I’d wondered for a long time if my relationship with Asa had been a fluke. That maybe I’d felt so deeply for him because he’d saved me and for no other reason. It had become an almost unbearable fear—that our love wasn’t real—and I hadn’t been able to get it out of my mind until I’d worked on it for weeks with Dr. Howell.

I learned something during those weeks when we did exercise after exercise helping me discover and understand my feelings.

I loved Asa. Loved him. It had nothing to do with how he could protect me, or some sense of indebtedness.

Take everything else away, until there was just Asa and Callie, and I still loved him with an intensity that bordered on madness.

A few months after Cody had been shot, I found myself with just enough cash to drive to Oregon and I used it. I was pissed at my brother for refusing to come to California to see me, and worried that he wasn’t taking care of himself. I needed to get him away from the Aces, back to the school he’d ditched, and away from a life that would get him shot.

I was also irrationally pissed that Asa hadn’t come for me yet. I’d asked him for time, but he’d seemed content to give it to me, and as time passed, I worried that he wasn’t coming back. I was livid that he wasn’t fighting for me, angry that he’d given up so easily. Dr. Howell would’ve had a field day with that information, but we hadn’t yet touched on the difficulties I had controlling my anger.

I got there and made my way inside with few problems, but within minutes of my arrival, the love of my life was walking out the front doors shouting at me.

And after a spectacular fight with Asa in front of close to thirty bikers and their old ladies, he threw me over his shoulder and stalked past everyone into his room.

He dropped me onto the bed and took a weary step back. “Where’s Will?”

“I left him with Gram,” I answered softly with a shake of my head. “I didn’t think it would be a good situation to bring him into.”

“What the hell were you thinking, Callie?” he asked dejectedly as he ran his hand through his hair.

I stared at him, up close for the first time in months, and I couldn’t stop the words that came pouring out of my mouth. “I love you!” I shouted. “You don’t call me baby. Why were you calling me baby? You call me Sugar.”

His body went completely still. “What did you just say to me?”

“You don’t call me baby. You call me Sugar.”

“Before that, Calliope,” he rumbled, his hands dropping to fists at his sides.

“I love you. I know that now.”

“Oh, you know that now, huh?” he asked gently.

I nodded quickly, pulling myself up on my knees.

“Well, I knew it before,” he replied, shaking his head as he ran his hand down his beard. “I can’t do this with you, Sugar.”

“I love you. I love you and I want to be a family.” I reached toward him in frustration, but fell back and started to cry at the anguish on his face. He was backing away. He didn’t want me. All of my anger left me in an instant, replaced by fear and desperation. “I’m better! I promise! I’ll do better! I miss you so much.”

“I know you’re doing better,” he told me softly, coming back to reach his hand out and wipe the tears off my face. “You’re doing so good, Calliope. But I can’t be the reason that you slide back into that shit.”

“You won’t!” I pleaded. “It didn’t have anything to do with you!”

“Bullshit, Callie,” he shot back, walking toward the door. “You couldn’t even fuckin’ look at me.”

He was almost out the door when I desperately shouted the one thing I’d promised I’d never reveal to him.

“I blamed you!” I yelled, watching his back snap straight. “I blamed you, and that’s what made everything worse.”

“All this time?” He turned to me. “All this time I’ve been trying to build a life with you, wrestling with my own shit over what went down with your parents, knowing that there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could change…All this time you’ve been blaming me and never said a goddamn word?”

His voice was shallow, and the pain in his eyes made me feel like I was going to vomit.

“I didn’t think about it,” I sniffled, and he turned to walk out the door.

“I didn’t think about it, because if I thought about how I blamed you, I couldn’t ignore how I blamed me,” I whispered, scratching at one of my arms with my short fingernails.

It was silent in the room for long moments as I wondered how I’d managed to fuck up so badly. I’d used a Taser to make my way into a gated compound, shouted like a maniac for my brother who ended up not even being there, and convinced the love of my life that I blamed him for my parents’ deaths.

I was scratching faster, tears blurring my eyes, when I felt a warm hand cover mine.

“Stop scratching, Sugar,” he murmured soothingly. “Gonna break the skin, you keep doing that.”

“I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “I know it wasn’t your fault. I know that now. I know it wasn’t your fault. I was a mess, but I always loved you. I never lied about that. That was always true.”

“I know, baby, I know,” he murmured, sitting down and pulling me into his lap.

“Don’t call me baby!” I wailed, making him chuckle a little. “Don’t laugh at me!”