“What’re you drinkin’?” I ask.
She lifts her cup. “Lemonade.”
“Spiked?” I say.
She winks. “Maybe.”
I take the cup from her and take a sip. Whiskey bites the back of my throat.
I hand it back. “Good.”
She nudges my hip with hers. “You okay?”
I know she still worries about me. It don’t matter if I tell her not to. I realize now it’s what you do when you love someone.
“I’m good,” I tell her. And I really mean it. I might still have bad days. Days where I can’t silence the voices built fromyears of being told I wasn’t enough. But the good days outweigh the bad days now, and I can really see a point sometime in the future where that dismissive voice is finally silenced.
Fawnie’s laugh fades into a quieter expression. She presses her fingertips lightly against the inside of my wrist, finding my pulse like she always does when she wants to anchor me. She can tell I’m getting inside my head. But this is a good introspection.
“I love you, Fawnie,” I say.
“I love you too, Finn,” she responds and stands on her tiptoes to plant a chaste kiss on my lips.
Across the yard, Stone and Justice start arguing about something and I hear Rita yelling at them.
Atlas fires up the other grill like he’s declaring war on raw meat. Willa is directing him like a general. Lark’s joined her old man and she and their daughter are good-naturedly teasing him.
Preacher’s voice rolls over it all, steady and warm, telling someone a story and making half the brothers laugh like they’ve never heard it before even though they probably have.
This is my life. This is my family, it’s where I belong. And the woman in my arms, my ride or die—however cheesy that phrase is—is my everything. I’m still a mess. I’m still stitched together with bad habits and old rage and scars that don’t fade. But I’m not alone in it anymore, and I’m learning I don’t have to be perfect. You can be flawed and be loved.
Everyone is worthy of a happily ever after. Even when you feel like a miserable bastard.
Especially then.
Fawnie leans her head on my shoulder, and the movement is so natural it makes my chest ache. I tilt my head slightly, resting against hers. The noise of the club wraps around us like a rough blanket. And for the first time in my life, I realize I’m truly home.
Epilogue
Fawnie
One Year Later
Shadow isn’t asleep. He’s on his side across from me. Our room is dark, but my eyes adjusted a long time ago. I woke up an hour ago after crashing hard as soon as we got home. I barely had time to strip my clothes off, fall into bed, and pull the blankets over me before I wasout. We had a crazy busy day with the club’s big summer cookout. Last year, I moved a few weeks after, so this was the first summer one I got to experience. It was a lot different than the one they put on in the fall. The weather was nicer today, the kids are out of school. It felt like half of Hart showed up as well, since the cookout really is a community deal.
He’s switched his work hours up, and he’s at his office during the day when I’m at school so that we can have our evenings and nights together, but he and Rita have been working on month end stuff until late in the evenings the past few nights. It’s been a lot of being bent over a desk. Shadow wanted to take on extra work and responsibilities. He also takes a more active role in the MC instead of lurking in the shadows. He might not be front and center, but he’s found his place. And he plays piano nearly every day, usually in the evening for me, after dinner.
Bubby is snoring loudly in her wool cave bed over on the chair across from the bed. I have no doubt she’s fast asleep, but Shadow isn’t fooling me with his quiet, shallow breaths.
“Finn?”
His eyes flutter open. “Hey. I didn’t realize you were awake.” His thumb brushes my cheek, traveling down to my lips. He rests it on the bottom one. If I wasn’t so concerned for him, I’d lick my tongue along it, then suck it into my mouth, teasing him until he couldn’t stand it any longer.
“I am now, but so are you. We did a lot today. These past few days, actually. We shouldn’t have gone for that ride after the cookout.” We did. For two hours, we rode down the freeway, just enjoying the warm summer evening. We literally rode into the sunset. I’ve loved all of our rides, but tonight felt extra special. “I loved it, but you look exhausted.”
He doesn’t hesitate. “It was worth it. Absolutely. It was a gorgeous day. A good one. I loved that your family was there.”
My mom surprised us by driving from Seattle. She insisted that she didn’t need to stay here at our house, even though we extended the invite. She ended up taking Rita up on her offer to spend the night in their basement. I wasn’t exactly shocked. Ever since Mom moved to Seattle in January, she and my dad have made an effort to be friends. Rita has been a huge part of that. She’s the one who encouraged my dad to invite my mom for dinner when we did family meal nights.
