“Yeah,” she said gently, “I miss them. We talk all the time and working from home means we can video call each other every day. My grandparents aren’t getting any younger, and my dad hates farm life because it’s too quiet for him, so they might move back here at some point. My grandparents lived here originally, but Grandad inherited the farm from his parents, and they moved to Utah to take it over after Mom and Dad got married. I think he’s ready to sell it and retire, though.”
I could understand that. Living in the middle of nowhere with no one around would drive me insane. I wasn’t overly talkative normally—my exception being Sienna—but I liked to be around other people, which was one of the reasons I’d joined The Broken Eagles.
As I was inspecting one of the sensors on a window, I asked casually, “Do you think you’d be able to go to a bar one night?”
The silence that followed the question dragged on as I continued to look around, and when I couldn’t take it anymore, I turned around to see what she was doing to find her fidgeting awkwardly.
“I-I don’t know. I mean,” she sucked in a breath and shook her head like she was clearing it. “Even the thought of it’s making me anxious. There could be a lot of people in the room because it’s a bar, you know? I don’t—”
“Hey,” I said softly, walking up to her and slowly raising my hand to rub her arm. One thing stood out to me as I did it—she hadn’t braced herself for the contact like she had when we’d first met. She was still tense given the topic we were discussing, but it didn’t get worse when I touched her. Thank fuck! “I only suggested it because I own Daniel’s Bar, and I wanted to take you out to meet the club and some of their women.”
She blinked a couple of times, and then her hand came up to the base of her throat. “I could try, but do you know a night where it’ll be quiet?”
“We’ve got a party for one of the guys in the club next Friday, so we’re closing the bar for it. That means it’ll just be the members and their women. There won’t be any unknowns hanging around, and I can promise you they’re all good people who’d have your back in a second.”
Rolling her lips together, she smiled weakly. “I’ll try. I think that’s the best I can do. My anxiety isn’t rational, and I have to work hard to keep control over it. Sometimes I achieve it, and sometimes I don’t, so it depends on the night, I guess.”
That made sense. “What about if Maddie came with you?”
Her shoulders lowered a fraction at the idea. “Really?”
“Really. Talk to her about it and see what she says. Then if you’re okay on the night, both of you come along. I’ll make sure there’s a table in the corner so that you can sit in peace and watch the room.”
“That might help,” she whispered, looking surprised at the idea.
Slowly sliding my hand around her shoulders, I gave her a gentle side hug. “Don’t force yourself. There’s zero pressure on you to do it if you don’t feel like you can. But the offer’s there for you guys to come and join us so you can meet some other people. Remember, there’s more safety in numbers, and if you have more people at your back, you’re safer than on your own.”
Leaning into me slightly, she gave me some of her weight. What she didn’t realize was, the second she told me about what’d happened, she’d also given me some of her burdens to shoulder for her. There was no way I was letting her fight all of this on her own, and I was also going to protect her from as much of the world as I could.
“I like that.”
She’d said it so softly that I almost didn’t hear her. “What do you like, Sienna?”
“The possibility that I could have more friends and a life. I mean, I don’t regret my choices, that’s something the therapist made perfectly clear to me—” she stopped suddenly, and her head lifted to look at me with regret. “I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear about stuff like that. It makes me sound crazy, right?”
Shifting so that I was standing in front of her, I lifted my hands to cup her cheeks. “Don’t you know, I want to hear everything you’re willing to tell me. It helps me form a picture of how hard you’ve fought, and it also helps me figure out what you can and can’t do yet so that I don’t push you too hard.”
“Why do you care so much?” She sounded so confused at the prospect that I felt genuinely sad for what had made her feel that way.