Maverick’s gaze narrowed on her face. “You’re crying,” he said, like that explained anything.
“No, I’m not,” she said, brazening it out despite the wetness clinging to her eyelashes. “Seriously, why are you here?” She stopped short of saying he shouldn’t be there, because she suspected that would make him dig in his heels and want to stay. Even though he really shouldn’t be there. Grant wouldn’t like it. Oh, God, why had she gone to Mav for help?
Maverick’s head tilted the smallest amount, like he was assessing her, or challenging her. “You know why I’m here, Al.”
Al. No one in her life called her by that nickname anymore. Tyler had almost always called her Al, which was where Maverick had picked it up. Of course, very few people from her before Grant life were still around either. Somehow, her relationship with Grant and the work they did together had taken over everything until she’d all but lost touch with her friends.
“No, I don’t.” She shook her head not just in answer, but against the old longing she felt for Maverick. In high school, Tyler and Maverick had been thick as thieves, which meant despite their four-year age difference, Alexa had known Maverick long enough to have crushed on him forever, pretty much. It seemed like some part of her had always yearned for him—and always would.
But that didn’t mean there hadn’t been problems, too. For a woman who’d grown up wanting nothing more than stability and respectability, a guy who built his life around a motorcycle club engaged in at least some questionable activities didn’t seem most likely to offer that. And then Tyler had become a prospective member of the Raven Riders, following Maverick as he always did—until her brother had wiped out on a rainy mountain road one night and died on the way to the hospital. Mixed in with her soul-deep grief over his loss was a red-hot rage that his recklessness had made him leave her when she needed him so much. When their mother needed him.
Tyler’s death had thrown a stark clarity on all the reasons that being with Maverick was problematic. She couldn’t be with someone who lived such a dangerous life and couldn’t offer her the security her mother required. Because Alexa was the only one left to take care of her. And it wasn’t like Mav had ever talked about settling down, despite being together for three years. They’d just been having fun, hanging out. But mired in her grief and fear, she’d needed more than that. So she’d broken up with him. Just went cold turkey. Not that Maverick accepted that.
He’d pursued her. Hard. Dropping by her house, coming to her work, calling, texting. Trying to convince her to change her mind. Until he’d found her at Tyler’s grave on what would’ve been his twenty-eighth birthday, and they’d had it out.
“Why are you doing this, Alexa? Why are you pushing me away?” Maverick asked, the two of them standing on either side of Tyler’s burial plot as if it were a wall between them.
Alexa drew on everything she had to hold back her tears. “My mother is a wreck, and taking care of her is all on me. I have to focus on her now, and I have to do what’s best for her. She needs stability, and I need to figure out how to give it to her, and I . . .” She peered up at him. “I need it, too, Maverick.”
He grasped her hand. “So I’ll help.”
“But for how long?” she blurted. He frowned like he was trying to make sense of her question. And then her fears poured out of her. “How long until you wreck? Or some club business goes bad and you get hurt? Or you don’t want me because—”
“Don’t want you? Where the hell did that come from?” he asked, anger flashing in his eyes.
Grief was like a lead blanket wrapped around her shoulders, heavy and suffocating. And it hadn’t escaped her notice that he hadn’t addressed her fears about staying safe. Because he couldn’t. “Maverick, losing Tyler was the last thing I ever imagined happening. I can’t handle anything else. I need certainty right now, permanence, security.” Forever. She needed forever. Once, she’d hoped Maverick would want it, too. With her, someday. But now what he did and who he was scared her. Especially standing there at Tyler’s grave.
“And you don’t think I can give that to you?” he asked, anger sharpening the angles of his ruggedly handsome face.
“Can you?” she whispered.
The silence that had followed had been her answer.
So Alexa had made her choices long ago.
“Yes, you do. You know exactly why I’m here.” Maverick stalked toward her, his big body bearing down on hers in a way that set her heart to racing. With a gentleness that seemed impossible, given his size and all his rough edges, he grasped her chin and turned her face so that the side that had been bruised was toward him. “You came to me.” He nailed her with a stare.
Hugging herself, she pulled her chin free from the heat of his fingers. “I’m sorry I bothered you last week. I shouldn’t have gone to the clubhouse.” She’d just been so shocked by the fight with Grant and his words and his storming out that she hadn’t known what else to do. Going to her mother’s would’ve just made things worse, and she felt too out of touch with all of her old friends to go to any of them. Not to mention too embarrassed.
She’d felt so alone.
She still wasn’t sure why she’d driven out to the Raven Riders’ compound on the edge of Frederick. Once there, she’d worried she’d unnecessarily complicated her life a whole lot by mixing the past with her present and future. The longer she’d stayed at the clubhouse, the more certain she’d been that Grant really was done with her. Scared that she’d ruined everything, she’d left without explaining what’d happened to her, but not before Maverick had seen her face.
Now, him standing on the front porch of the house she shared with Grant? That was all kinds of complicated.
“If you think coming to me was a bother, maybe you never knew me at all,” he said, the muscle in his jaw clenching. He stepped away, his gaze fierce.
His words set off a pang in her chest. She did know him. His protectiveness, his possessiveness, his goodness—despite his club not being totally aboveboard. Although, from what she understood, their less-than-legal activities funded the Ravens’ quiet mission to defend those who couldn’t defend themselves . . .
Wait. Was that why she’d gone out there?
The question was like a sucker punch to the gut. Alexa wasn’t someone who couldn’t defend herself. She wasn’t in an abusive relationship like the women the Ravens helped. It had only been that one time and Grant had apologized over and over again. And she’d been the one who tripped, after all.
“Maybe I . . . maybe I didn’t,” she said, her voice not much more than a whisper as the thoughts settled uncomfortably deep inside her.
“Fine. Have it your way,” he said, his voice like gravel. Just when she thought he would leave, he stepped up to her front door and pulled something from his back pocket.