Page 91 of Reckless

My best friend.

The woman who spent so many years settling for people who made her feel small that she almost forgot what being loved properly looked like.

I squeeze her hand again. “Do you know what I saw the second I walked into this room?”

She gives me a small shake of her head. “I saw the happiest you’ve ever been.” Her eyes immediately begin to glisten. “You don’t have to wonder whether he loves you.” I smile. “Have you seen that man?” A tiny laugh escapes her. “The second you walk through that doorway, he’s going to forget every other person in this clubhouse exists.”

“I know,” she whispers.

“I know you know.” My smile softens. “But I don’t think you’ve stopped long enough to really let yourself believe it.”

She looks down at our joined hands. “I still keep waiting for something to go wrong.”

“I get it, babe.”

She exhales. “I keep thinking somebody’s going to tell me I don’t get to have this.”

I step closer, resting my free hand against her arm. “Then let me be the one to tell you something instead.” She lifts her eyes to mine. “You’ve spent years fighting for everyone else.” I glance toward the door where Nitro is waiting somewhere beyond it. “You don’t have to fight for him.” A tear slips free. “He already chose you. My beautiful, slightly messy, but utterly perfect friend.”

The room falls quiet.

Not because everyone stopped moving.

But because every woman in it is pretending very hard she isn’t listening.

I brush the tear from Marley’s cheek with my thumb. “So, take a breath.” I smile. “And go marry the man who’s been looking at you like you are his perfect ten since the day he picked you up in that Uber.”

Marley lets out a shaky laugh through the tears. “I hate it when you make sense.”

“I know.”

She laughs again, shaking her head. “I really do love you.”

“I know that too.”

Ro clears her throat loudly from behind us. “Wonderful. Everyone’s cried. Can we please get my bride down the aisle before I have to redo her eyeliner?”

Marley rolls her eyes at me one last time before stepping into the hallway.

The music begins. Soft piano drifts through the clubhouse, quiet enough that conversations fade away on their own. Victoria goes first, smiling as she makes her way toward the front where Sin is already waiting beside Bear with Marcus balanced against one shoulder.

Marcus chooses that exact moment to let out a delighted squeal.

The entire room laughs, and Sin bounces him once. “Traitor,” he mutters quietly.

Victoria’s smile grows wider, and I fall into place behind her.

The makeshift aisle stretches the length of the clubhouse between rows of brothers who have traded cuts for suits and women dressed in every shade of celebration Marley could convince them to wear.

Halfway down, my eyes find Ghost. He’s standing beside Sin in a charcoal suit that somehow makes him look even broader than his cut ever managed. The tie sits just slightly crooked beneath his collar, as if somebody fought him to get it on in the first place, and for one completely ridiculous second, all I can think about is fixing it.

His eyes find mine almost immediately, and for a moment the clubhouse disappears around me, the music fading into something distant while the space between us seems to narrow to nothing at all.

He simply looks at me.

Not the dress.

Not the flowers in my hands.