This came from Knight, directed toward the window but meant for me.
“What?” I asked.
He turned to me. “I’ll take on Creed. Make it worth his while. If he’s got to take extra time to go down to Phoenix and see his kids, he’ll have it. I always need good men, men I can trust. He’s a man like that.”
I stared at him, my breath failing me.
He didn’t want me to leave.
He was trying to make it so I’d stay.
Holy shit!
I didn’t know what to do with this.
“I…” I started, swallowed, sucked in breath then told him quietly, “He doesn’t agree with what you do.”
Knight tipped his head to the side. “He doesn’t agree?”
I shook my head. “He believes you do what you do with integrity but he doesn’t agree with what it is you do. He won’t work for you and even if he would, it wouldn’t be fair to ask him to leave his kids. He loves them. For me, I believe he’d do that but it would tear him apart, so I won’t make him.”
Knight held my eyes a second then looked back out the window.
I took in another breath as I pulled my boots from his table, put them to the floor then leaned my elbows into my knees.
“I’ll come back, visit you and Anya and Kat,” I told him.
“Got a lot to be thankful for,” he told his window, his words confusing me. “A good woman, beautiful daughter, work I believe in, money, men around me I trust.” He turned back to me. “Still, you left, that hole will not be filled. Not ever.”
Holy fucking shit!
I felt my throat start to close and forced through it, “Knight,” but that was all I could think to say.
Knight held my eyes and I was so undone, I let him and I did it silently.
Finally, he spoke.
“We’ll visit you, too, but, warning Sylvie, we’re not comin’ down there in the summer. I’ve been down there in the summer. It’s torture. Maybe Thanksgiving. Anya gets off on holidays. She’ll like that.”
“Creed has a big table,” I said quietly.
“You cook?” he asked.
“When forced,” I answered and finally got a lip twitch from Knight.
“Creed cook?” he went on.
“Absolutely.”
“Then it’s a plan.”
I stood, and was going to move to him but I found my feet failing me. All I could do was stand there, staring at one of only two men in my entire life who really, truly loved me.
So I decided it was time to give that back.
“You know, I love you, Knight.”
“You could have been one of my girls.”
Again, that wasn’t the response I was expecting.
“Say again?” I asked.
“You came to Denver, after that shit went down with you, if that had broken you, you could have found me for another reason. You didn’t. You didn’t let that shit break you. You didn’t bow to it. You fought it. You didn’t become one of my girls. You became the woman who protected them. That says a lot about you, Sylvie. I respect that. I respect you. I respect that you’re professional, I can trust you but you still got a personality, a sense of humor. After that shit happened to you, you kept that, you kept you. I respect that. I respect that we had an attraction and, not like a lot of women, when we found we didn’t suit, you didn’t let that shit turn catty or destructive. You let it go, you kept us solid and it means somethin’ to me you shared your shit with me. You trusted me with it. You trusted that me knowin’ it wouldn’t alter our relationship. That was an honor, Sylvie. I know you haven’t given that to anyone but me and Charlene, and, babe, it was an honor you chose me.”
Told you Knight could talk.
And that was nice and all, really nice, but I was a little put out he didn’t say it straight. He always said it straight.
Then he said it straight.
“We been through a lot and you earned a piece of my heart, babe. It’s all yours and always will be.”
I pressed my lips together.
“You cry, I’m tellin’ the boys,” he warned.
I unpressed my lips and glared at him.
He smiled at me.
“Come here,” he ordered.
I went there and when I got close, Knight Sebring’s arms folded around me.
Mine folded right back.
We’d hugged only once in the time we’d known each other and that had been when we were drunk and I told him all about Creed.
It felt better not being drunk and after I got Creed back, even if that meant I was semi-losing Knight.
“I’ll miss you, Sylvie,” he whispered into the top of my hair.
“I’m not leaving tomorrow,” I told him.
“Then I’ll enjoy you bein’ a pain in the ass for as long as it lasts.”
I sighed but it was fake and both of us knew it.
Knight gave me a squeeze then he let go and I stepped back.
“Gotta get to my man,” I said.
“Go,” Knight replied.
I nodded, lifted a hand, squeezed his bicep then moved to the door.
I stopped at it and turned back. “You know, I agree.” I shook my head. “That’s not true. I don’t agree, exactly. I believe. I believe in what you do, Knight.”
“I know,” he told me.
“The Serenas though, before they begin –”
Knight cut me off. “Know that, too, Sylvie.”
I studied him and I knew. He felt what happened to Serena. He felt it deep. He knew she had no business in the business.
“We’re instituting better screens,” Knight explained and I knew what that meant. A girl came to him, she wouldn’t work unless she understood the life and could take it.
“Right,” I muttered before, “You got work to throw my way, I can take it on and do Hawk’s job, I’ll take it and be a pain in the ass while doing it.”
“Would expect nothing less,” Knight returned.
“You’d be right,” I replied.
He shook his head and jerked his chin to the door.
I shot him a grin and walked out of it.
I was down the steps, through the club and out the backdoor before I let it hit me and when it did, it nearly brought me to my knees.
I loved the life I had in Denver and the people I shared it with. I was only moving a state away but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like a mother knowing I had to let it go.
I saw Creed standing outside his truck, leaning back against it, having a smoke, probably doing this because he was worried about me.
He studied me as I walked through the streetlamps toward him and he flicked his cigarette into the alley when I was three feet away. He saw it on my face, I knew, and that was why he pulled me straight into his arms and held me tight.
“He’s gonna help Charlene,” I shared, snaking my arms around him.
“Not surprised.”
My arms tightened around him.
“That sucked,” I said into his chest.
“I bet.”
“I’m not gonna cry,” I stated.
“All right.”
I sucked in breath.
Creed whispered, “I love you, Sylvie. Thank you for doin’ this for me, baby. I know you know but I’ll say it clear, it means the world to me. Just like you. All I can promise is, a day won’t go by where you won’t know you got that from me.”
At that, I started crying silently.
I did this while Creed held me and I kept doing it for a good long while.
Through it, Creed never let me go.
Chapter Twenty-Two
My Creed
A hot summer night in Kentucky, sixteen years earlier, Creed is twenty-three. It’s Sylvie’s birthday, she’s just turned eighteen…
I was in the warm, midnight blue waters of the lake when I saw his truck drive up, the headlights bright, cutting through the cloudless night.
I treaded water and watched the lights go out on his truck. I kept doing it as I watched his tall, shadowed form stalk through the dark toward the pier.