Chapter Nineteen
Because It’s Everything
“I think I’m just going to come right out and tell the world about our relationship at your party tomorrow night.” Tyr grinned at me as we sat at the kitchen island together. Our simple breakfast of buttery-soft scrambled eggs, bacon and toast with two kinds of jam sat in front of us, along with steaming mugs of coffee—mine with half the contents of the sugar bowl and holiday creamer in it, and his as black as night. “I can’t wait to tell everyone I can fuck my woman so good she loses consciousness.”
I was never going to hear the end of this. “It was for like four seconds, and you were in the same boat.”
“Hell, yeah, I was, because you know how to fuck me just as well. Every brother is going to be green with envy.”
“So it’s true, then? Mabel said the war is probably over after the Rooster Juice massacre,” I explained, sliding off my stool to retrieve the coffee carafe to top off our mugs. After last night, I needed all the caffeine I could get. “If you’re wanting to tell the world about us, does that mean you think the war is over?”
He seesawed his hand as I resumed my seat. “I won’t feel like it’s over until my uncle’s dead and buried and I’ve salted the earth. No, being out in the open about our relationship now is more a matter of knowing that the cat’s already out of the bag.”
“Why would it be? We’ve been careful, haven’t we?”
“Yeah, but that cocksucker Red Flag no doubt reported back as soon as he could that I was ready to go to war just because he was there in your shop. The way I see it, I might as well make it official so no one thinks you’re up for grabs. Because make no mistake, you’re definitely not.”
Aww . “Red Flag the spy.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Red Flag, the sucks-balls spy.” I dumped loads of sugar and pumpkin spiced creamer into my coffee. “I’d be willing to bet that dude doesn’t know squat. You guys had a fight in my shop. That hardly means anything.”
“He’s a man, baby girl. He knows I called you my property, because I told him that’s what you were, despite you trying to muddy the waters on that. He understood the situation perfectly.”
“Maybe he didn’t have a chance to report back. For all we know, he didn’t even survive the massacre.”
“I’d be willing to bet he did, since the snitches I’ve got all around town would’ve reported him showing up in a hospital or emergency clinic, or even a morgue. Gotta keep a close eye on my shady-ass family members.”
I froze with my mug halfway to my mouth. “Wait, what?”
“Red Flag is Hades’s son, which makes him my cousin.” He shrugged and took a casual sip of coffee. “Or as someone else recently put it, Marvel’s replacement. His size alone was a dead giveaway, and he also has those weird light brown eyes that seem to run in my family. He’s definitely blood.”
I couldn’t seem to get my jaw up off the floor. “Wow, I can’t believe it. Though I did describe him once as a black-haired version of you, so maybe I can believe it, after all. Where on earth did he come from?”
“Beats me. From what I understand, Hades had some kind of existential crisis when his son Marvel bought it—made H realize his legacy and everything he’s stood for was now going to die with him. The reality of not having a Colgrave to head the Chicago Gravediggers obviously hit him where it hurts—his pride—so he started an all-out search to bring in all his bastard kids to show the brothers in his club that he was still the Man.”
“I guess that must mean Olive is your cousin, too,” I said, thinking back to that brown-eyed, frightened, somehow defeated girl, and felt immediate sympathy. Poor Olive. My life had been bad enough being the sort-of stepdaughter of Hades, but Olive was his actual kid. The only thing worse would have been finding out that Satan was her daddy. “At the time, I remarked that they didn’t look too much like siblings. Red said they had different mothers.”
“I’m sure he didn’t lie. Uncle H was always too selfish to become an actual, settled family man, but I’m sure he knocked up more than a few bitches, just to prove how macho he was. Now that he’s got more of his seed walking around with him, he can be a real cock of the walk and show the world that he’s once again solidified his legacy.”
“Is that why you’re so baby-bonkers? You want an heir to solidify your legacy in the Gravediggers?”
He snorted and polished off his breakfast. “I don’t give two shits about heirs or legacies, Snap. I’m wild about making babies with you because that’s what we were meant to do. And it’s the biggest damn turn-on to think about you getting big with my baby,” he added, turning his head to let his gaze slide down my body as I sat beside him. I felt touched everywhere he looked, and my toes curled in my slippers in heady reaction. “What about you? Do you ever think about having my baby on board?”
“I guess your baby fever must be catching,” I began, then frowned at the noncommittal tone that came out of my mouth. Without warning, Misty’s words came back to me— don’t hurt Tyr . The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him. But keeping my thoughts and feelings to myself, and never fully letting him in, was a kind of neglect he didn’t deserve. I knew all about neglect, thanks to dear old Audrey. It was selfish. Uncaring. If I really gave a damn about this man—and I did—I would give him as much as he gave to me.
All I had to do was be brave enough to do it.
“Okay.” Putting my coffee down, I turned on my stool to face him fully. Somehow everything felt more real if I made myself look at him head-on. “If we’re going to talk about babies, then let’s go ahead and do that by talking about everything that comes with them. Are you up for this conversation?” I had no clue if I was ready for it, so the question was valid.
He took a long sip of coffee, his eyes never leaving mine before he nodded once. “I’m ready. Shoot.”
Here we go . “Generally speaking, guys are all about making that baby, you know? They’ve got to prove to the world that they’ve got the juice to knock some chick up. But that’s about as far as their caveman thought process goes. No knock against men, that’s just the truth. I need to know what’s going on inside your head, Tyr. I need to see if you’re aware there’s a helluva lot more involved in making babies than knocking me up and then going back to your brothers to thump your chest about it.”
“Is that how you see me?”
I shook my head. “It’s not about how I see you, Tyr. I’m talking about how you see yourself. Are you just a babymaker, or can you imagine yourself as a family man a year from now, or five years from now, or however long it takes?”
A corner of his mouth curled. “I get the feeling you expect me to be a deadbeat dad.”
“Again, this isn’t about me. If we do decide to make a little human together, that little human is going to tie us together for the rest of our lives, because it will deserve a family. A real family, Tyr, and not the insane shit we grew up with. If we really do choose to bring a baby into this world, I want them to have what I never had.”
“Which is?”
“Love.” The word popped out of my mouth with such ease it made me blink. But it felt right, so I kept on rolling. “This kid should have a mom and dad who will always put them first, because that’s how it’s supposed to work. I mean,” I added with a vague shrug, “I think that’s how it’s supposed to work. My biological dad didn’t want anything to do with me even when I told him Audrey had died and I was alone in the world. He literally called me a mistake that should never have happened, then told me to get the fuck away from him before he called the cops on me.”
“Motherfucker,” Tyr growled, a dangerous light sparking in his eyes.
“And Audrey… well, we both know how that went. Unlike you, I never had siblings to love, so for all I know I’m way off-base about how this love stuff is supposed to work. All I know is that the things I didn’t have in my life while growing up—love, stability, parents who know how to put their kid first—I missed out on all that. I didn’t even know what they were, but I did miss them. I missed them so much that there were nights when I’d cry myself to sleep without even knowing why I was doing it. All I knew was that I had this huge emptiness in me that made me feel so cold and alone it actually hurt to breathe.”
“Snap.” Something bordering on pain moved through his expression as he reached out to smooth a hand over my hair. “Baby.”
“I just want to make sure our kid gets everything they need, that’s all. Question is, are you fully prepared to make that kind of sacrifice?”
“It’s not a sacrifice when it’s something I’ve always wanted.” He turned in his seat as well so that our knees wound up touching. He reached over and caught both my hands in his, and the callused, warm strength of them steadied me like nothing else. “You know as well as anyone that any swinging dick can knock up a bitch. That doesn’t make him a man, and that sure as fuck isn’t how a real man makes his family. You’re right, we didn’t grow up with the greatest role models. But at least they showed us the most important things a kid needs, if only because those assholes denied us those very things. Things like love, and caring, and comfort. But love is by far the big kahuna in that mix. If a kid’s got that, they’ve got everything.”
A knot of tension I didn’t even know was there loosened in my chest. “So you get it? You understand that love is what a child needs? And that you have to be there every damn day to show love to that kid, even when you’re tired or busy or whatever?”
“Baby girl, that’s the story behind every long-lasting, successful relationship. Love is what keeps people together, because love is everything. Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Without warning, I could barely find my voice, but it wasn’t the usual choking sensation I suffered when fear made me go mute. No, it was that scary L-word that came out of his mouth that had me in a tizzy. Somehow hearing him apply that word to all relationships, and not just to his would-be child, made me feel like I had the world’s brightest spotlight on me, because now I had to deal with it. Question was, how? “L-love is, um, everything. Yep. Wow, is it getting hot in here?”
“You’re hot. Does that count?”
Clearly he had no idea I was in the throes of the world’s biggest panicky meltdown, all because I couldn’t handle this whole love business. What sort of pretend-goddess was I? “Yes. No. Oh, boy.” I took a deep breath, then looked him straight in the eye. Say it, dummy. Just say it … “Okay. Tyr.”
He waited a beat. “Ginger.”
Smartass . “Okay…”
“You already said that.” He gave me a funny look. “Are you okay?”
I wasn’t even in the neighborhood of okay. “We need to talk.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“ I need to talk, and you need to sit there and listen. Don’t interrupt,” I added when he opened his mouth. “This is unbelievably hard for me to put into words, so just sit there and let me get this all out.” When he nodded but didn’t say anything more, I sent up silent thanks and tried to find the right words. “I’m good with having a baby. Your baby. I already love it, as crazy as that must sound. I never had love like that, so I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it. But I’m ready. I’m ready to love. I know I am, because… I… I… love…”
His brows slammed down. “Don’t you dare go mute on me now, woman.”
“No, it’s not that.” It was me. I was the problem. There was no clever way to say these words, to camouflage their meaning and spare myself any possible rejection, so I took another breath and dived in. “I’ve lost my damn mind, because I… I’ve fallen in love with you.”
He went still. “Say it again.”
“I’ve lost my—”
“No, not that part. The good part.”
The good…?
Oh.
Oh.
I locked my gaze with his. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Tyr.”
I was in his arms and crushed against his chest before I even knew how I got there. As the hammering of his heart drummed against my breasts, the most amazing thought began to dawn on me.
Maybe I wasn’t the only one who had fallen.
“Love you so damn much, Gingersnap,” he said into the curve of my neck, as if he’d read my mind. With those few words, my world became so perfectly complete I was afraid to believe any of it was true. “Loved you my whole life. We’re going to beat the Colgrave curse and make it all work, baby girl. You and me, we’re going to make the best goddamn life together this world has ever seen, and there’s never going to be a day that goes by where we forget to tell each other how much we love each other. Say it again, so I can believe this isn’t another dream.”
Another dream? “I…” Without warning, a wave of uncharacteristic shyness hit me, and I couldn’t help but laugh at my own idiocy. “Geez, why is this so hard to say?”
“Because it’s everything. Those words… they’re not just words, Snap. They’re a sacred vow your soul is making to my soul, if you believe in that kind of thing. They’re the foundation that the rest of your life is going to be built on. They’re vulnerability and strength all rolled into one, because those words give your heart to me to take care of. I’ve done the same by giving you my heart, and yeah, that’s fucking terrifying.”
My laugh sounded as shaky as I felt. “No kidding.”
“I don’t think I’d even believe that you loved me if you weren’t as freaked out by those words as you obviously are.” A faint laugh escaped him as he moved back just enough to brush the hair from my brow. “Thing is, it’s worse to live without love, and you know that better than anyone. You know it because you’ve lived that life, and you never want to go back to that darkness again.”
“No.” I shuddered at the thought. “God, no.”
“So we’re not going to go back. The only way to go now is forward, and we do it together.” He brushed his lips against mine, then smiled into my eyes. “Say it again, baby girl. Get used to it. Feel it.”
“I love you,” I whispered, and for no reason at all I burst into tears.
Great.
Way to show him I was an unhinged, emotional trainwreck.
Thankfully Tyr just laughed at my overwhelmed response and squeezed me until my bones groaned in protest. Then he kissed me, and it was a kiss filled with sunshine and rainbows and laughter, a kiss so full of what I now recognized was love that it moved into my soul and became the very best part of it.
Tyr loved me. Nothing else mattered.
“Mine now.” His tone thrummed with such possessiveness I couldn’t help but shiver. The quirk of his lips told me he felt it before he loosened his hold and guided me back onto the stool. “Stay right there and don’t move. I’ve got something for you in my saddlebag. Call it an early birthday present.”
“Ooh, presents. I like.” He disappeared out the front door while I tried to wrap my mind around the enormity of what just happened. My life was now forever changed, because he was right. I no longer saw myself as the top priority when it came to my life. Tyr had taken that spot. He was my heart, my soul, my reason for breathing. If anything ever happened to him, a large part of me would cease to be.
And he was currently at war with Hades.
What a crappy time to fall in love.
Oddly enough, I couldn’t find it in me to regret a thing when Tyr came back through the door, a black bag in hand. Just looking at him made every cell in my body sigh, and that was all I needed to be complete.
“Originally I wanted to give this to you while standing over Hades’s grave, but now that I think about it, this way is better. I’m still going to give you the gift of that bastard’s death, but I don’t want him to be a part of this. This is ours, and ours alone.”
My brows inched up. “Wow, that was deep. And here I am without a gift for you.”
“You’re the birthday girl—or you will be tomorrow—so you get to have all the gifts.” He stopped in front of where I sat and handed me the bag. “Sorry it’s not wrapped.”
“I love it just the way it is.” I arched up for a kiss, then smiled against his lips. “Thank you, Tyr.”
“Thank me after you’ve opened it.”
My heart began to pound as I unzipped the bag and the rich scent of leather wafted out. With a sense of premonition filling me, I reached inside and pulled out a black leather cut, just my size. Displayed proudly on the back was the green, white and black Gravedigger patch with a skull and a Grim Reaper’s scythe threaded through the mouth and one of the skull’s eye sockets. The curved patch—or rocker—on the top of the Gravedigger patch read, “PROPERTY OF” and the lower rocker read “TYR.”
Property of Tyr.
I knew what this was. In the biker world, a woman receiving a jacket or cut like this from her man was like receiving a wedding ring. This was as serious as it got, a proposal and a promise of belonging to each other forever, no matter how bad the road got. We would ride that road side by side, and make that life whatever we wanted it to be.
Together.
The tears were back, but this time they leaked out silently as I turned it around to briefly inspect the front. I adored how he’d had my name on the front stitched out in a scarlet red that was strikingly close to the color of my hair. Then, without a word because I was so choked up, I slipped it on over the loose T-shirt I wore. It fit like a glove, and I slid off the stool to model it for him.
“Well?” I finally managed, looking at him over my shoulder only to find him watching me with eyes that glittered almost feverishly. “What do you think?”
“I think all my dreams live in you.” He reached for me, and I knew the entire world had no hope of touching me when I was in his arms. “All I have to do now is plant Hades six feet under to make everything absolutely perfect.”
“I’m sure it’ll happen sooner or later, yeah?”
His smile was a masterpiece of dark glee and blood-chilling menace. “Believe me, Snap, it’ll be sooner rather than later. Much, much sooner.”