“Because even with all the heartbreak, even with all the ways we broke each other, I’d still choose you,” I managed, nostrils flaring with each measured exhale as I tried and failed to rein in my emotions. “Every single time. I’d go through it all again—the pain, the loss, the two years without you—if it meant having you in my life at all. You’re it for me, Kelsey Dawn Riggs. Always have been.”
Her response came out so quiet I almost missed it, even with mere inches between us. “You’re it for me, too,” she whispered. “And no matter what came after. No matter how much it hurt. I’d still choose you.”
Something in my chest cracked wide open, flooding me with a relief so intense it made my knees weak. I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed to hear those words until they were hanging in the air between us, real and solid and impossible to take back.
“Then let me make this easy,” I said, already making the decision before my brain could catch up with my mouth. “I’ll step down as president. Irish can take the chapter back, or one of the others.”
“What?” she gasped, jerking her head up in surprise.
I’ll move back,” I continued, the words coming faster now that I’d started. “To Lubbock. To the house. To wherever you need me to be. You wanna stay in Texas? Fine. I’ll figure out the rest. But you come first, Kels. You’ve always come first, even when I was too stupid to show it.”
She shook her head, looking dazed. “I’d never ask you to do that, Teddy. The club is yourlife?—”
“You’re my life, goddammit,” I growled, my heart hammering against my ribs like a jackhammer. “The club’s in my blood. It’s a part of me, but it ain’t everything. You think this is new, baby? Been willing to give up everything for you since the day we met. So, if your future’s in Texas, then that’s where I’ll be. Simple as that.”
“I don’t want to go back to the way things were,” Kelsey confessed, chewing the corner of her lip.
My stomach dropped. Here it was—the gentle letdown, the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech I’d been dreading.
I started to pull away, needing a minute to shove my feelings down deep before I did something truly pathetic like beg. “Okay. Okay, I understand?—”
She grabbed at my arm. “No, wait. I mean, I-I don’t want to go back to our old lives. I hate that house!”
I frowned, trying to make sense of what she was saying.
“I’ve been pretending I’m fine there, but I’m not. It’s like living in a haunted house. I only stayed because I didn’t know where else to go.” She angrily swiped at the tears on her cheeks, hiccupping as she tried to get her breathing under control. “Because leaving felt like I was abandoning our memories, even the painful ones. But if I’m being honest, I—” She stopped, biting her lip again like she was afraid to finish the thought.
“You what?” I prompted gently. I needed her to say it. Needed to hear what she really wanted, not what she thought I wanted to hear.
“I wouldn’t mind getting away from the desert heat,” Kelsey said, her voice so quiet I almost missed it. “Living somewhere with four seasons. Somewhere I could—” Her eyes widened with alarm, like she hadn’t meant to say the last bit out loud.
“Not that I’m—I mean, I know you’re not asking me to move in or anything,” she backtracked quickly, her cheeks flushing. “I’m not trying to invite myself or assume you want me here permanently. I just meant that theoretically, I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of possibly considering?—”
“Move in with me,” I interrupted, unable to listen to her stumble over herself for another second.
Her mouth opened, closed, then opened again. “What?”
“Move in with me,” I repeated with a low chuckle. “Here. This cabin or the other one. We’ll bring whatever you want from Texas and leave the rest.”
“Teddy, we can’t just?—”
“Why not?” I challenged. “You just said you hate that house. Said you want out of Texas. And I just told you I’d give up the presidency and move back if that’s what you needed. So why can’t I ask you to come here instead?”
“Because it’s—” She fumbled for words, her breath coming faster. “It’s too fast. Too soon. We’ve only been around each other for, like, five days?—”
I ran my tongue over my teeth, fighting the urge to laugh again. “Been together for thirty years, baby. Five days, five decades—ain’t gonna change how I feel about you. But if you need time to think about it, I get that. Just don’t say no because you think I’m not sure. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
“But what would I even do here?” she asked, voice small.
“Whatever you want. Take a pottery class like you always talked about. Teach yoga. Run your business. Hell, I’m sure there are hundreds of old people around here just waiting for you to adopt them,” I teased.
“I’m a senior transition specialist, Teddy,” she corrected sternly, but there was a little twitch at the corner of her mouth that meant she was trying not to smile.
“Point is,” I continued, “you could do anything. Or nothing. Just be here. With me.”
She searched my face, and I could see the war playing out behind her eyes. The practical Kelsey, who made lists and planned everything, versus the woman who’d been brave enough to ask a seventeen-year-old biker’s son to a high school dance because she wanted him.
“This is crazy,” she whispered.
