He smiled through his tears and leaned into my hands when I touched my fingertips to the wetness on his cheeks.
“Come here,” I told him. “Get on this bed and hug me.”
He laughed and it sounded like a sob. “Not yet. You’re awake and I’m fuckin’ doin’ this ’fore anythin’ gets in our way.”
“Doin’ what?” I asked, absorbed with the sight of those tears on my badass biker’s face.
Zeus Garro, big bad Prez of a notorious outlaw motorcycle club, was crying for me.
I watched as he pushed his chair back with a loud screech that had most of the sleepers in the room jerking awake and then dropped to his knees with a hard thud. He was so tall, even kneeling beside the bed, his face was nearly at the level of mine.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
One of his big hands pushed back the hair on my head and cupped my face. “Couldn’t see you for five fuckin’ hours when I first got ’ere, Lou.”
“God,” I said as my heart bled for him.
I couldn’t imagine not being able to see him when he was injured.
He nodded, anger a brief flare in his eyes. “Fuckin’ right. And that’s never happenin’ again. I will not be parted from you, ya get me? I’m your guardian monster, your fuckin’ lover and your fuckin’ man. That’s not ever gonna change.”
“Fuck no,” I agreed.
His smile split his face in two. “Fuck no.” He reached into his back pocket, palmed something then reached for my hand as he said, “Left your side three times in ten days. First, to talk to the fuckin’ pigs and identify Mute’s body, then for his funeral—which was epic, little warrior, don’t you worry and I’m sorry you missed it—then to get this.”
He slid something cool onto my finger, but I was so fascinated by the expression on his face, the ferocity of his passion and determination like war paint on his features, that I didn’t notice.
“It’s you and me, Lou. Has been since you were seven years old, so even though you’re young, I figure it was gonna happen sooner rather than later and I decided that it better happen right fuckin’ now.”
I frowned at him, slipping my hand out of his to cup his face. “You aren’t making sense, Z.”
There were a few teary giggles and deep chuckles from our sleepy audience but it was Zeus who laughed from his belly.
“We’re gettin’ married.”
My ruined lungs seized and then seemed to collapse because I couldn’t breathe properly. I stared at him, wondering if I was hallucinating or still asleep but as I stared I noticed the twinkle of something big and shiny on his face, on my hand on his face.
A ring.
It was big; one huge round black diamond surrounded in a halo of small green stones on a band of white gold.
The Fallen MC colours on my hand.
And their President, my guardian angel, my childhood dream man had put it on my finger.
“You’re fucking me,” I breathed.
He laughed uproariously again, manic with relief that I was alive and sassing him. “Not yet,” he said like he had the night he’d first touched me at The Lotus, “but I fuckin’ well plan to. For the rest of our fuckin’ lives.”
As far as proposals went, it wasn’t the most flowery or the most well-thought out.
It was simple and honest.
So true to us, I felt like I was living in a fairy tale. One of the horrible ones, Grimm brothers fairy tales where the wrong people die and the good guys don’t always win, but a fairy tale nonetheless.
I burst into tears as I shouted, “Fuck yes.”
Zeus laughed with me and finally, fucking finally wrapped me up in his arms and hugged me. Our audience erupted, the men into shouting revelry and the women into sobbing congratulations.
“Now,” Zeus said. “Was serious, Loulou. We’re doin’ it right fuckin’ now.”
I pulled away slightly and looked down at my white-and-blue polka dot hospital gown, knowing I looked like shit and, honestly, still felt like it too.
He laughed at my expression and pressed his forehead to mine. “You want a big party, we’ll have one when you get better but for now, let’s get this thing tied up tight, yeah?”
“Okay,” I agreed, not daunted by the idea of getting married in a hospital room without a pretty dress or flowers. I’d given up that version of my future a long time ago anyways. “But um, I’m seventeen so I don’t think I can even legally marry you.”
“Can’t,” Z said with a strange, twisted smile.
“I told him I’d sign off on it for you,” my mum said from where she stood in the doorway, dwarfed by Axe-Man and Boner on either side of her.
My mouth fell open. “Seriously?”
“I, um, I went to Ben’s office to get special dispensation for a license when Zeus asked me about it and, well, your grandfather is waiting outside to see you and, if you want, perform the ceremony.”
I blinked at her. “What? Grandfather approves?”
“He said something about God having different paths for everyone and then something about some princesses needing dragons to protect them instead of Prince Charmings to save them.”
Despite my shock, I laughed because that was totally something my grandpa would say.
Phillipa smiled shakily. “I don’t fully understand how you ended up this way or why this lifestyle appeals to you so much but it would be clear to a deaf, dumb and blind person that that man loves you more than anything so, if you really want to, I’ll sign off on it. He’s been a better guardian to you than I’ve been anyways,” she admitted with a self-deprecating smile.
“Damn straight,” Harleigh Rose muttered.
King elbowed her in the gut. “Shut up.”
“Hey, I got shot too, you know? You should be nicer to me,” she told him, fisting her hands on her hips and tossing her hair.
“Shot in the fuckin’ calf, H.R., and it was barely a nick. Stop milkin’ it.”
She glared at him. “Thanks for the sympathy, bro.”
“Children,” Cress chided on a wary sigh. “You’re ruining a perfectly romantic scene with your bickering.”
King laughed and slung an arm around his woman. “Right, sorry, Dad keep goin’, you’re on a real roll ’ere.”
“Glad you approve,” Zeus said dryly over his shoulder before he turned back to me and said, “Well, you ready to commit yourself to the dark side?”
I stared at the man that had been mine in one way or another for over a decade. The man that had raised me more than my parents had, who was my father and my best friend and my lover all tied into one complicated but beautiful knot.
I beamed at him. “Bring it on.”
Five months later.
“Mrs. Garro, I’m happy to be the one to tell you that you are officially in remission.”
I blinked hard at Dr. Radcliffe but Zeus was already up out of his chair and pulling me into his arms to crush me in a hug.
“Seriously?” I squeaked as Zeus squeezed the breath out of me.
Dr. Radcliffe laughed delightedly. “Seriously, Louise. I’m so happy to be able to give you the good news.”