Chapter 39
The clubhouse yard smells like charcoal, beer, sunscreen, and whatever the hell Dom dropped on the grill ten minutes ago that made everybody start yelling at once.
It’s loud out here.
Kids are running in crooked circles through the grass with popsicles melting down their wrists, brothers are posted up in lawn chairs and around picnic tables, old ladies are talking over each other like volume alone determines who wins an argument, and somebody put music on through the outdoor speakers that keeps getting drowned out by laughter and cursing.
It’s chaos.
Normal, familiar, homegrown chaos. The kind I’ve lived in my whole life. And for the first time in a long time, I’m not standing in the middle of it feeling half outside of it.
I’m standing in the shade beside the side of the clubhouse with a beer in one hand and my eyes on Allison Mitchell like the rest of the damn world doesn’t really matter.
She’s across the yard with the women.
Mac’s sitting in one of the cushioned patio chairs like a queen who’s personally offended the world keeps expecting her to stand on her own two feet.
Logan is hovering two feet away with a bottle of water in one hand and a plate in the other, and she keeps looking at him like she’s deciding whether to marry him or smother him with a throw pillow.
Kya is on the outdoor loveseat with one hand braced under her stomach and the other pointing at Dom while she tells him exactly how stupid he is for eating the last of whatever snack she wanted. Dom’s trying to defend himself like a man with a future, but everybody knows he’s already lost.
Brooke is crying over a pair of baby shoes she found in a gift bag somebody brought and swearing she’s not crying while Carter looks like he’s one emotional commercial away from checking himself into witness protection.
Emma’s sitting beside her, calm and steady as ever, rubbing Brooke’s arm while Amy leans against her side and Jason toddles around in the grass near Cain’s boots.
Raven is on the edge of the porch with Lexi tucked against her side, Joker half behind them like he doesn’t even realize he positions himself like a guard dog every time they’re in a crowd.
Shaina and Ana are sitting on the porch rail stirring shit exactly the way they’ve been doing since they were old enough to talk, and Mom and Tracie are close enough to all of it to keep pretending they aren’t listening when they absolutely are.
And right in the middle of all of them is Allie.
Laughing. Head tipped back. Hair loose around her shoulders. One hand wrapped around a glass of sweet tea, the other moving while she talks to Kya like she’s explaining something and Kya is being dramatic on purpose just to piss her off.
She’s got a faded bruise still lingering at one wrist. A mark at her neck that makes my jaw lock every time I catch sight of it. A small cut near her temple that’s almost healed now.
And she’s still the prettiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
Dad steps up beside me and follows my line of sight without bothering to be subtle. Then he snorts.
I don’t look at him. “What?”
“You keep staring at her like she’s gonna disappear if you blink.”
My mouth twitches around the neck of the bottle. “Maybe I just like looking at her.”
“Bullshit.”
That actually gets a laugh out of me, low and short.
He takes a pull from his beer and nudges my shoulder with his. “You love her.”
There’s no question in it. No challenge. No trap.
Just fact.
And maybe a month ago, maybe six months ago, maybe damn near my whole life, that sentence would’ve crawled under my skin and made me want to pick a fight just to avoid sitting with what it meant.
Now?
Now I just look at her again and say, “Yeah.”
Dad goes quiet beside me.
That’s unusual enough I finally glance over.
He’s smiling. Not smug. Not mocking. Just…satisfied. Like he’s been waiting for me to stop being a dumbass long enough to say something everybody else already knew.
“Took you long enough,” he says.
I huff out a laugh. “I’m aware.”
“No, son.” He tips his bottle toward Allison. “You’re aware now. Before, you were just being stupid.”
That one actually makes me grin. “Good talk.”
“I’m full of wisdom.”
“You’re full of shit.”
“Same thing if you say it right.”
That pulls a real laugh out of me, and before I can stop it, my eyes slide back across the yard to Allie again.
She’s turned slightly now, one hand on the back of Mac’s chair while she says something that makes Brooke laugh through the tail end of her tears and Kya point accusingly at Carter like whatever Allie said somehow proved he’s useless too.
She fits there.
That’s the thing that keeps hitting me over and over now that I’m not trying so damn hard not to see it. She doesn’t just belong to this life. She belongs in mine. In the center of it. At the edge of it. In every quiet place I never used to picture anybody else fitting.
I used to tell myself she was safer if I kept my distance. That wanting her and having her were two different kinds of dangerous and the second one was worse.
Turns out, almost losing her is the worst thing I’ve ever felt in my life, and every reason I ever had for staying away from her looks weak and stupid in the light of that.
Dad claps my shoulder once. “Go get your girl.”
I don’t pretend I need to be told twice. I push off the wall and head across the yard.
Logan’s just kneeling beside Mac to hand her something when I pass, and she says, “If that’s more water, I’m divorcing you before we even get to the wedding.”
“It’s lemonade.”
“That’s worse.”
“Jesus Christ,” Logan mutters, and I grin as I keep walking.
Dom is trying to hand Kya a plate of cut fruit. She looks at it, then at him, then back at the fruit like he personally handed her roadkill. “Do I look like I asked for healthy?”
“You asked for something cold.”
“I asked for mango.”
“This is watermelon, we didn’t have any mango.”
“Are you trying to die?”
Brooke laughs so hard she snorts, which makes her cry again, which makes Carter look like he’s one hormonal spiral away from moving into the shed.
“Why are you crying now?” he asks.
She glares at him. “Because the shoes were tiny and now Kya said mango with attitude.”
“That doesn’t even mean anything.”
“It means everything,” Mac says flatly.
Emma catches sight of me first and smiles into her drink like she already knows exactly where I’m heading and what my face probably looks like while I’m doing it.
Allie turns at the same time. And just like that, everything else fades. Not disappears. Just…blurs.
She smiles when she sees me coming, and it hits me in the chest the same way it always does.
Hard. Certain. Mine.
I stop in front of her and hold out my hand. “C’mere.”
Ana makes a noise from the porch like she’s already deeply entertained.
Shaina says, “Gross,” which means she’s thrilled.
Allie arches a brow. “That all I get? No hello?”
I curl my fingers around hers and tug her closer anyway. “Hello.”
“Wow,” she says dryly, letting me pull her between my knees where I’ve dropped onto the arm of the chair beside Mac. “Such poetry.”
I slide one hand around her waist and steal her tea with the other just to piss her off.
She gasps. “Jimmy.”
I take a sip. It’s way too sweet. Perfectly her.
“Mine now,” I say.
Mac makes a gagging sound.
Kya points at us with a slice of watermelon she apparently accepted after all. “No, because that’s actually sickening.”
Brooke sighs dreamily. “I think it’s cute.”
Carter mutters, “Of course you do,” under his breath.
Allie rolls her eyes and reaches for her drink back, but I keep it out of reach just long enough to make her huff and half climb into me to get it.
Bad move.
The second she’s close enough, I drag her fully between my legs and settle both hands on her hips. She laughs under her breath. And just like that, she’s where she belongs.
My mouth brushes the side of her neck as I murmur, “You feel okay?”
Her fingers toy absently with the label on my beer bottle. “I’m fine.”
I tip my head and look at her harder.
She sighs. “I’m really fine.”
“Head?”
“Better.”
“Ribs?”
“Sore.”
“Leg?”
“Jimmy.”
“What?”
Her mouth twitches. “You’re hovering.”
I lean back just enough to look at her properly. “You got kidnapped.”
“I know and that was, like, totally rude of him.” Allie says casually.
Mac chokes on her drink.
Kya wheezes.
Even Emma laughs.
I stare at Allison for a second.
Then I laugh too, because of course she’d say that with a straight face while half bruised and wearing my old shirt with biker boots and cutoffs like she wasn’t dragged through hell two weeks ago and still came out somehow more herself than ever.
I brush my thumb lightly over the inside of her wrist where the worst of the bruising is finally starting to fade.
Her eyes soften. That tiny shift nearly undoes me more than anything else out here. Because she knows. She knows exactly what I’m checking and why.
And instead of pulling away or brushing it off, she just lets me hold her there for one second longer than necessary.
“Walk with me,” I say quietly.
She studies me for half a beat, then nods.
The women immediately start making noise.
“Don’t be suspicious,” Shaina sings.
Ana snorts. “Too late.”
Kya points after us. “If she comes back pregnant too, I’m filing a complaint.”
Dom says, “Against who?”
“Men.”
“That’s fair,” Emma says.
Allie laughs under her breath while I tug her away from the group and around the side of the clubhouse toward the quieter stretch of yard behind the bikes.
The noise softens back here. Not gone. Just farther away. Music drifts. Kids laugh. Somebody yells at somebody else over the grill.
But back here, it’s just us.
I stop near the line of bikes and pull her in close again automatically, my hands settling at her waist like they know the shape of her better now than they know anything else.
She looks up at me. “What’s going on in that head?” she asks.
“A lot.”
“That sounds terrifying.”