Chapter Seventeen #3
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.
Me.
Like he’s making sure I’m real.
Like after everything that’s happened over the last six days, seeing me standing here smiling in the middle of Marley’s wedding settles something inside him.
The warmth starts low in my chest before spreading outward, until I’m smiling before I even realize I’ve done it.
The corner of his mouth follows a second later.
It’s the smallest smile.
I have learned Ghost’s smiles the way other people learn a favorite song. Quiet things, fleeting things. The kind you only catch if you’re already looking for them.
This one? This one belongs to me.
Heat blooms across my cheeks, and I lower my eyes before I embarrass myself by smiling any harder, only lifting them again when Bear clears his throat at the front of the room.
“Damn, Ghost,” Sin murmurs under his breath without moving anything except his mouth.
Ghost doesn’t look away from me. “Yeah, I know.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from smiling, and behind me, the music swells.
Everyone rises to their feet, and Marley steps into the doorway, her hand tucked into the crook of Beck’s arm.
Nitro forgets how to breathe. His entire body stills as though the world has narrowed to one person walking toward him.
Beck’s chin lifts, pride written all over his face as he walks his sister down the aisle, and for once, there’s no sarcasm in him, no jokes, just his eyes glistening as he keeps his steps slow to match hers.
Marley doesn’t look anywhere else. Her eyes never leave Nitro.
By the time Beck places her hand in his, they’re both smiling so hard it looks like neither of them knows how to stop.
Nitro closes his fingers around hers immediately, giving them a gentle squeeze before he leans in. “You look incredible.”
Marley laughs softly, a little watery around the edges. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
His grin widens. “Still time to run if you’ve changed your mind.”
She snorts, shaking her head as her thumb brushes across the back of his hand. “Not a chance.”
Bear smiles at the two of them before opening the worn leather folder in his hands. “We are gathered here today…” he begins, his voice carrying easily through the clubhouse, “… to celebrate two stubborn people who somehow managed to find exactly what they needed in each other.”
A ripple of laughter moves through the room.
Even Bear grins.
“Nitro, would you like to start the vows?”
Nitro doesn’t look away from Marley as he takes a slow breath and clears his throat. “I knew I was in trouble the second you climbed into the back of my Uber.”
More laughter, and Marley rolls her eyes.
“You barely said two words to me,” she murmurs.
“I was trying to play it cool.”
“You failed.”
“Yeah, I’m aware.”
The room laughs again.
Nitro’s smile softens. “You got into my car carrying the weight of a life that had convinced you surviving was enough.” His thumb strokes slowly across the back of her hand.
“You left me a note that should’ve been goodbye…
” his voice catches for the smallest moment before he finds it again, “… and somehow it turned into forever.” Silence settles over the room.
“You reminded me kindness still exists. You reminded me that home isn’t always a place.
” He smiles at her, his eyes shining. “Sometimes, it’s a person, and I vow to spend forever making you my home. ”
Somewhere behind me, Queenie gives up pretending she isn’t crying.
Marley laughs through her tears as Bear nods toward her. “Marley, would you like to recite your vows?”
She wipes beneath one eye before looking back at Nitro.
“I spent a lot of years believing surviving and living were the same thing.” Her smile trembles.
“I got really good at settling, and settling for the wrong things.” Nitro’s jaw tightens.
“Then you wandered into my life…” she lets out a watery laugh, “… and stubbornly refused to let me go.” A chorus of chuckles ripples through the room.
“So thank you.” She squeezes his hands. “For never letting me settle for a life that didn’t have you in it.
Because I will forever choose to be your home and want you to be mine. ”
I smile, along with everyone else.
Then, my eyes drift.
Not intentionally.
Almost instinctively, and Ghost is already looking at me.
The warmth I’d felt walking down the aisle blooms all over again, deeper somehow, and for a long moment neither of us looks away.
Fireworks dance under my skin as our eyes stay on each other, and it is like popping candy crackling all over my body.
It’s a rush that knocks the breath from me while Bear’s voice becomes little more than a distant murmur somewhere beyond the space between us.
I know I should be paying attention.
I really do.
But every time I try, my eyes find Ghost again.
He’s standing exactly where he was a minute ago, hands folded loosely in front of him, his expression giving almost nothing away. But I’ve become frighteningly good at reading the smallest changes in him.
The slight softening around his eyes.
The corner of his mouth threatening another smile.
The way he watches me as though he’s checking, even now, that I am still here.
Days ago, I watched this man make an impossible decision because somebody pointed a camera at me.
Six days later, he’s looking at me like I’m the safest thing in the room.
Something inside me shifts, just enough that another thought quietly settles beside it. Maybe this is what forever looks like.
Not grand declarations, just finding the same pair of green eyes in every crowded room and knowing they’ll always be looking back.
I wonder if he’s thinking about that kiss inside my apartment?
About the awkward one before it.
About the way everything between us changed without either of us ever deciding to let it.
Or maybe? Maybe he’s wondering the same thing I am. What happens now? The thought lingers just long enough that I almost forget where I am. Almost.
A soft cheer breaks through my thoughts as Bear’s voice rises. “You may now kiss your bride.”
The clubhouse explodes into applause before Nitro has even closed the distance between them.
Marley laughs against his mouth as he kisses her, one hand cupping her face with so much tenderness it steals the breath from my lungs.
The spell between Ghost and me breaks as I tear my eyes away from him, laughing as I clap along with everyone else, my gaze finding Marley instead.
She’s radiant.
Not because of the dress.
Not because of the flowers.
But because she’s looking at the man she loves like every hard road she ever walked somehow led her here.
And standing in the middle of a room full of people cheering them on, I can’t think of a single person more deserving of a happy ending.
***
The reception turns into the club at its absolute best.
Music spills out across the room, and the dance floor fills fast, brothers, Old Ladies, and everyone in between moving without any grace and plenty of enthusiasm.
Deek’s speech starts so poorly that I genuinely worry for him, three separate attempts at a joke that lands nowhere close to funny, before it turns somewhere real near the end, something about brotherhood and the family you build instead of the one you’re given.
And by the time he finishes, Koa is on his feet clapping so hard that Deek eyes him with open suspicion for the rest of the night.
Bear dances with Ro in the far corner, guiding her around the floor with the easy familiarity of two people who’ve found their rhythm and have no intention of ever losing it.
Across the room, Penny has Millie laughing about something, the sound carrying over the music just enough to make Anchor grin before his hand settles against the small of Millie’s back like it’s the most natural place in the world for it to be.
Neither of them seems to notice anymore.
Funny how the little things end up meaning the most—the unconscious touches, the automatic smiles, the certainty that the other person is exactly where they’re supposed to be.
I’m standing at the edge of the dance floor watching everyone lose themselves to the music when a cold bottle appears in the corner of my vision.
I smile before I even turn my head—Ghost. He holds it out to me without a word, already knowing I’ll take it.
“I was wondering how long you’d leave me standing here before deciding I looked thirsty.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “I was running an assessment.”
God, he is such a nerd. “Oh?”
“Mm…”
I let out a small laugh. “And?”