in with everything. She never missed a class. She studied between classes. She was never late for work. She studied when she got home. They went to movies. They went to bars. They went to parties. They went to concerts. They went to rallies. She cooked for him. She cleaned the house for him. And she studied more whenever she had the chance.
Business. That was her major.
“Don’t know what I’m gonna do with it,” she’d told him on a grin. “Just know I’m gonna kick ass whatever it is I do.”
He believed that. She didn’t do anything in half measures. She sucked life dry, setting her teeth in deep, straight to the bone and pulling out the marrow.
But this shit had to end. She was about to finish her first year of college and she wasn’t going to take a break. She was going to take two classes during the summer and go full-time at the store in the mall until her sophomore year started.
Which meant more of this. All-nighters where he went to bed alone, woke up alone, saw her faking it and drained dry but giving him a grin and the cute when he knew she was about ready to pass out.
He watched her pull off her clothes, dropping them to the floor as she wandered to their bed, and he decided it was time for this shit to stop.
She got in and Logan got in with her. Pulling her into his arms, he tangled himself up in her as she returned the favor and snuggled deep.
“Babe, you gotta quit that job,” he told the top of her head.
“Need the money,” she muttered sleepily.
“You don’t,” he replied. “I can cover us.”
And he could. Chaos business, the garage and shop called Ride, and the other shit they did, he could totally cover her and him. He could even do more. Get them nicer furniture, new shit that looked good. After a year or two put money down on a house. Take her on vacation to get her away from her work. Take her to Paris and kiss her under the Eiffel Tower.
He could give them better than what they had.
He could give his girl everything.
He could do that.
Absolutely.
“Can’t do that,” she mumbled, sounding very close to sleep.
“Millie,” he gave her a squeeze, “you’re gonna burn out, you keep this shit up.”
“Only two more years,” she replied. “Most...?two and a half.”
“Babe—” he started but didn’t go on when she suddenly tipped her head back.