“Looking good in there,” I tell him.
“You’re the ones doing all the work.”
“I meant you.” I rise on my toes to kiss his cheek. “You look happy.”
“I am happy.” He wraps an arm around me. “I have everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“Even the chaos?”
“Especially the chaos.” He watches Lily arranging napkins with intense concentration.
Ginger appears in the doorway. “Turkey’s ready! Everyone to the table!”
What follows is the loudest, messiest, most wonderful meal I’ve ever been part of. Food is passed in every direction. Conversations overlap. One of the twins knocks over a gravy boat. Duck tries to make a toast and gets heckled by literally everyone.
And through it all, Stone’s hand stays in mine under the table.
When the plates are cleared and the pie is served, Lee stands up, tapping his glass.
“I’d like to make a toast,” he announces. “To family. The one we’re born into, and the one we choose.”
“To family!” everyone echoes.
I look around the table—at Ginger and Tank, at Hawk and Andi, at Lee and Emma, at Duck and Maggie, at Isabel and Lily, at all the brothers and their partners who’ve become my people over the past year.
My family.
Stone squeezes my hand.
“Happy?” he asks quietly.
I think about the road that brought me here. The pain, the loss, the years of believing I wasn’t built for this kind of love. I think about what I’ve found on the other side of all that fear.
Home.
“Yeah,” I tell my husband. “I really am.”
He kisses me—soft and sweet, right there at the table, earning a chorus of cheers and groans from the assembled family.
“Get a room!” Tank hollers.
“We have one,” Stone calls back. “Several, actually. It’s my clubhouse. Get the fuck out.”
The laughter that follows washes over me.
I’m home.
BONUS EPILOGUE
STEEL
Duck’s Thanksgiving whiskey has gone straight to my head.
Not that I’m complaining. After the last few months, I figure I’ve earned a little celebration of my own.
I’m a full patch member. Finally.
I trace the rocker on my cut as I stumble down the hallway toward my room. Even after three months the leather feels heavier.
