Chapter 14
Austin
We eat pancakes. The three of us are loud and easy around each other.
I can't stop watching it. Sav with EJ, the way they talk to each other, the way she laughs at him, the way he performs for her and can't quite stop grinning. EJ isn’t a shy child, but this is different.
He's been waiting for someone to fill this space for as long as he's been old enough to notice there's a space there.
When there's a knock at the door, I open it and find Prez on my doorstep. He looks past me into the kitchen, clocks Sav and EJ still at the table, and something in his face settles.
"I need you," he says. "We have to roll out. Church first."
"Give me a minute."
He steps inside. Sav stands when she sees him and Prez goes to her. He doesn't do the brief handshake thing he does with people he's just being polite to. He hugs her, properly, one arm around her shoulders, and she looks surprised. "Welcome back, Savannah. It's long past time."
She looks over his shoulder at me, and I shrug because I genuinely didn't expect that either.
"Prez, do you want me to go?" she asks when he steps back. "We can do this another day."
"Dad," EJ says immediately, using the voice he uses when he's making a case. "I want Savvy to stay. She said she would."
Sav smiles. "I'll stay with EJ if that's easier." She looks at me. "Be careful."
She comes over and kisses me, and I pull her into me for a second and I hear EJ making the face-pulling noise he makes every time he sees someone kissing their old lady. Sav laughs against my mouth.
"I've got two people to come home to now," I tell her. "I'll be extra careful."
I say goodbye to EJ and go out with Prez. We walk to our bikes, and he stops and turns to me.
He looks at me for a moment with the look he uses when he's decided to say the actual thing instead of the easy thing. "She fits here," he says. "Don't take too long working out what to do about that."
I climb on my bike. "No plans to."
He nods. We ride down to the clubhouse.
Church doesn’t take long and Prez sends us out into the afternoon to find information about what’s left of the High Stakes MC.
I ride to Ruby's and get what intel she has, which is enough.
I take three slices of pie home for the three of us and ride back up to the house with the particular warmth in my chest that I'm still getting used to, the kind that comes from knowing they're both in there waiting.
I hear laughing before I open the door. Both are properly laughing, EJ's high and uncontrolled and Sav's lower and real. I stop in the doorway for a second just to listen to it.
"What am I missing?" I ask, coming in.
EJ looks up. "Dad. We did puzzles and a movie and Savvy taught me a card game. Dad, she cheated."
"I absolutely did not," Sav says.
"She did."
"I play to win. That's different."
I put the pie on the counter. "I believe EJ."
She points at me. "Don't take his side, you don't know what happened."
"I wasn't here and I still believe EJ."
EJ looks triumphant. Sav looks at me with the look that means I'll be hearing about this later, which is fine by me.
I hand out the pie, and I pull up a chair next to Sav.
I put my arm around her and EJ sits across from us eating his pie and everything is so exactly what I've wanted for years that it takes me a second to remember how to breathe normally.
I text Prez with what Ruby told me, and he sends back a thumbs up. The information goes into the plan we're building. High Stakes retreated after the motel hit. They'll be back. We'll be ready.
Tonight, that's enough.
Before I take EJ to bed he asks if we'll both read the bedtime story and the look on Sav's face when he asks tells me she wasn't expecting to be included.
The three of us go upstairs, and when we are in his room, I grab a book from his shelf, and we sit on either side of him.
We take turns reading, doing the character voices, arguing with each other about whose voice is better.
EJ is beside himself. He falls asleep mid-laugh, which is the best way to fall asleep, and we put the book down and sit there for a second in the quiet of his room.
Sav looks at him for a long time.
Then she stands and walks out. I follow and she turns to me in the hallway. I push her gently back against EJ's closed door and kiss her. She kisses me back with both hands in my hair.
When we pull apart, she's breathing hard.
"I know which room is yours," she says.
"Do you?"
"Let's go to bed early."