Sinclair

Chapter Forty-Four: Lucky Knows

THE NEXT TWO weeks pass quickly and before I know it, I'm operating on a schedule that is as easy for me as my old one had been. Sinclair, Bruiser and a few of the guys always leave early in the morning, so Sinclair is usually gone before I wake up. In that time, a few of the guys will already be waiting for me and Carla and I will head to Wallflower Diner to get breakfast before we go to her bar where Sonny will be there waiting. I'll help her around the bar, picking up this, wiping down tables that I know she's already wiped down a million times already, and mostly just keeping her company. Sonny will teasingly ask me if I've, quote, "Given Sinclair the good stuff since you've been living together?" and that, "if you hold out on him anymore his balls will explode." I'll say something witty back and he, Carla and I will laugh and move on. I meet up with Leila twice a week and I attend the group therapy sessions every Wednesday and Saturday. I'll admit that I wasn't quite sure about a lot of things when I first started attending but now I'm sure of this, Melissa is good at her job. She's good at making people feel comfortable; she's good at providing a safe, open space where you feel like no one will judge you and call you stupid for feeling the way you feel. Leila vents a lot of her problems to me and I vent a lot of mine right back at her. Talking to Leila is different than talking to anyone else because I know that she's going through it, too. The problem that I'm experiencing is her problem, too.

I'd celebrated Thanksgiving with my mother and brother the way we had done every year but this time, I'd bought a few guests. Sinclair, Bruiser, Carla, Sonny, and his husband, and a couple of the other guys showed up, all of them ready to eat. Mom had been a tad uncomfortable at first—although she was the one who suggested they all come to celebrate with us—but she quickly warmed to them. Although, I couldn't imagine how she couldn't warm to Sinclair and the guys: they were all giant men-children. Odin—who for some reason had taken to acting like my father—interrogated Sinclair about his "intentions" with me. Sinclair had answered respectfully albeit a little amused. All in all, the event of celebrating Thanksgiving with my family and the members of The Iron Order hadn't been a bust and I was truly thankful for that.

Today, the door of my house has been fixed and Carla, Sonny, and the guys assigned to come with us, all drive me over to my neighborhood. As I pass through the place that was once the most familiar place in Willow's Creek to me, I realize I don't know it as well as I used to. Weirdly enough, I'd grown ridiculously used to Sinclair's apartment. The spectacular view, his scent smelling so much stronger there than it did anywhere else, and one of the stray cats he was so fond of curled up on his couch, sleeping the day away and meowing grumpily whenever I cooed at how cute it was.

When I get out of the car and head toward the newly replaced door, I'm aware that my neighbors are probably watching. It reminds me how trapped in my head I've been this past couple of weeks. I'd been so busy with Sinclair and counseling sessions that I'd forgotten just how nosy the people of Willow's Creek really were. After all, Sinclair's apartment was close to Red Lake County, and even though it was only about an hour's drive away from Willow's Creek, it might as well have been on the other side of the world with how different the two of them were. Willow's Creek was small and the only entertainment the people here had was gossip, whereas, in Red Lake County, everyone was much too busy worrying about their own problems to even think about yours.

I grabbed my keys from my purse, placed it into the keyhole and twisted the door open. Once I'd pushed my way inside, I took a look around my home, the place I'd once felt completely safe in. Carla and the others must have done a lot of cleaning up around the place since I had been too scared to come back here for some time. The things that had been shattered had been cleaned up, the overturned table had been moved and everything that was broken beyond repaired had been thrown out. For a moment, I could do nothing but stand there and remember everything that happened. It had really been a terrifying experience, an experience that could make any sane person suffer from all kinds of nightmares that could haunt them for the rest of their lives. At the moment, I had been scared, too. Even now, I remembered the day I'd cried in Sinclair's arms about it.