36. Saint
36
SAINT
Rubi said yes.
It was the least shocked about anything I’d ever been. And I couldn’t lie, the relief in River as Rubi took the whole thing out of his hands and conspired with Folk to mould his batshit plan into something workable... it was a relief for me .
I loved that kid. Seeing him so close to unhinging over something so beautiful—so inevitable—had fucking disturbed me.
Decoy was disturbing me too. He followed me out of the timber store and into the new office we’d just built for the HGV hub. I didn’t like it—the office, not him. Fresh paint made me crave fresh air and I was halfway to the door before he caught up with me.
“Can I ask you something?”
Finally . He’d been giving me weird looks all morning.
I made myself stop and turn round. What?
“Folk asked Ranger to be his best man.”
So?
“I’d really like it if you’d be mine.”
My gut twisted, refusal burning up my throat faster than any other words ever had.
Decoy saw it coming and spread his hands. “No speeches. You don’t have to do anything but stand beside me, like you’ve done every day since we met.”
The rebellion inside me paused. I tilted my head, waiting for more.
Decoy shrugged. “I’d be dead without you. I had a plan. Everything was in place. If you hadn’t brought me here, I’d be nothing for my daughter but bones in the ground, and it feels wrong to start a new life without acknowledging that.”
I pictured the Decoy I’d stumbled across all those years ago. I’d liked him because he hardly spoke and expected even less from me. I’d hated that he never smiled, that he’d forgotten how. “You’d already met him.”
Folk. I’d heard the stories.
Decoy smiled now , though it was shadowed by the same memories I had. “That’s my point. That I wouldn’t have been here for him to find again without you.”
I heaved a sigh. “Okay.”
Decoy startled. “Really?”
“Yeah, but don’t make me wear anything... big.”
Heavy. I meant heavy . But I was out of words to correct myself, and I needed out of this fucking office before I agreed to anything else.
Decoy placed cautious hands on my shoulders. “No speeches, no suits, I promise. Just be yourself, brother. It’s who we love.”
He left me with that, retreating through the door I’d been aiming for. But it didn’t matter. How I felt about Cam and Alexei had taught me to comprehend the warmth Decoy had left me with, to believe that I deserved it, and the paint didn’t smell so bad anymore.
* * *
ONE MONTH LATER...
I loved Decoy for many reasons, but maybe none more than him and Folk’s decision to bring their Norfolk wedding forward to Clare Lowe’s birthday and invite Rubi and River to share it with them. Two of these fucking things would’ve finished me off.
The scenery helped.
I rolled off my hog just behind Cam and Alexei, Orla’s car a heartbeat behind us. Fens and wetlands had given way to the kind of big skies we had back west but without the jagged winds, and for whatever reason, the sun here had more colour.
We were in the grounds of a big farmhouse. A side gate opened and boys I recognised as Rocco’s spilled out and made a mad dash for Locke.
Folk’s parents followed them into the yard, and it was a moment where I’d usually turn away, but Folk’s mum—Jekka—was all up in Alexei’s business before I got the chance. And you know what? It was fucking worth it.
Jekka mothered him, wrapping her hands around his face in a way even I had to think about sometimes. “Alexei! It’s so nice to see you. You’re well?”
Alexei let her hug him before he gave her a dry answer . “I am here.”
Jekka laughed and drew back with conspiratorial light in her eyes. “And you’re not alone. This is Saint?”
“It is.” Amusement glittered in Alexei’s flinty gaze and he held out his hand to me. “Come here, wingman.”
Absolutely not. I wasn’t in the mood to be hugged by strangers, even ones as nice as I knew Folk’s mum to be. But it happened anyway, and I knew it was good grounding for the time we’d promised to spend here.
Jekka let me go, her gaze drifting over my shoulder. “Oh my. Is that Cam?”
I knew without looking that it was. We were the last to arrive from the club and she’d met every man behind us before. Besides, most people got that haze in their eyes the first time they encountered Cam—the same haze still blinding me more than a decade later.
We moved from the yard to the farmhouse garden, which turned out to be a huge expanse of lawn, polytunnels, and greenhouses.
Rubi bounded up on me. “What time do you call this?”
I evaded him and crouched to study the greenery beneath my feet, rubbing the feathery foliage between my fingers, frowning at the teeny tiny daisy-like flowers. It smelled sweet, like apples. “This isn’t grass.”
“I’m getting married in eleven minutes and that’s what you want to talk about?”
I didn’t want to talk about anything. I wanted to know what the weird grass was.
Rubi sighed and squatted beside me, the top hat perched on his head sliding to almost twat me in the face. “The good father already asked. It’s fucking chamomile, and you can make hippie tea with it later. Now stop fingering the plants and come talk to the registrar.”
He tried to tug me to my feet.
I resisted. “Why?”
“Because they’re going to tell you where to stand.”
“I know where to stand.”
Next to Decoy, he’d been perfectly fucking clear.
But it wasn’t enough for Rubi. Not today. “You’re only going to do this once, Sainty. It won’t kill you to follow the rules for a hot second.”
I gave in and let him hustle me to an orchard where a woman with a clipboard waited. She stood near an ancient apple tree. It had twisted branches and gnarly bark, the rivets in the trunk like the wrinkles of a wise old man.
“For fuck’s sake.” Rubi grew brave enough to grab me, hauling me to where he stood. “I told you, the Monty Don shit comes later.”
“What?”
He pointed at the registrar. “ Listen .”
With a last, longing gaze at the tree, I did as I was told and endured the most pointless conversation of my fucking life.
“Stand there. Give Seth the ring when I tell you to.”
I went back to the tree and circled the trunk, finding new ones beyond it. Pear trees, cherry trees, and another I didn’t recognise.
“Mulberry.” Cam slid into my orbit and pressed his chest to my back. “There was one at the compound when we first came, but some idiot brother set fire to it.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No, I was eight. But whenever I think about it these days, I always come away knowing you’d have throttled him however old you were.”
Couldn’t deny it. Instead I focused on how good Cam felt at my back instead of the growing sensation of people behind me.
Folk’s people.
Our people.
Knowing that didn’t change who I was, and I fucking knew Cam hadn’t come over here to talk about trees. Or murder. Not at a wedding.
A double wedding.
Cam threaded an arm around my chest. “River forgot his shoes.”
“Maybe he can cut up Rubi’s hat and make some.”
“You gave him that hat.”
My brain clicked, like it had become prone to since the fire, when things I’d forgotten came back to me. “I got him in the first secret Santa after your mum died. I think he rigged it so no one else got my shitty present.”
“You don’t give shitty presents. Ask Viktor.”
“Viktor’s not here.”
“Yes, he is. He got in last night.”
From doing whatever you did with helicopters when you moved house. I was going to miss learning that kind of shit from Viktor Petrenko.
I was going to miss Ranger even more.
He stood for Folk as he married Decoy in the dappled shade of the old apple tree.
I stood for Decoy, and it stopped feeling weird as the pure joy in his shy eyes seeped into me. I’d said yes to this because whatever he thought about what I’d done for him, the impact he’d had on my life was something I couldn’t measure.
Ivy hopped around in front of me, her growing feet on top of mine, because she loved me, because he’d let her. And in return she’d taught me to accept the flutter in my chest I’d carried for Cam back then, the precursor to the riot I felt these days. She’d taught me that loving people didn’t have to hurt, and Decoy lived out that lesson as he slid a ring on Folk’s finger and told the whole fucking world he’d love him forever.
For a man like him, and like Folk, it didn’t seem such a long time.
Their ceremony drew to a close.
Ivy danced into their waiting arms, reminding me she’d also taught me to stand still long enough for two people to get married, but without her anchoring me, I was done.
I made my escape from the front of the small crowd gathered in the orchard. The temptation to leave entirely was so strong it almost choked me, but Cam and Alexei had planned for that—planned for me , the fucking flight risk—and taken seats at the side, keeping me between them.
Alexei subtly passed me an edible. “Is the CBD kind,” he murmured, barely moving his lush mouth. “Not the ones that make you think it would be fun to live in a pond.”
I rolled my eyes and palmed the gummy into my mouth. It was apple flavoured, like everything seemed to be today, and the psychosomatic effect was instant. I dropped into the seat. Cam draped his arm across the back of my chair, possessive and warm, and Alexei held my hand. A moment later, Lida slipped along the loose row of seats and plonked her head on my knee, effectively pinning me down, and I didn’t mind it.
Rubi and River...
I’d lived to see this as much as anyone, and I knew I’d regret it if I bolted.
The registrar called things to order.
Nash stood for Rubi, and Oscar had come from Porth Luck to stand for River. His little boy sat in the front row, his excited face one I expected to see. The one beside him, not so much, and yet still, after so many years of pain and heartache. Of blame and guilt. Of love and hate.
Skylar had come.
With his broken heart and healing hands—hands that had saved me from an abyss I didn’t truly remember.
Alexei nudged me. “Pay attention.”
I usually did, to everything so diligently my head ached with how full and noisy it was. But this edible, Alexei had picked a good one. My chair didn’t feel as though it was swallowing me whole, and my brain quieted enough to realise the formal part of Rubi and River’s marriage was over.
The registrar stepped back, and the celebrant Alexei had talked about a few nights ago, the one I recognised from Mateo and Embry’s wedding, took her place.
Jevon .
He wore clothes Rubi could only dream of, and his energy was the kind of phenomenon that hypnotised even Alexei. He had a London accent laced with Jamaican patois. He laughed a lot and tipped Rubi’s top hat to a dafter angle.
“I like these weddings you bikers dream up, where everyone can be themselves, shoes or no shoes.”
Because River hadn’t wanted to do this in his mismatched boots. So he married Rubi barefoot with the biggest smile on his face I’d ever fucking seen. “Boo, I’ve loved you my whole life. And I’ll love you for-fucking-ever.”
Rubi grinned, his hair fluttering in the gentle summer breeze. “Something bigger than us chose this, Riv. It’s more than love, it always has been, and I’m so fucking thankful we grew enough to live with it. And that you remembered to tell me this shit was happening today.”
Laughter rippled through the open air, but I drew a slow breath as Rubi’s words wrapped around my heart. Cam’s thumb stroked the back of my neck, and I knew if I looked at him, I’d see every emotion squeezing him too. How close had we come to not living our own love story? What if he’d never met Alexei? Would we ever have got out of our own way?
Probably not. But I suppose it didn’t matter anymore. My gaze drifted to Alexei and he slipped me a dark smile. A conspiratorial smile. My partner in crime forever and always, and we had a secret of our own.
Later .
Jevon moved aside and Joe Carter stepped up and performed the same handfasting ritual he had for his cousin, silent this time, without the Romani words that had been only for Embry, but the sacred meaning of the threadbare silk scarf binding Rubi and River together didn’t need explanation.
I felt it.
I wanted it.
Alexei squeezed my hand. The edible seeped through my blood, leaving nothing but mental clarity behind, and if I hadn’t known before we came here that I was ready, I knew now.
Jevon brought the ceremony to a spiritual end. With the legal side finished too, it was done, and the brothers who’d stayed home likely heard Rubi’s whoop in Devon.
The formalities broke up. Cam rose to embrace his little brother and his oldest friend. I stayed where I was, the need to flee fizzling out as the crowd dissipated.
Alexei didn’t move either, save to scratch Lida’s ears. “She is a good dog. I will miss her when they go home.”
Viktor and Ranger.
I didn’t want to think about that today.
So I didn’t. I let my gaze skate around the orchard to where Folk lingered with his siblings—his pink-haired sister and his broader and taller younger brother.
“Them Whitlock genes are something else.” Nash stole Cam’s vacated seat. “What do they eat in Norfolk?”
I shrugged.
Alexei rose and walked away.
I watched him go, tracking him until little hands tugged at my jeans.
Hope clambered into my lap and stood up, facing me, her dark eyes wide and curious.
I tilted my head. What?
She laughed and I knew what she wanted—the baby-safe fidget toy I’d made her, but I didn’t have it, so she had to settle for trampling me instead, until she got bored and went to sleep with her arms locked around my neck.
Mateo came to get her.
I waved him off. We’re good.
Nash pulled a face—for him at least.
I sighed. “What?”
“What’s changed with you and her?”
“Who?”
“Don’t be... what’s the fucking word?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Eh. Maybe not.” Nash shifted Finan to his other arm, bringing the son he’d named after me closer. The baby was asleep, concealing his dark and gentle gaze, but this kid had an aura as potent as any edible, as potent as his father, and I always felt good around him. “Suppose what I’m asking is why you’ve never held my kids.”
Hope was going to be bigger than her sister. She had long legs and bony knees that dug into my ribcage. I was still getting used to her scent—she didn’t smell like Ivy, and until a month ago, Decoy’s little girl was the only kid I’d ever caged in my arms at all. “I feel better when they can leave whenever they want.”
Nash frowned. I needed to explain it better, but my CBD-chilled brain didn’t have the vocabulary for all that right now. To pacify him, I traced a fingertip on the back of Finan’s tiny hand. His eyes opened, ageless wisdom already swimming there. Our time would come, and when it did, this kid was going to teach us all things about ourselves we never knew existed.
I stood with Hope in my arms, scanning the crowd. I spotted Embry and took a step towards him.
“Wait.” Nash caught my arm. “I’m too dense to see everything you do, but if the last few months have taught me anything, it’s that we have a choice how all the horrible shit they did to us lays its roots. You can grow a new tree or die in the fucking earth, but whatever that means to you, brother, whether you like it or not, my kids are always going to choose you.”
Nash held my gaze, a depth to his he’d hidden from me all the years I’d known him. A depth we’d had to learn from Viktor . But I heard what he was saying and I found a smile. Found the words that echoed everything Rubi and River had already said. “I choose them too.”