Mason pursed his lips and nodded. He still looked like he wasn’t willing to be just a smidge soft around me, but that was fine. I guess he just needed to find himself his own woman.
“Swear that you’ll be a good father,” Mason said. “Swear that you will raise that boy right. And swear that you’ll get him in a life that is not like ours.”
“You know I already have,” I said as we arrived at his room. I stole a glance down the hall and saw Butch and Cole approaching, but my attention returned to Mason. “That boy is going to have the best life and every opportunity possible. I will make sure he becomes an honorable man.”
Mason looked at me, sighed, and did something I had never expected him to do again.
He held out his hand for a shake. I looked at it in surprise, almost expecting him to pull it back as if to mock me. But when I moved in and took it, he only kept his eye contact with me.
“I’ll fucking break you if you hurt her or that boy,” Mason said. And then he took a breath and nodded. “But I trust you.”
Holy shit.
And with that, Mason walked back to his room, listening to a nurse yap about how he needed to remain in one spot while she tended to his wounds. I just watched him ignore her and lay in the bed in stunned disbelief. Mason actually said he trusted me.
I didn’t need it, per se. I was still going to be the best father and partner to Hannah regardless of how he felt. But hearing him say that…
Maybe we could eventually go back to being buds. Maybe, maybe not. But we had certainly moved a couple of steps past “tolerating each other’s presence with unease.”
“How is he?” Cole said.
I looked over with a smile.
“Same old asshole he always is,” I said. “Not wanting to do a shot in celebration with me.”
“What a dick,” Cole said with a chuckle. “But I did see what you two just did. You shook hands.”
“Wait, that’s what that was?” I said sarcastically.
“Yes,” Butch said, apparently missing the sarcasm. “Congratulations. You are all initiated into the Black Reapers MC.”
Butch didn’t joke. Butch never joked.
And yet…this was for real? He was serious? We were actually now fully endorsed and recognized as Black Reapers by the hardest, meanest, toughest motherfucker in all of the Black Reapers?
“We all knew what you had done with Hannah,” Cole said. “And we knew that sooner or later, it would blow up in your faces. We didn’t exactly wish for drama, but we were happy to see what would happen when it came to a head. We needed a good club conflict to see how you guys could handle it.”
“But Brock and Steele—”
Cole shook his head.
“Steele was just being a brat with Tara,” he said. “I didn’t have much doubt the two would resolve their differences. But I knew this was a test that could definitely split you two apart. Peace is easy when everyone’s happy. We wanted to see what would happen when the stress was amplified.”
Damn, really wish it didn’t come to this. But I guess we’ll take it.
“We did not force this,” Butch said. “We took advantage of it.”
“Guess so, Mountain Man.”
Butch snorted. It was enough to make me think of a bull sending a message with a mere snort, and I apologized.
“We’ve already told the rest of the club,” Cole said. “As a result, you’ll get the full bevy of resources from the main charter in Springsville. You may have to come up there from time to time, but for now, consider yourselves Black Reapers not just because of my impulsive desire to see change made, but because the entire club welcomes you in.”
He gave a short nod and stepped back.
“Now, don’t you have a son and a woman to get back to?”
I smiled back. Yes, yes, I did. It was the only thing I had to get back to, and I was happy to have it be that way.
