Rivals 🌈 ✔

78 - Waves of Love

At any moment, Juice expected to see a row of motorbikes in the rear-view mirror. Only when they were about thirty miles from Charming, he held the steering wheel a little less tightly. A relieved sigh escaped his lips and he leaned against the back of the seat.

Raine placed his hand on his thigh. Two scars were reminders of Happy's torture device. A drill, he feared. The wounds had healed on the outside, but since a nerve had been damaged, a part of Raine's palm had become numb. "You all right?"

"I'm glad to be out of that fucking town."

He hadn't gone back home, he hadn't dared. After he'd called Skye, she had taken a bag of stuff to the hospital when she had to give a puppet show there.

He wondered if the Sons still believed Raine was dead. If they were smart, they would find out that there was no funeral held for him. Or did they assume they had done so in secret? He found it impossible to predict the behavior of his former brothers.

The Reaper on the inside of his arm grinned wickedly at him. Once they were in Santo Padre, Raine would have to turn it into a black rectangle or something.

He put his fingers over his boyfriend's hand. Raine still looked pale, but there was more life in his eyes than in the previous days. After three weeks, he had finally been discharged from the hospital. They could turn a new page; one on which the Sons of Anarchy would no longer appear.

Juice was all set to leave everything behind. He would miss Skye—their goodbye had been hasty—but right now he just wanted to get far away from the place where his brothers had betrayed him and where his fiancée had almost died.

"It's the city where we met, though," Raine replied. "And some of my best memories are at your place. So I could never truly hate it." Raine turned his hand so that their palms melted against each other and Juice's fingers sank between his.

"It's also the place where I sat in agony twice, not knowing whether you would survive," Juice muttered. He heaved a sigh. The betrayal, his despair, his fear—they were unhealed wounds that would become scars. As far as he was concerned, he would never return to Charming. He hoped Skye would move too; closer to wherever they would live. He didn't like the fact that she still lived so close to the Sons. Although he would have said in the past that they would never harm an innocent woman, he was no longer sure of it.

Raine had also been innocent. Twice.

"Juice. You're almost breaking my fingers. Try to let it go."

Juice pulled his hand away and clamped it around the steering wheel. "As if I can let things go on command. You know how I am."

"I do. So talk about it."

"The way you talk about shit? You haven't said a word about that night."

A tense silence fell. Raine sighed. "What do you want me to say about it?"

"What do you want me to say?"

Juice chewed on his cheek, fighting those cursed tears. He was still so incredibly tired. Furiously, he wiped his eyes. He kept his gaze on the road, but he felt all kinds of dark feelings creeping under his skin, searching for a way out.

"I got a text. From you. And I -"

"I don't wanna hear it," Juice cut him off. The last thing he wanted right now was for Raine to paint pictures of what his brothers had done to him. Santo Padre was still nine hours away and since his boyfriend was wearing a cast, he could not take over the wheel. He had to keep his thoughts straight and that was hard enough. "Not now, anyway," he added in a less harsh tone.