"Yeah." My voice comes out rough. "Yeah, I'm good."
He nods. His hand closes on my shoulder and squeezes once, the same grip he gave me the night I rode into Nightfall Cove at eighteen, four months behind him and too proud to admit I'd been scared the whole way.
Sarah stands across from me, matron of honor,wildflower in one hand, Reeve settled against her other shoulder.Betty sits in the front row with her arms out, already angling to take the baby. Gerald Winters two seats down, arms crossed, looking less cranky than usual. Jax grins from the second row, still lean from recovery, the scars across his left side hidden beneath his shirt. Colt, Dawson, Rex, Diesel, and Garrett fill the rows. The brothers who showed up for every road, every fight, every bad night when I drank too much and talked too loud and none of them called me on it because they understood what I carried.
The music shifts. Acoustic guitar, low and simple.
Jess appears at the end of the aisle and my pulse doubles.
She walks alone. No father's arm, no escort, no one giving her away because Jessica Cooper doesn't belong to anyone to give. Wildflowers in a mason jar, same as Sarah's bouquet at Knox's wedding, a tradition I didn't know existed until right now. Her chin stays level. She holds herself straight. Through the bond I feel her heartbeat hammering against mine, nerves and certainty tangled together.
She reaches me. Sets the jar on the small table beside the candles and looks up at me.
I take her hands.
Knox clears his throat. "We're gathered here because a hurricane forced these two idiots to finally admit what the rest of us knew for months."
Laughter rolls through the courtyard. Sarah presses her hand to her mouth. Betty shakes her head, chin high, the look of a woman who called it from day one.
Knox's voice steadies, but the wet sheen hasn't left. "Marriage in this club means you ride together. You fight together. Youdon't walk away when it gets hard, and you don't pretend it isn't hard when it is." He looks at me and holds long enough for years of mountains and garages and loaded silences to pass between us. "Finn. Your vows."
I turn to Jess. Her fingers tighten around mine.
"I promise to always tell you the truth, even when it's hard." My voice holds. "To be your partner, not your protector—unless you need one, and then God help whoever's on the other end." Her lips curve. "To make you laugh when you want to kill me. To love you through every storm."
She blinks fast.
"Jess," Knox says. "Your turn."
She takes a breath and squares her shoulders the way she does before she walks into a trauma bay.
"I promise to trust you, even when I'm scared. To be your home and your safe place. To call you on every line of bullshit you feed me." I grin and she grins back. "To love you through everything—loud noises, burned heirlooms, and all."
My throat closes. She feels it hit, I know she does, and her grip tightens, anchoring me the way she's done since the first night of the hurricane when she looked at me across a darkened clinic and saw through every joke I've hidden behind.
"I now pronounce you husband and wife." Knox's voice cracks on the last word. He recovers. "Finn, kiss your wife before she changes her mind."
I cup her face and kiss her. The courtyard erupts, the brothers howling. Jess laughs against me. I taste salt on her lips and the bond sings between us, bright and wide open.
The reception spills across the courtyard and into the clubhouse, music thumping from speakers Colt rigged to the garage wall. Knox's speech lands the way Knox does everything, direct and unpolished: "Never thought I'd see my brother settle down. Then Jessica showed up and proved him wrong about everything."
Jax finds me at the bar while I'm pouring drinks. He's looking a lot better since the hurricane, the hollowed cheekbones gone, but the way he carries his left side still favors the ribs Jess set in a darkened clinic while his heart stopped on her table.
"VP." He lifts his beer. "Congrats."
"Appreciate it, kid."
"She saved my life." He says it flat, the way men say things that cost them. "I coded on that table and she brought me back. You married the toughest person in this clubhouse, and I'm including Knox."
"Don't let him hear you say that."
Jax grins, but it fades into something steadier. "I owe her. Both of you. I won't forget it."
I grip the back of his neck and squeeze. He nods once, lifts his beer again, and disappears into the crowd.
Across the courtyard, Garrett leans against the far wall with Reeve cradled in one massive arm. The minotaur dwarfs the baby—Reeve looks like a doll tucked against his chest—but his head tip forward as he watches the infant's face, and a low rumble rolls through him, purring, unconscious, a sound I've only heard from him when he's holding Knox's son. Betty tried to take Reeve twenty minutes ago. Garrett shook his head once, and Betty, who isn't afraid of anything that walks or crawls, let it go.
He stands apart from the dancing, the laughter. Watches it the way a man watches a fire through a window—close enough to see, too far to feel the heat. I've known Garrett for fifteen years and I've never seen him dance, never seen him reach for someone, never seen him do anything but stand at the edge and hold himself separate from the joy like he decided a long time ago it wasn't built for him.
