Chapter 25 #2
The clubhouse is down there too. Liam is there right now, helping Wizard and Maverick with some security upgrade that I only half understand.
He told me about it over breakfast with a mouth full of toast, trying to sound casual and failing because he was excited.
He likes being useful. He likes learning.
He likes belonging. He’s actually planning on going back to college, which, not wanting to sound like a proud mom, made me feel like my heart was going to burst. He still works at the club’s auto repair shop, but now he wants to get into cybersecurity, so when he has any free time he’s usually hanging out in Wizard’s office.
I still worry. Of course I do, and no doubt I’ll spend the rest of my life worrying about my son and his choices. But the worry no longer feels like it’s swallowing me whole because I trust him to make the right decisions.
Cruz comes to stand beside me. His shoulder brushes mine.
“You’ve gone quiet,” he says.
I give him a look. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
His lips twitch. “Fair.”
“I was thinking about Liam.”
His gaze goes to the town too. “He’s doing good.”
“He is.” I fold my arms, tucking my hands under them for warmth. “He’s happy. It scares me a little less than it used to.”
“I’m glad.”
“I still don’t like the idea of him on a bike.”
“No.”
“But I understand it more now.” I glance at Cruz. “Don’t look too smug.”
“I would never.”
“You absolutely would. Internally.”
Cruz turns fully toward me. There’s something in his face that makes my laughter fade. My stomach flips again, and this time it has nothing to do with the bike.
“What?” I ask.
He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket.
For one wild second, my brain goes straight to ring. Which is ridiculous. Cruz and I have talked about a lot of things, but marriage hasn’t been one of them. Not seriously. Not yet. We’re still new and not new at all. We’re still learning the shape of each other’s lives.
He doesn’t pull out a ring. Instead, he pulls out a small, folded piece of paper. I remember that stupid list I gave him months ago. Has he written me a poem?
“Cruz.”
“I wrote it down,” he says, voice rough. “In case I couldn’t say it right.”
I press my lips together and nod because if I open my mouth, I might make some noise that embarrasses both of us.
He unfolds the paper but doesn’t look at it right away. His eyes stay on mine.
“I know you don’t need me,” he says. “I know that’s important.
You built your life with your own hands.
You raised Liam. You made a home out of a place that saved you, and then you turned around and made it a place that saves other people too, even if it’s just with coffee, books, and those awful sweaters that should probably be illegal in at least six states. ”
A laugh breaks out of me at that. He’s always teasing me about them. His mouth curves for a second before he grows serious again.
“I don’t want to take over your life. I don’t want to stand in front of you.
I want to stand beside you. Or behind you, if that’s where you need me.
I want to be the person you can lean on when you’re tired.
I want to be the one who knows how you take your coffee and when you’re pretending you’re not worried.
I want lazy Sunday mornings and dinners with Liam.
I want rides like this. I want the quiet, and the chaos, and all the weird shit in between. ”
He glances down at the paper for the first time, then lets out a slow breath.
“I know being an old lady means something in the club. I know it’s not just words.
It means you’re mine, but more than that, it means I’m yours.
It means the club knows it. It means I claim you, but only if you claim me back.
It means respect. It means family. It means protection, but not because you’re weak. Because you matter.”
My heart is not built for this.
Not at all.
It’s trying to climb right out of my chest and throw itself at him.
Cruz folds the paper carefully, like maybe his hands need the task. “We were already heading there. I know that. The guys know. Liam knows. Hell, Mrs. Jenkins probably knows, and she’d call me personally to tell me if she thought I was moving too slow.”
That gets another wet laugh out of me.
“But I wanted to do it properly,” he says. “Not because there’s one right way. Because you deserve to be asked. You deserve to have a choice. You deserve a moment that isn’t tangled up in broken windows, fear, or everyone else’s trouble.”
He takes my hand in his. His palm is warm and rough around mine.
“Sloane,” he says, my name turning into something sacred in his mouth. “Will you be my old lady?”
There it is.
A strange phrase, maybe, to anyone outside this life. One that could sound outdated, even ridiculous, if it didn’t hold so much weight here.
I think about the first time I heard it and how I internally bristled. But I understand now. It’s a declaration. A place beside him. A tie to the family Liam has chosen and the one I somehow found along the way. It’s Cruz asking me to let him belong to me in a way that everyone can see.
And me belonging to him in return.
“Yes,” I whisper.
His hand tightens around mine.
“Yes?” he repeats, like he needs to be sure.
I step closer. “Yes, Cruz. I’ll be your old lady.”
The relief that moves through him is visible. His shoulders drop. His eyes close for half a second. When they open again, there’s so much naked feeling there that I can’t breathe.
“I love you,” he says.
The words are rough. They aren’t polished or poetry, but they’re everything. My chest breaks open, but not in a bad way. More like a window thrown wide after years of being painted shut.
“I love you too.”
His hand comes up, cradling my face. He kisses me like we have all the time in the world and not nearly enough of it.
Slow and deep and shaking with all the emotion he can’t say, even now.
I feel it anyway. In his mouth. In his hands.
In the careful way he holds me, like I’m precious and real and fully capable of holding him back.
When we part, my cheeks are wet.
He brushes the tears away with his thumbs.
“Happy tears?” he asks.
“Mostly.” I sniff. “Some overwhelmed tears. A few ‘what the hell is my life’ tears.”
“That seems fair.”
I laugh and lean into him, wrapping my arms around his middle. He holds me against his chest, his chin resting on the top of my head.
Below us, Hart carries on. The people who have become tangled up in our lives in ways I never expected.
Liam is down there, settling into the club, into adulthood, into himself.
I don’t have to hold him so tightly anymore.
That doesn’t mean letting go. It means trusting the roots I gave him and the wings he’s building for himself.
The wind slips around us, cold enough to make me shiver. Cruz immediately notices and pulls me closer.
“Ready to head back?”
I glance at the bike. At the road and the town below. Then I look at him.
“Yes.”
He helps me with my helmet, careful as ever. Before he closes the visor, he kisses me once more, quick and sweet.
Getting on the back of his bike feels different this time. Maybe nothing has changed in the last five minutes. Maybe everything has. I wrap my arms around him, and when the engine rumbles to life beneath us, I hold on without fear.
Not because the road is safe.
Because I choose the ride.
Because I choose him.
And because he chooses me right back.