"Really?" she asks. Looking at Coin. Looking at me.
"Really," I say. Because some promises don't need to be official to be real.
The club's Christmas party is at the clubhouse, because where else would we have it?
Backroads is still being rebuilt—the framing is up, the walls are going in, and Ellie has been supervising.
But the clubhouse is where the family gathers when it matters, and Christmas obviously matters.
The main room is decorated in a way that can only be described as aggressively festive.
Someone—I suspect Tildie—went overboard with the lights.
There are garlands on the bar, a tree in the corner that's leaning about fifteen degrees to the left, and a string of lights around the Church hallway door that flickers in a way that's either intentional or an electrical hazard.
Ellie is in the kitchen. Of course she is.
She's been cooking since dawn—ham, mac and cheese, green beans, rolls, three kinds of pie.
Baby Waylon is in a bouncer on the counter next to her, wearing a onesie that says ‘Santa’s Favorite’ and drooling on a candy cane that someone gave him that Vanna is going to be furious about.
"That child is eating a candy cane," I say.
"That child is teething and the candy cane ishelping," Ellie says without looking up from the ham. "His mother will survive."
Vanna will not survive, but that's a conversation for later.
The room fills up.
Brothers in cuts over Christmas sweaters—Maddox in a sweater with a reindeer on it that someone clearly bought as a joke and he's wearing with complete sincerity.
Bracken with a Santa hat. Decorum saying grace over the food while Porter tries to sneak a roll before he's finished.
Tildie is behind the bar, because Tildie is always behind the bar.
Ruger is next to her with his arm around her waist and a look on his face that says this bald, bearded, tattooed President of an outlaw motorcycle club is deeply, embarrassingly in love with his bartender, and he doesn't care who sees it.
Wrenleigh and Sadie Jo are at a table with some of the other club kids, and Wrenleigh is showingeveryonephotos of Biscuiton her phone with the salesmanship of a girl who is going to run something someday—a company, a country, probably both.
Coin is across the room talking to Ruger, his back against the bar, the coin turning between his fingers.
He catches my eye and holds it—two seconds, three—and the look he gives me is the same one he gave me across the orthopedic waiting room, across the kitchen table, across every room we've shared since the night this started.
Quiet. Deliberate. Full of everything he doesn't say out loud because he doesn't have to anymore.
I know. Ialwaysknow.
After a couple of hours, I step outside for air.
It’s around nine or so.
The December night is sharp—cold enough to see my breath, cold enough that the mountains are just shapes in the dark, black ridges against a sky full of stars.
The noise from the party bleeds through the walls, muffled and warm.
I'm standing on the porch, letting the cold settle into my lungs, when I hear them.
Not inside. Around the corner of the building, near the parking lot.
