Chapter 37 #4
I kiss her like I don’t know how to do anything else with what she just handed me. Like the patch on her skin means exactly what it does. Like the life we built is real enough to mark. Like I’m never, ever getting over the fact that she chose me this completely.
Her hands slide up into my hair immediately, her body arching into mine with that same willing heat that still floors me every time.
When I finally pull back, it’s only far enough to look at her. My thumbs drag over her cheeks. Her jaw. The place below her ear where her pulse jumps like it’s trying to beat straight through skin. “Angel.”
That’s all I get out at first. Because apparently somebody hit me in the head harder than I thought and words are now optional.
Her eyes shine in the low light. “You hate it?” she asks, and the fact that she can even say that with a straight face almost makes me laugh.
Instead I just stare at her like she’s out of her mind. “Hate it.”
Her mouth twitches. “That sounds judgey.”
I lean down, press my forehead to hers, and let out one rough breath before I finally manage the truth. “You’re trying to kill me.”
Her smile finally comes all the way out then, bright and soft and so fucking beautiful I can barely stand it. “That’s dramatic.”
“No,” I say, my hand sliding down to her hip, fingers spreading over the place just above the tattoo without quite touching it again because I’m one second away from losing all sense if I do. “That’s accurate.”
She laughs, and I swear to Christ, I could live the rest of my life chasing that sound and still die grateful.
Then I kiss her again, slower this time, my mouth less desperate now but no less full of all the things I don’t know how to say right.
Mine. Loved. Chosen. Home.
I’d probably keep going until we both forgot there was a whole yard full of people ten feet away if Lexi didn’t come tearing around the side of the building at full speed with tears streaming down her face.
“Mama! Joker!”
Every part of me changes in an instant.
Raven whips around so fast I have to catch her by the waist to keep her from stumbling on the step. I drop into a crouch the second Lexi reaches us, and she launches herself straight into me, little arms locking around my neck hard enough to make it difficult to breathe.
I take the hit without blinking. “Hey, bug, hey.” I settle one hand over the back of her head and the other between her shoulder blades, scanning her fast. No blood. No limp. No obvious injury. Good. “What happened?”
She pulls back just enough for me to see the outrage under the tears. “Gio said his dad is the toughest superhero in the club,” she says, words breaking around a sob. “And I said no, my dad is. And he wouldn’t listen.”
Everything in me stops.
Not because of the argument. Not because of Gio. Not even because Dom’s kid, Kya’s kid, technically, but that boy is Dom’s in every way that matters now, apparently decided to start a war over which biker qualifies as the clubhouse’s resident comic-book hero.
No.
I stop because of two words.
My dad.
Lexi says them like it’s nothing. Like it’s obvious. Like it’s been true long enough that she doesn’t even think about it before she says it.
My dad.
I look at Raven. She’s staring at Lexi with the exact same stunned expression I can feel pulling at my own face. Her lips part. Then close again.
The whole world goes weirdly quiet around the edges for one beat.
Then Lexi sniffles hard and rubs at her wet cheeks with one fist because apparently she’s already moved on from detonating the emotional structure of my entire body and is back to the business of her crisis. “So I need you tell him.”
Raven makes a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.
I can’t do either yet. I just keep looking at Lexi, all pink nose and righteous fury and complete trust, and feel something inside me settle all the way down to the bottom.
My dad.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I clear my throat once because apparently that part of me still works. Then I brush her hair back from her face and say with absolute seriousness, “Well, first of all, he’s wrong.”
Lexi’s whole body straightens in my arms like she knew I’d eventually come around to common sense.
Raven presses her lips together, clearly trying and failing not to lose it completely.
I keep going. “Second, Dom talks a lot of shit for somebody I could definitely beat the hell out of.”
Raven nudges my shoulder immediately. “Language.”
I glance at her. “I was making a point.”
“You were cursing at a three-year-old.”
Lexi sniffs and leans back against me. “I’m almost four.”
I look down at her. “That changes absolutely nothing.”
That finally gets a real laugh out of Raven, warm and shaky and a little disbelieving, and something in my chest goes even tighter because I don’t know how one little girl calling me her dad and one woman wearing my patch on her skin can both happen in the same ten-minute stretch without the whole world physically collapsing under the weight of it.
Apparently it just does.
“Come on,” I tell Lexi, standing with her in my arms. “We’ll go let Gio know he’s tragically misinformed.”
Lexi nods with grave approval. “Okay.”
Raven falls into step beside us, still looking like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry or climb into my skin.
I get it. I’m pretty much in the same place. By the time we round back toward the firepit, Gio is standing near Dom and Kya with his arms crossed and the kind of look nine-year-old boys get when they’ve said something with confidence and don’t yet realize it’s about to bite them in the ass.
Dom sees us coming and squints. “Why’s my kid crying?” he asks.
“Because your kid’s a liar,” I tell him.
Kya snorts into her drink.
Gio straightens. “I’m not a liar.”
Lexi twists in my arms and points at him like she’s testifying in court. “You said your dad was the toughest superhero.”
“He is.”
“He is not.”
I glance at Dom. “Tell your boy the truth.”
Dom leans back in his chair, looking entirely too amused for a man who’s about to get publicly slandered by a toddler and me in the same breath.
“The truth,” he says, “is that I’d absolutely kick his ass.”
I bark out a laugh. “Keep dreaming, sweetheart.”
Kya almost chokes. Carter, who’s wandered close enough to hear that last part, actually laughs out loud. Even Logan, from the grill, turns and shakes his head like he’d like no part of this but absolutely isn’t leaving.
Lexi looks between us, deeply satisfied now that the adults have finally recognized the seriousness of the issue.
“There,” she says.
And just like that, the crisis is over.
She hops down out of my arms a second later and runs straight back to Amy and Casey like she didn’t just fundamentally alter the shape of my whole damn life with two words.
My dad.
I feel Raven’s eyes on me before she even touches me. When she does, it’s just her fingertips brushing the back of my hand. Small. Private. Enough.
I look at her.
She still looks dazed. “Did she…” she starts.
“Yeah,” I say.
Her throat works.
“She did.”
Neither of us says anything else because there’s nothing to say that wouldn’t rip the whole moment open too wide to survive it in front of everybody.
So I just turn my hand over and lace my fingers through hers. She squeezes once. That’s enough.
Later, after the kids have been fed twice because apparently barbecue nights turn all of them into bottomless pits, after the sky has gone black overhead and the bonfire’s burning bright enough to throw sparks into the night, the brothers end up gathered in a loose half-circle around the flames.
Beer bottles. Boots stretched out. Shoulders loose in that rare, hard-earned way they get only when everyone who matters is safe and nearby.