Chapter 38
Irish
The clubhouse had been louder than usual all afternoon, which should have warned me that something was being planned without my permission.
By six, every brother who wasn't actively working had somehow found a reason to remain on the property, half the women connected to the club had appeared carrying food nobody remembered requesting, and Raze had been told three separate times to stay out of the kitchen after nearly setting a dish towel on fire while attempting to "help.
" None of that qualified as unusual on its own.
The Flaming Skulls had never needed much of an excuse to turn an ordinary evening into a gathering, especially after several of us had been overseas long enough for everyone at home to convince themselves we'd been gone for months instead of weeks.
The part that bothered me was Toxic's expression whenever I caught him looking in my direction.
He had the same controlled patience he wore immediately before assigning somebody a job they weren't going to enjoy, and after knowing him as long as I had, I recognized that look well enough to distrust it.
Skye noticed before I said anything. She stood near one of the long tables with Sunshine and Storm, discussing Harbor House plans over plates neither of them had touched.
Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, the scrape along her cheek had almost disappeared, and the bruising from Saint Brigid's no longer showed unless I knew where to look.
She had spent the previous several days dividing her time between Thistle & Stone's proposed American branch, Isla's gradual return to work, the Harbor House redesign, and whatever research Cipher kept sending her about Order-linked properties.
Somehow she had done all of that without making Carolina feel like a temporary stop or Edinburgh feel like a life she had put on hold.
That mattered more than I could explain.
She looked across the room and caught me watching.
Her eyebrows lifted. I shook my head slightly.
She excused herself from Sunshine and walked toward me.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"I'm not buying that."
"You've been talking to too many people here."
"Probably." She stopped close enough that her shoulder brushed mine.
"What are you brooding about?"
"I'm not brooding."
"Callum." I looked toward Toxic. Skye followed my gaze.
"Oh."
"You see it."
"I see Toxic pretending not to watch you."
"He isn't very good at subtlety."
"Coming from a surveillance specialist, that seems unfair."
"It's accurate." She studied the room.
"Do you think this is about the Order?"
"No."
"Then?" I looked at her.
"That's what worries me." Her mouth curved.
"You have an international religious organization hunting half your social circle, and apparently mystery dinner is more concerning."
"Exactly."
Skye laughed and reached for my hand. She did that naturally now.
Not every time we were together and never as though physical contact was proof of anything, but often enough that I had stopped noticing the moment our hands joined and started noticing only when they didn't. The clubhouse had changed around her too.
At first, Skye had occupied the edges of rooms, observing everyone while deciding who could be trusted and what kind of family functioned inside leather cuts, badly concealed weapons, and enough profanity to offend most civilized societies.
Now she argued with Cipher about project data, borrowed tools from Steel without asking twice, let Sunshine drag her into Harbor House meetings, and had somehow convinced Storm that the clubhouse common room desperately needed better lighting.
Even Raze had stopped treating her like Irish's complicated Scottish problem and started treating her like one of the few people capable of insulting him creatively enough to be worth keeping around.
She belonged without anyone needing to announce it.
That was part of why what I wanted to do tonight mattered. And part of why it had taken me three days to decide whether I had any right to do it. Toxic approached before I could think myself out of the decision again. "Chapel." I stared at him.
"Now?"
"Aye." Skye looked between us.
"Should I be worried?" Toxic's mouth moved faintly.
"No." I didn't believe him. She squeezed my hand once before releasing it.
"Try not to get exiled."
"No promises."
I followed Toxic down the hallway toward the chapel room, and when I stepped inside, Trigger, Steel, Cipher, Bishop, Raze, Remedy, Ledger, Mace, and several others were already there.
Every full-patched brother on site occupied a chair around the long table, and judging by Raze's expression, at least half of them knew why I had been summoned. I closed the door behind me.
"You bastards." Raze smiled.
"Good evening to you too." Toxic sat at the head of the table.
"Sit." I remained standing.
"Is this necessary?"
"Depends."
"On?"
"Whether you're going to keep pretending you don't know why we're here." I looked around the room. Nobody helped. The lot of them were traitors, but I sat. Toxic folded his hands on the table.
"You asked me something three nights ago." Raze leaned back with visible interest. I stared at him.
"If you speak, I'll break your jaw."
"Noted."
Toxic continued. "You asked about bringing Skye in publicly."
"Aye."
The room quieted. There it was. I had asked Toxic privately after Skye called Isla about Thistle & Stone America, when it became impossible to keep pretending our relationship belonged only to whatever danger had brought us together.
The club did not need to authorize who I loved.
Toxic would've laughed me out of his office if I suggested that.
But calling someone an Old Lady inside the Flaming Skulls meant something beyond girlfriend or partner.
It meant the club recognized her as family, protected her as family, and expected every brother to treat her place beside one of us with the same respect we'd offer his patch.
That tradition could become exactly the kind of ownership Skye hated if handled badly.
I wasn't going to handle it badly. Toxic looked at me.
"You still want it?"
"Aye."
"She know?"
"No." Raze grinned. I ignored him. Toxic's expression remained serious.
"Then say the rest." I knew what he wanted.
"What?"
"Why." I exhaled.
"Because I know what she means to me." Nobody spoke. I continued.
"Because she's already part of this family whether there's a name attached or not. She showed up for Isla, for Harbor House, for the investigation, for me. She calls people on their bullshit whether they wear a patch or not, which somehow all of you enjoy more than you should." Raze nodded.
"Accurate." I ignored him again.
"But I'm not putting a vest on her and announcing something she didn't choose." Toxic's gaze sharpened slightly.
"Good."
"If she wants the title, I want the club to recognize it. If she doesn't, nothing changes about what she is to me." Steel nodded. Bishop leaned back.
"That's how it should be." Toxic looked around the table.
"Anyone object?" Nobody did. Raze raised one hand halfway. I stared. He lowered it.
"Just stretching." Mace laughed. Toxic stood.
"Then stop making this more complicated than it is." I frowned.
"Meaning?"
"Go ask her." The room erupted before I could stop it. Raze slapped the table. Ledger muttered something about finally collecting on a bet. Cipher looked entirely too satisfied for a man who claimed not to care about club gossip. I stared at Toxic.
"You told them."
"I told nobody."
Raze pointed toward him. "He didn't have to. You started asking weird questions about Old Lady tradition."
"I asked one question."
"You asked if there was a formal process."
"Because there should be."
"See? Weird." I stood.
"You're all unbearable." Steel smiled.
"Yet you came back."
That stopped me. For a second the room changed.
Not because the words were profound. Because they were true.
I had gone to Ireland carrying fifteen years of grief and returned with a farmhouse key, a reopened murder investigation, and a woman who somehow understood every name I'd ever used without asking me to become only one of them.
I looked around the chapel at my chosen family and another place I could call home.
Then I opened the door. The noise from the common room reached me immediately.
Skye stood near the bar now, talking with Sunshine while Storm leaned against a table beside them.
She noticed me before anyone else did. Of course she did.
"What happened?" I crossed the room.
"Nothing."
"That face says otherwise."
"What face?"
"The one where you've decided something."
Apparently Skye had catalogued too many versions of my expression.
I stopped in front of her. Every instinct wanted privacy because it would have been easier, safer, and less exposed.
But this wasn't about putting Skye on display.
It was about giving her the choice in the same room where the answer would matter. I touched her hand.
"Come here." Her eyes narrowed.
"That sounded suspicious."
"It's a request." That softened her expression. She came with me. By then the brothers had started filing out of chapel behind us, trying and failing to look casual. Skye noticed immediately.
"Oh, absolutely not." I nearly laughed.
"What?"
"Whatever this is, they know."
Raze called from behind me, "We know nothing." Storm looked at him.
"That was convincing." Skye turned back to me.
"Callum."
"Aye."
"Why is everyone staring?" I looked around the clubhouse. At Toxic standing near the chapel door. At the brothers who had crossed oceans with me. At the women who had taken Skye into their orbit without waiting for anyone to tell them what she meant. Then I looked back at her.