“C’mon, kids, let them eat their dinner,” Sav tells them.
“Eat your veggies,” Sadie calls out as Savanah takes her inside.
Little shit.
I chuckle, walking over to the table to sit. We move the plates from the cart to the table, and I let out a half-laugh. “I still can’t believe you did all this for me.”
“My life was chaos before we drove into New Orleans. For some reason, your table was the only one that night with any spare seats. Do you believe we were destined to meet?”
I widen my eyes, picking up our voodoo doll and study it. “I don’t know… I think the world works in mysterious ways. Life throws you shit, and it’s up to you to decide whether you should take the hurdle and jump or whether to turn around and ignore it.”
“Hmm… so, New Orleans was a hurdle for you?”
I place the voodoo doll back down, then reach over for Jovie’s hand. A spark shoots all the way up my arm, slamming straight into my chest. My heart beats faster as I stare into her eyes. “Yes, it was a hurdle, but I’m choosing to jump headfirst, completely, utterly, blindly… because I can’t keep living in the past, Jovie. I finally have a future, and fuck if it isn’t looking bright as hell.”
Her eyes glisten, letting out a small sob. She blinks away her tears as she stands from the table, pulling me to her. “If you’re jumping, I’m jumping, too.”
Suddenly, the intro to ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ starts playing over the outside speakers, and we both smile at each other.
“Savanah,” we both say in unison.
The drumbeat kicks in making us both laugh, but I’m not going to hold back anymore. I’m going to take the word of Jon Bon Jovi and hold on to what I’ve got. So, I grab Jovie, pulling her out further into the cookout area.
“Kevlar, what are you—”
“Shh… just go with it.”
She radiates as I pull her to me, then push her away, making her spin out. Her gorgeous laughter fills the space, making my body flood with happiness. I’m dancing with Jovie to the band she’s named after, to the song that’s definitely ours, at the clubhouse with my kids.
Life can’t get much fucking better than this.
KEVLAR
One Week Later
This past week has flown by. I’m getting antsy. Without any leads about the assholes who took my kids, I’m starting to get more and more anxious. In times like this, when there’s nothing you can do but wait for the information to come to hand, you must find ways to calm your ass down. And there’s always someone I can rely on to talk some sense into me.
Making my way over to Fox and Bub as they sit at a lone table toward the back of the main room, I bob my head at them as I approach. Emma’s smile and bright eyes shine back at me, and I’d be lying if I said a little twinge didn’t pull at my chest every time I see that look on their faces. It’s becoming a little easier every day, but it’s by no means comfortable seeing the mixture of her face looking back at me from her parents and the memories everywhere I go in this place.
They are a reminder of her.
And now? They fuel my guilt at abandoning her memory.
Fox kicks out the seat next to him and gestures for me to sit my ass down. Letting out a small huff I take a seat. “What’s on your mind, son?”
The corner of my lips turns up. “You always could read me like a damn book.”
Fox chuckles. “You have the easiest tells in the business. You’d never be any good at poker. It’s why our Em fell for you, Kevlar. Your honesty. No matter what, your body language always tells the truth. She could rely on you.”
Exhaling, I nod. “Always.”
Bub reaches out, placing her hand on mine. “You were so good to her. She loved you… more than anything.” She lets out a small laugh. “Damn! The fights we had over you in the beginning were terrible, but she was so fucking headstrong… she knew, she saw the potential in you, even if we couldn’t.”
Fox leans forward, resting his fists on the table. “Remember what she told you?”
“When?” I scrunch my brows together.
“When she got the diagnosis. We all came home and sat in the car. Remember what she said?”
My heart was still pounding ferociously. We knew Emma had been having symptoms. There were a few things out of place medically. But never, ever, in our wildest dreams did we expect this. As the four of us sat in the car in the parking lot of the clubhouse, no one approached us.
Fox and Bub stayed silent in the front as I held so fucking tight onto Emma’s hand. We knew, all of us, what this meant.
What the diagnosis entailed.
We just didn’t know how long we had left.
And that was scarier than the diagnosis itself.
My hand was shaking in hers. My entire life had already been turned on its head for Emma. I changed who I was. Lost my family for her. Now, I would be losing her from my family.
Where’s the justification in that?
Where’s the damn virtue?
Where’s the damn fairness?
I slowly turned to look at her. My eyes glistened with the fear wracking through my body.
“Em—”
“I need you to hear me, Liam. Because I am only saying this once,” she interrupted. Her beautiful green eyes stared back at me with so much conviction, it shocked me. “I love you more than I thought I was capable of loving anything in my entire lifetime. Meeting you, having our family, has been the biggest blessing.” She sniffles as I grip her hand tighter. “I’m not dead yet, but I am going to die—”
“No, Em, don’t talk like tha—”
“Kevlar, stop! We need to face reality…” Her bottom lip trembled, and tears streamed down her face. My chest squeezed so damn tight I wanted to be sick. “In eighteen months, two years… actually, who knows how long, I will have faded into a person you hardly recognize. If this gets too much… if I’m too much—”
“Stop! I’m not going anywhere, Em. I’m in this, till death do us part, remember? And even after that, you’ll still be my wife.”
She wiped the tears from her face, pulling my hand to her chest. “No. God, please, no. Kevlar… Liam, I need you to move on when I’m gone. To find someone to love again. Don’t hold onto me or my memory. Your life is going to be long and beautiful and full of so many wonderful memories. I don’t want to be the reason you miss out on them. Please, please, let me go and find someone to love. Someone who will love you and our children like you all deserve… promise me?”
A tear slid down my cheek as I shook my head. “I can’t… I can’t love anyone. It’s only you. It will only ever be you!”
Her hand moved in, caressing my cheek. “You will, and I give you my blessing. I want you to be happy. Be happy, Liam… be happy.”
I leaned in, pressing my lips to hers. “I promise.”
“She told me to be happy,” I reply.
Fox sits back in his chair, the wood groaning and creaking with his weight as he crosses his arms across his chest in his smugness. “So, are you gonna break your promise to the love of your life?”