35. River
35
RIVER
The trouble with soon was it never seemed to come around. Early spring became late spring, and with the sunshine came more and more hours to be awake and fucking busy .
I began to hate the garage, even though keeping Nash’s baby afloat while he cared for real-life babies was a role I was actually good at. And I already hated the haulage firm. Anything that took Rubi away from me for days at a time— weeks —yeah, I still wasn’t over that—could fuck all the way off and die.
But it wasn’t always lorry shit that ruined my day. Sometimes it was church meetings I didn’t want to attend but somehow found myself back in the fold anyway.
Kinda. This one was at Nash’s house—in the kitchen, around the French oak table I’d watched Saint build in the yard a few weeks back. The big table—big enough for three parents, four kids, and any brother my sister liked enough to feed.
But I wasn’t here for dinner. None of us were. Even Ranger, whose presence surprised me as much as my own, but Cam pulled his big boy president act before I could question it.
“All right, shut the fuck up.” He rapped his knuckles on the table in lieu of the gavel. “Thanks for coming, everyone. I know some of you want to be somewhere else already.”
That was for me. I shot him a middle finger, but he just grinned. Like most of the brothers in the room, Cam was too chill these days to give a fuck about me and my stinking attitude.
“We’ve got a few things to cover, and I’ll get through them as quick as I can, but I’m warning you now, it’s a lot.”
“Is not that much if you do not ramble.” Alexei leaned back in his seat, showing his arms for the first time since last winter, wearing a T-shirt so white it hurt my eyes. “Start at the beginning, finish at the end.”
“Thanks for that.” Cam’s tone dripped sarcasm. “You want to do this?”
“No. I wish to leave, I have things to do.”
Cam might’ve retaliated, but Saint made a sound I didn’t quite catch, and Cam let it go and cracked on. “First up, the old Crow territory. We’ve spent all winter renovating the auto shop there to give it back to the old boys who used to work there. That’s happening next week—it’s going to be attached to the local college and churn out diplomas and shit for anyone who wants one.”
Locke frowned. “Who’s running it?”
Cam named a veteran Crow even I knew to be a decent bloke. “And that’s where our involvement ends. If they fuck it up, it’s on them.”
“What about the rest of the buildings?”
“We’ve already donated half of them back to the local council. The others, along with a few more locations we have around the county, are going to be part of a new initiative that he’s gonna run.”
Cam pointed at Decoy, his ever-present ledger, and the notes he’d already taken. A brother who’d grown more comfortable with every set of eyes in the room trained on him.
A brother who leaned forward instead of ducking his head. “We’re seeing a lot of wastage and landfill since we took on those supermarket-distribution contracts. Fresh food. Dried goods. Even domestic cleaning shit. So much of it’s ending up in the bin, so we’re going to set up some locations to give it back to the community.”
Rubi knocked his fist on the table. “Sounds good. Rebel Kind, eh, Cammie? Just like your da wanted. Just tell us what you need to get it up and running, Deeky.”
Decoy grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that. I could do with your help with the foodbank stuff. And anything that involves talking to lots of people at once.”
“I’m all yours, big daddy.”
Cam cringed. “Really?”
Rubi just laughed, but it was cut off by an outraged screech from next door, the downstairs room Nash had built to be a day nursery for the twins.
He got up.
Mateo stilled him. “I’ll get her. Take the help while it’s here.”
Nash sank back down in his seat and took over where Cam had left off, exchanging a meaningful glance with Rubi—one that had me noticing how close the three of them were sitting, like they’d been plotting shit all morning before the rest of us had arrived. “Staying on the subject of utilising land, we’ve finally made a decision on what to do with the fields we bought last year when none of you were around to take the rum away.”
Laughter filtered round the table, from everyone except Alexei who shot all three of them a barbed look.
“Make it good, zolotoy mal’chik. Or your treasurer may refuse it.”
Nash cocked his head. “You already know everything.”
“Some.” Alexei leaned back in his seat. “But I am all ears for the rest, so continue.”
Nash folded his face into comical obedience. “Can’t claim credit for this, cos it was all the big boss man?—”
“And Remy,” Cam cut in. “He was telling me how he met Logan and then we got to talking about ...”
“Festivals,” Rubi took over. “Being so ASBO and busy over the years has meant we don’t get to go to many anymore, but it’s something we all loved back in the day, and it was a big part of club culture until the O’Brians got their rowdy selves banned from all the local ones.”
“Not just O’Brians.” I threw a thumb at Embry beside me.
He rolled his eyes. “That fed had it coming.”
“Either way,” Rubi continued. “It was a pipe dream of ours to build one of our own when we were younger and dumber. Even the parents were into it, but they started dying before we could make it happen, and life got in the way. So... we’ve decided it’s time to put that right.”
I blinked. “You’re going to put on a festival? At the club?”
“ We are, Riv. You and Nash know all the bands and musicians in the South West, so we’re going to need your help building the line-up.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Eh?”
Rubi grinned. “Once we got the queen’s approval, we set things in motion back in January. Barring any acts of God or natural disasters, the inaugural Rebel Fest will take place at the end of August.”
Stunned silence rippled around the table.
Donovan objected and made enough noise that Mateo passed her off to Cam.
She let out another indignant squawk.
“Don’t start, missy.” Cam shifted her to his other arm, the one without the bullet hole through his shoulder. “I survived a childhood with your mother.”
It broke the quiet. Rubi talked more about logistics and tapped Folk and Decoy to handle security, Locke the health and safety, and even Alexei seemed happy with the numbers Cam and Rubi produced while Nash looked everywhere but at the laptop they passed around.
Only Ranger stayed quiet, and when the festival talk died down, I jabbed a finger at him. “What are they making you do for this shit?”
Ranger glanced at Cam.
My brother nodded and the air in the room shifted enough that even Donovan shut the fuck up.
Still, though, Ranger rose from his seat and took her, staring at her big blue eyes, her tranquil eyes as she wrapped a little hand around a lock of his messy hair. “Brothers, your future sounds amazing, but I can’t commit to anything, cos I don’t know if we’ll still be here.”
Rubi sucked in a breath, emotion already hazing his eyes. “You leaving us, Roo?”
Ranger nodded. “Jean needs the sun on her bones, and Vik needs to be with his family, so we’re going to take her to the island while she can still travel and let her live out her days there.”
“You’re patching out?”
Ranger gave another slow nod. “Cam gave me the choice, said I could go wherever I wanted and come back when I was ready, but I can’t see that happening. That summer I spent with Vik was wild for all the wrong fucking reasons, but it showed me that I belong with him, and he belongs there, with his family, so... that’s where we’re gonna be.”
It shouldn’t have shocked me that he was leaving, or that hearing him say it punched a hole in my chest. But all those things happened anyway, and it wasn’t just me.
No one was ready for this news.
Locke rose to mark a friendship he’d had longer than almost all of us. Then, with damp eyes, he took his daughter and stepped aside, leaving room for Folk.
Their embrace was drawn out and made Rubi cry. He ditched his seat and came to me, crouching to hide his face for the hot second it took him to compose himself. “Did you know about this?”
“No, boo. You okay?”
Rubi sniffed. “Nope.”
“Maybe you can visit.”
“Have to find my fucking passport first.”
He left me with that grumble and rose to take his turn embracing Ranger.
Alexei sent me a dry look.
I ignored him and turned my gaze to the movement outside that caught both his attention and mine.
Viktor .
The first clue I ever had that he was nothing like Alexei was a moment like this one. Viktor sat on the grass outside, Lida standing over his chest, their noses together in a deep and silent conversation no one was pressed enough to interrupt.
He loves that dog.
And she loved him, and we all needed a love like that. We all deserved it.
Ask him. Ask him. Ask him.
How soon was now?
* * *
Not soon at all. Apparently building a festival in four months flat was as mad as anything the club had ever done. Rubi got sucked into triple checking the numbers with Alexei, and that became our entire lives for the next month. Meetings that felt like war councils, my phone ringing so much I had no chance of losing the damn thing.
And for once, I didn’t even want to. Planning a festival was a fucking ball ache, but Cam, Rubi, Nash... they loved it. The good, the bad, the ugly, and people didn’t die if they made mistakes— they didn’t die, and that alone made every annoying phone call and never-ending to-do list worth it.
Still, the club’s spring ride out snuck up on me, and Rubi got to be right about me forgetting it was happening until the yard was suddenly crammed with three hundred brothers and their hogs.
I wasn’t in the fucking mood.
Rubi hustled me out of the garage anyway and shoved a dusty leather cut at me. “Play nice. Even the accountant’s coming.”
“If Teddy’s wearing a cut and riding anywhere near the rest of us, I’ll do my part naked.”
“That’s almost worth trying to bribe the mad bastard, but at this point I’ll be happy if you’re just vaguely dressed.”
“I am dressed.”
“Riv, you’re not even wearing socks, which the Locktipus ain’t happy about, by the way.”
“What’s it got to do with him?”
“He cares about your toes. And the paperwork he’ll have to do when you lose them.” Rubi pressed my ancient club cut harder into my hands. “ I care about having you with me on this ride. It’s been literal years since we last did this.”
“Did what? Ride in a giant fucking circle?”
“Please?”
“You don’t have to beg me, boo. I’m coming.”
“Really?” Rubi’s face lit up, his full lips retracting from the pout that made me want to drag him back inside. “I thought I’d have to play child catcher and bribe you with sweets.”
“Sweets?”
Rubi emptied his pockets into my hands, forcing me to tuck the cut I hadn’t worn since I was twenty-fucking-one under my arm.
He’d brought all my favourites.
Squashies.
Cola bottles.
Tangfastics.
He’d brought himself , but the bustle in the yard called him away before I got the chance to tell him he was the only favourite I gave a fuck about.
I trailed him into the ruckus, trying to remember if I’d parked my bike next to Rubi’s bobber or abandoned it somewhere else. I’d got here early to open the garage for the Saturday morning MOT rush, and dawn seemed as far away as the last time I’d seen this many Rebel Kings in one place.
Leather.
Smoke.
Petrol.
A combination my sister insisted added up to nothing but trouble and man sweat. Was she even here?
Her car was.
Nash and Locke too.
I took that to mean Orla was somewhere inside, but as I shoved my way towards the clubhouse, a flash of red rerouted me. Red I’d last seen in a dozen bits in the corner of the garage. “You’re riding?”
Orla showed me her teeth. “Of course I am. I need to celebrate squeezing my thick arse into these jeans.”
I didn’t pay much attention to my sister’s arse, thick or otherwise. And to me, she’d never been more beautiful than since she’d brought her children into the world. I stooped to examine her bike, checking Nash’s flawless work for no reason beyond I knew he’d want me to. “Where are the jellybeans?”
“With Juana and Willow. Axel’s guarding them.”
“Axel’s not riding?”
“He didn’t seem that fussed about it.” Orla drummed her short nails on the fuel tank Liliana had painted with roses and crowned skulls, fit for a fucking queen. “Viktor’s staying too, and I think Logan will be here before we get back.”
I knew Logan would be there. Because Remy was coming with him, bringing the rings I’d bought for the wedding I’d accidentally booked and done absolutely nothing about since I’d committed fraud at the registrar’s office. The wedding that was in six weeks’ time.
How was this my life?
I straightened, bringing myself face to face with my sister’s probing stare. “What?”
“Where are your boots?”
“Why is everyone obsessed with my fucking feet today?”
“I don’t know, but if you give me the cola bottles, I won’t kick you in the dick for being so rude.”
My sister’s sweetest smiles were her most dangerous. I gave up my bounty and sloped on my merry way, still scanning the chaos for my hog and for Rubi—I’d lost him in the crowd, and despite the irritation sparking in my veins, I fucking missed him, and searching for him in a crowd of rowdy bikers was so nostalgic, I wasn’t sure how I felt when I finally spotted him across the yard.
He clutched a bundle of clothes I was almost positive was for me, though he spent a lot of time organising Embry too.
I shoved my way through, thankful most brothers stepped aside. I didn’t have a rank in the club beyond nepotism and whatever horrific reputation my entire life earned me, but in moments like these, I appreciated the fuck out of who I was to these people.
Rubi saw me coming. His whole face changed. An already broad smile became a beaming ray of sunshine that cracked his features wide open. “There you are. Where did you run off to?”
He knew full well it was him who’d fucked off, but I’d been paying closer attention to how we talked to each other since I’d come home to him after that night on the road with Saint. Somehow it was only just dawning on me that he riled me up on purpose—that the worst parts of me were the parts he loved the most.
I smiled at him.
Rubi blinked. “Did you eat all them sweets already?”
I kissed him, planting a smacker on his cheek. “No, boo. You’re all the sugar I need.”
He frowned, unconvinced I hadn’t had a lobotomy, and passed me the clothes he’d gathered for me. Socks, jeans, a T-shirt without holes in. The mismatched boots I’d been wearing since I’d walked away from him all those years ago with nothing but rage in my shattered heart.
How different the world seemed now, and yet he hadn’t changed.
I retreated to the bunkhouse to throw the clothes on. Ranger was in the back, fucking with a box of plastering gear.
“Got a job on?”
“Nope, getting rid of it all. Don’t need it where I’m going.”
“They don’t plaster walls in Spain?”
“Vik’s house is mint already.”
I tried to picture Ranger in a posh house.
Failed. “Do you know when you’re going yet?”
Ranger studied me with eyes darker than sin. “We were gonna go in a few weeks, but Alexei told me no .”
“Why?”
“Didn’t fucking say. Not in English, anyway, so you should probably ask Vik.”
I couldn’t tell if Ranger was taking the piss or annoyed. His face was like that, his humour as hidden as mine unless he was actually laughing. I was going to miss that. “Are you tail-gunning with Saint today?”
“Nah, I’m flanking the queen.”
So was I, as it turned out when I took my place ten minutes later in the diamond of eight brothers protecting my sister, while Mateo, Folk, and Saint guarded the rear, a formation that bore little resemblance to the last one I’d ridden in.
Rubi was at the front, Road Captain emblazoned on the cut my ma had made bigger every year until she died. Mine was still loose. Embry had lost his. No fucking clue where Alexei was, cut or otherwise.
I straddled my hog, gunning the engine, adding to the chorus of hundreds of others, stuffing Squashies in my gob until the packet was half gone and my blood sang with the deafening roar of bike engines and a sugar rush I’d pay for later.
Ranger liked eating shit.
I tossed him the rest of the bag. He caught it one-handed, texting on his phone, and then it was time to go.
The horde moved out. I rode wide next to Orla, Cam just in front, Decoy a hog behind me. Couldn’t say a club ride out had been on my bucket list for today, but I couldn’t deny the ritual of it felt fucking good.
Nostalgia.
Tradition.
Whatever.
We hit the open road, burning all the way to our chapter in Lizard with the spirits of the men who’d come before us as warm on our shoulders as the spring sun.
My sister was the first club queen to ride in the lead pack. Fate willing, she wouldn’t be the last.
We descended on the club compound in Lizard, the Rebel Kings’ most southerly chapter. Their old ladies were famous for their hog roasts. I felt sick from scarfing Tangfastics on the way here, but I ate the giant bap Rubi brought me and leaned against him when I was done.
Pretty sure he fucking purred, and even though everyone seemed to want a piece of him as much as they did Cam, I had his undivided attention.
He gazed down at me, the sun making his eyes shine as gold as his helmet-wrecked hair. “You’re so pretty, Riv.”
I snorted, tipping my head enough to kiss his neck.
He held me a bit tighter. “I mean it. Honestly, I look at you some days and I can’t believe you’re fucking real.”
“That’s how I feel about you.”
He beamed again. “Really?”
“Course it is. How’d you not know that?”
“I do know it. But I like hearing it on days like this. Makes perfection even more perfect, don’t it?”
Nothing about me would ever be perfect. I was messy and spiky. Broken and put back together all wrong. But none of it mattered, not anymore, and I was beginning to realise it never had.
Ask him. Ask him. Ask him.
“Boo—”
His phone rang, blaring with a boring tone he reserved for strangers. He dug it out of his pocket and squinted at the screen. “That’s a hospital number. Fuck, where is everyone?”
We scrambled to our feet, scanning a yard smaller than the one back home. I counted ten brothers and our queen. Orla was chilling by a firepit, already on FaceTime with Juana, no stress in her face. She was fine, the others were fine. Only Alexei was MIA, but a hospital would never call Rubi about him.
I turned back to Rubi. He’d already taken the call, frowning as he took in whatever information the caller fed him, eyes wide, then reddening with emotion, even as his sharp posture relaxed.
“Yeah. I understand. I can be there by six.”
He hung up and blew out a breath.
“What the fuck was that about?
“Mrs. Valentino died. I have to go and get her cat before her kids have it put down.”
My brain had this unique way of emptying all thoughts into the ether and replacing them with brand new ones. It was how I’d made it this far without having the most important conversation I’d ever have.
Mrs. Valentino was our neighbour. Her house had exploded a while back with her and the cat inside it. Locke had saved her, the cat too, but the old girl had never come home. And now she was dead, and the snotty twats she called kids wanted to kill her cat. “All right. Let’s go.”
“I can’t just piss off. I’ve got a horde to guide home first.”
“Fuck them. Someone else can read the map.”
“Now you say that.” Rubi almost smiled. “But Cam’s got form for navigating us into the wrong county, and there’s a lot of young ones on the road today— your sister’s on the road, so I need to finish this first.”
I had the patience of a crack-addicted hamster, but every once in a while, logic won a round of guerrilla warfare with my brain and made space for the man Rubi needed me to be.
We moved out, rounding up the masses and riding for home.
Riding hard. Rubi’s bobber was better built for cruising than racing, but he pushed it all the way home, gassing up the horde as much as he dared with Orla among us.
We reached the compound.
He pulled up at the entrance, shepherding the crowd past. With so many riders on the road and Orla to see home safely, only Embry slowed, but Rubi waved him on.
“ Go .” He jabbed his thumb. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Brothers kept rumbling past. Less than we’d started the day with, but more than there’d ever been, a fact that probably pissed Rubi off as they kept coming and coming.
“Shit the bed.” He flipped his visor. “Since when did the grumpiest O’Brian that ever lived have so many fucking friends?”
“I thought I was the grumpiest O’Brian?”
“Naw, you’re a sweetheart.”
Another flood of bikes obscured our view of each other. By the time they’d rolled through, we were no longer alone. Alexei had joined us on his matte-black Ninja, and stone me dead, of course he wasn’t wearing a club cut.
The last of the riders trickled through.
Sensing an unexplained urgency, Alexei raised a brow. “Explain.”
Rubi filled him in.
Alexei tilted his head. “And how are you planning on transporting this cat home? Perched on your head?”
“Fuck a duck.” Rubi wheeled the bobber around and shot down the driveway.
Alexei turned his attention to me, giving me a look .
I ditched my cut and ate the last of my Tangfastics, hyped up to go when Rubi came back with whatever solution he had to the very real problem Alexei had pointed out. “Don’t come at me with your cryptic shite. Get to the point or fuck off.”
Silence.
I licked sugar off my fingers and braved a sideways glance.
Alexei’s expression hadn’t changed, but as the sun caught his grey eyes, I got a flashback of the first time I’d ever met him. When my brother’d had a bullet in his shoulder and Alexei had cared more about easing his pain than anything else. It had taken a long time to understand the gravity of that dark day, and maybe I never wholly would. But I understood Alexei.
He lived for Cam.
He lived for Saint.
He lived for all of us, even me, and the exasperation he skewered me with now was nothing but love. “Whatever you’re thinking, little brother, you are worthy of this. Now stop wasting time.”
Alexei gunned the Ninja and blasted away, zipping into the weekend traffic the way only sport bikes could. Rubi rolled up half a second later, a cat carrier wedged on his lap.
“Still not ideal, boo.”
Of the two of us, I was the unreasonable gremlin who couldn’t be trusted not to jump off a fucking cliff. Cut Rubi open and he bled common sense, every moment of his life except the ones he truly didn’t—when his giant squishy heart got the better of him and he turned into an unmanageable bear on roller skates.
He ignored my warning, revved his engine, and shot off, leaving me to roll my eyes to the heavens and trail behind, all the way out of town and to the inland animal shelter.
It was already closed for the day. Rubi ditched his bike and sprung from it like he had Embry in his legs.
I caught up with him at the side entrance. “Calm down. They said they’d wait for you.”
“They said Cuthbert Valentino was going to have her put down in the morning. What if his plans change and he comes early?”
“Who the fuck is Cuthbert Valentino?”
“I don’t know. Some cunt who kills cats.”
A staff member walked up on that beaut. She stared at us through the bars on the door and I made every effort in the world to look less like a hooligan. Trouble was, we were hooligans, born and bred, fresh from the road and stinking of smoke and petrol.
I nudged Rubi. “You’re up. Do that thing where you sound clever.”
“I am clever.”
“ Civilised and clever.”
“Mother of Dragons , I’m too emosh for that shit right now.”
“Boo, you don’t have a choice.”
The staff member opened the door.
Rubi took a breath and painted a winning smile on his face.
Ten minutes later, we walked out with a cat that was going to live out his days with us.
“He better be nicer than that hood rat Mateo has to deal with.”
“Wash your mouth out.” Rubi dug a small blanket from his saddle bag and draped it over the cat carrier. “Bruno is perfectly fucking regal, thank you very much.”
I wouldn’t know. I hadn’t seen this cat—our cat now, I supposed—since Locke had pulled him from the rubble of the demolished Valentino house years ago. He could’ve had three legs for all I knew. “We don’t have any stuff for him.”
“I know. I lied to the shelter people and said we had a house full of it, so we need to hit that big Tesco on the way home.”
Meaning I needed to hit it while Rubi stayed with his new boyfriend, a bad idea for so many reasons, but our lives were full of them, and sometimes they panned out.
I sent Rubi home to get the cat— Bruno —settled and ventured into the biggest supermarket in the South West alone.
Overstimulation had always been a problem for me. Without supervision, and distraction of company, all the lights and sounds of a giant superstore got under my skin, awakening the lack of impulse control I’d nurtured a sedative habit to repress.
I had a list:
Food.
Shit litter.
Shit tray.
On my first go round, I found none of those things. I got a cat tree instead with mushroom-themed hide-outs and a bag of pick-and-mix. It took me a full half hour to gather what we actually needed, and then I rode home more precariously than Rubi had, but without regret.
His laughter made everything worth it. “He’s a hundred and five years old. He ain’t gonna climb that, Riv.”
“You climb it then.”
I dumped it all on the couch and looked around for the feline interloper who’d derailed our day. “Fuck me, he’s huge.”
“So they say.” Rubi grinned. “Maine coon, innit.”
“What?”
He repeated the words. I barely heard him as I took in the pointy-eared lion staring at me from behind the TV. He was tabby and gold with eyes like Viktor, in case we missed him too much when he was gone, and perched on the cabinet, he reached my shoulder.
“Is he friendly or are we going to die tonight?”
“He’s a beaut.” Rubi stopped frowning at the veritable heap of crap I’d brought home. “Look.”
He clicked his teeth.
The cat stared. Then he chirruped and pushed past the TV, knocking his face into Rubi’s outstretched hand, purring up a storm.
I tried my luck.
He sniffed my hand and purred for me too, and that was it. He lived with us now and that was that.
Rubi fed her. I went upstairs to change into clothes that actually belonged to me.
I came back to him growling a voice note. “Shutting the fuck up is gluten free, Nashie. Make yourself a sandwich.”
“What does that even mean?”
Rubi was on the rug, an unlit zoot dangling from his lips, his shirt discarded in a pile our giant cat had decided made a better bed than the one I’d bought. He tossed his phone. “It means he can stop sending me crazy cat-lady memes. I know who I’m gonna turn into and I don’t give a dragon’s ball bag.”
“And why’s that?”
He flashed his teeth, tickling Bruno’s chin. “Cos I’m happy.”
“Are you?”
Rubi gave me his full attention, a tiny frown threatening the chill he was bringing to the living room floor. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I just...” Fuck. Just what? I was happy too. I’d been happy for a long time now, so why did it feel like we’d barely started?
Rubi sat up.
I advanced on him and straddled his chest, forcing him back down while the cat watched me, his flicking tail clinking the empty Appletiser bottles I’d left on the floor last night. “All this time, have you ever thought about what comes next?”
Rubi slid his inked hands over my hips and up my flanks, his big hands, his warm fingers spanning my whole lower back. “After what?”
“After all the wars. The fights. The mess. All these years, the endgame was to not fucking die, but then what?”
“What’s the context? You mean the club, or as people?”
“I mean us, boo.”
Rubi’s gaze flickered to mine, the low light from the lamps making his hazel orbs shine as gold as the stripes on Bruno’s fur coat. “That’s a complex question there, mister.”
“How so?”
“I always knew we’d either end up right here, or I’d be dead. Nothing in between, and... maybe nothing after, so I was always too scared to want more than this.”
Guilt tossed my gut. My fault. I’d pushed him away—I’d left him, and the five years we’d lost scarred my fucking soul. “I’m sorry.”
Rubi’s frown dug in. “For what? You didn’t choose this life, Riv. And you walked away to save me, I know you did. I was just too fucking dense to see it at the time.”
“You haven’t had a lot of choices either.”
“Yeah, well. I choose to love you. How about them apples?”
Rubi pinched me until I laughed and shoved him away. But I wasn’t done, and for the first time since that madness had taken hold of me last year, what I wanted to say—what I needed to say—manifested as actual fucking words. “I want to marry you.”
Rubi opened his mouth.
I clamped a hand over it. “I know I’m shit at everything, but I believe you when you tell me that’s what you love about me, cos I love every annoying piece of you too, and I want more of that—I want all of it, in every way we fucking can. I want it forever, boo. And I want the whole world to know it.”
Beneath me, Rubi had gone very still. Eyes wide, brows stuck halfway up his head. I couldn’t tell if it was horror or joy, so I kept going, digging in my pocket for the rings Remy had sent me.
I dropped them on Rubi’s chest. “I asked Remy to make us these. And I did the notice thing with the registrar. It’s the most organised I’ve ever been, and it wasn’t even on purpose, but I’d really fucking love it if you could help me out and show up.”
Slowly, so slowly, Rubi’s hand came up to wrap around my wrist, prying my palm from his mouth. His face didn’t move. He didn’t blink. Then his mouth tried to form words. “ You want this? For real?”
“Do I look like I’m taking the piss?”
“No, I—fuck.” Rubi shook his head. “You gotta give me a fucking second here, Riv. You’ve blown my tiny mind. I never thought—I never fucking dreamed you’d ever want something like this.”
“Why not?”
“Because... actually, I don’t know.”
Rubi plucked the rings from his chest and palmed them from one hand to the other and back again, trying to compute everything I’d dropped on him. Trying to see the future perhaps, which was easier now we knew where the rings on Mateo and Embry’s fingers had come from. “Married, eh? So... you’d be my old man, all official like?”
“You’d be mine .”
“Always have been, mate.”
“Yeah, yeah. Look, you don’t have to say anything now, and it doesn’t even matter. It’s just how I feel, and I wanted you to know.”
Rubi stopped tossing the rings around, an incredulous stare building on his face. “Not fucking say anything? Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“I know who I’m talking to.”
“Don’t sound like it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What does it mean?” Rubi tipped back his head and laughed—like really laughed, his big body shaking mine like I was in a goddamn blender. “It means yes, Riv. A thousand fucking times, it means yes .”