Chapter 33
Sloane
Laughing, I got out of the car along with the other old ladies and Kit. They’d become some of my best friends over the last month and a half. I was adjusting to life outside of The Order and helping my people to reach the same level of peace within their own lives.
This new world was strange for us, but I had so many people who were willing to help me.
That loved me. The women who were married or dating the men of the motorcycle club.
The men themselves. Rip’s family. All of them had stepped up and I’d gone from alone—except for a psycho father who would as soon kill me as look at me—to a huge family who would do anything to make me happy.
It was an overwhelming amount of support.
I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but I was eternally grateful for it.
I had a man—one who was going to be my husband, again, in a little over a week—who would die for me.
How had I gotten this lucky? Was this karma finally paying me back after all these years?
The things I’d done inside The Order I’d never done with the hope of gaining anything.
But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t coming to realize that I’d helped so many.
This family of mine. My husband. They were absolutely rewards in my eyes.
I had everything I’d ever wanted. Everything.
I just hadn’t had a chance to tell Rip the good news yet.
I cast an affectionate look at Seek, who was beginning to round out in her pregnancy.
She was beautiful and glowing. Knowing I was pregnant with Rip’s baby made me so happy I wanted to shout it from the rooftops.
I’d found out early this morning, but had a full day planned with the girls and Rip’s mom and sisters.
I’d figured I’d better keep the news to myself until I could tell him.
I’d been dreaming about babies all day, though.
Since we both had brown hair—though his was a shade lighter than mine—and blue eyes, there wasn’t much guesswork as to what the baby might look like.
Laughter and screaming hit us as soon as we rounded the corner. My mouth dropped open—so did all the other women’s—and we all froze at the melee that was happening in front of us.
Priest’s daughters, Gabby, Taylor, Cassie, and Caitlyn were running around the yard area, chasing Butcher and Toxic. At first glance I’d thought it was sweet that the men were playing with the girls. Then I’d realized what was happening.
“Butcher!” I gasped in horror.
He stumbled to a stop in front of me, looking sheepish. At least until something whizzed past him. His head snapped to the side and he pinned Cassie with a glare. “Hey! No shooting while I’m talking.”
They were playing laser tag—something Rip and the others had introduced me to a few weeks ago—only instead of using lasers they were using…roman candles. They were shooting fireworks at each other!
“Your fault you stopped, Uncle Butcher,” she sang out. A blue fire ball shot out from the end of her candle, pegging Butcher in the leg. Her giggles trailed behind her as she raced away.
“The game is paused,” Butcher roared at them, rubbing his leg and muttering. All the little girls froze. “You’d think I wouldn’t have to fucking say it,” he told them.
All four of the girls wore devilish grins.
None of them were appalled at his language or gruff tone.
They knew him too well for that. He was completely wrapped around their fingers.
Even I had caught onto his game. He liked to pretend that he didn’t like kids, that babies scared him—okay, that last one might actually be true since he ran from Tory’s youngest each time she brought the baby around—but he was so good with them. At least for Butcher he was.
“Butcher. Language,” I told him with a sigh.
I’d already resigned myself to the fact that raising children here meant they were going to have colorful language.
These men couldn’t go more than a few sentences without cursing.
But they were loyal, brave, and loved their family.
My children would be cared for, protected, and they’d grow up to be as fierce as their father and ‘uncles’.
I loved the idea of that. What I didn’t love, but accepted, was that they would all be explosives experts.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Priest asked, eyeing his daughters as he walked out the door.
“You’re the one who left Butcher and Toxic in charge of them,” Seek pointed out. She’d gone and gotten all the guys. Now they piled around, grinning as they saw what was happening. “This is on you.”
The girls took that opportunity to nail Toxic. He yelped and shook at his clothes as four flares shot out and hit him. “He said the game is paused, you fucking heathens!” he bellowed.
The girls hid their laughter behind their hands, trying to look innocent. The smoking firework sticks they held gave them away.
Toxic pinned Priest with a dark look. “Those girls are bloodthirsty.”
“Please tell me you’re not fucking shooting my kids with fireworks?” Priest growled at the other men. His tired tone told me this was not an unexpected development.
“Oh don’t get your panties in a fucking bunch,” Toxic muttered, shaking his cut again to make sure there were no embers inside it. “Butcher’s so drunk he’s mostly hitting himself.” Toxic pointed with his Roman Candle. “Look, he’s holding the damn thing backward.”
It was true. The opening to his firework was pointing toward the man. The burn marks on the front of his shirt were a testament to this.
“Keeps hitting himself in the gut, but your little sharpshooters here are keeping us so damn busy avoiding their shots he hadn’t noticed yet. Little shits can run and shoot at the same time. Who taught them how to serpentine so well?”
Toxic let out a loud laugh as Butcher peered blearily down at his Roman Candle. “Well why the fuck didn’t you say something?” he muttered, turning it around.
I knew for a fact that there was no way either man would hit one of those little girls. Not on purpose, and something else I’d learned from these men was that they didn’t do anything by accident. They were letting the girls hit them with fireworks with no intention of ever retaliating.
Those things had to hurt, though I wouldn’t know from experience. “Come on ladies,” I told the women. We’d just come from dropping off Rip’s mom and sisters after a day of wedding dress shopping.
We all turned to go inside when something screamed past me. I gasped as the firework kept going then burst about twenty feet in front of me where it exploded in a rush of color. Spinning around, I stared open-mouthed at Riptide. “Did you just shoot that at me?”
“No,” he said, slowly hiding the candle behind his back. Another fireball erupted from it, straight into the air. His grin was huge and what he would reference as shit-eating.
It was a gross phrase if you asked me, but it fit the moment.
I put my hands on my hips. “Derek Samuel Skore,” I told him in my most authoritative tone.
A lot had changed in the last month and a half, including me.
It was easy to be brave when you knew the people surrounding you would never harm a hair on your head.
I’d seen Rip shoot plenty of times now. The man didn’t miss.
He hadn’t been trying to actually hit me or he would have.
Which he’d never do and we both knew it.
“If you hit me with that and harm our baby, I’m going to throttle you. ”
Everyone blinked at me as that news settled in. I’d planned to tell him alone first, but something told me he’d love that I made the announcement this way.
Rip let out a whoop of excitement and rushed toward me.
He threw the firework on the ground, the last shots skipped across the parking lot, making Butcher and Toxic jump and run as they zipped past their feet.
He lifted me into the air, his biceps bulging as he did.
“Seriously?” he asked, looking so hopeful it almost made me cry.
“It’s true,” I told him, holding onto his shoulders as he spun me around. Happy faces flashed by, then he was crushing me in a hug so tight I worried I might pop.
“We’re going to be pregnant together?” Seek asked, shoving her way into our embrace, then giving me her own hug.
Rip chuckled and backed up so my friends could embrace me. “Guess I only get half a second to hug my wife,” he complained, rubbing the scruff that was growing in on his jaw.
None of the women were listening. They were all chattering happily, then the men started passing me around for hugs. Eventually, I was given back to my husband, who tucked me up under his arm as we all went back inside.
Roman Candle tag was put on hold for Butcher, Toxic, and the girls, but I could hear them giggling as their dad told them how proud he was for them kicking the crap out of the other bikers.
All the guys who were at the clubhouse sat down and had a drink, in celebration, with Rip and I. Of course, I had a glass of apple cider. Hush had picked some up for Seek so she wouldn’t feel left out when celebrations happened.
I smiled as the men all pounded Rip on the back. Lockout looked like a proud grandpa—even though he wasn’t that much older than my husband—and that feeling filled me again. The one that told me that despite all odds of ever finding it, I was finally home.