I couldn’t hide my flinch at Lizzie’s observation, her offhand comment betraying her knowledge of a secret I’d guarded with ferocity my whole life. She said it like it was nothing. Not that it didn’t mean something, but that my very emotion toward Luke wasn’t some kind of betrayal.
She didn’t stop to let me mull on it.
“You accepted her into your family. Took care of her when this life threatened everything she’d built. Took care of your brother when she left a gaping hole in his heart when she left. Welcomed your niece with a love that spread through the whole town when she came back, all the while standing with Steg and Evie throughout his recovery.” She moved her gaze to Amy, who was staring so hard at her husband cradling my adorable nephew, Kingston, in his large arms that she spilled her entire cocktail onto the yellowing grass and didn’t even notice. “You gave Amy everything she needed when she was going through the grief of losing the man she loved and the guilt of loving Brock more than that. Fuck, you even almost died with her driving to get booze.”
I rose my brow. “Booze is important, even though Amy has forgotten that.” She’d now discarded her empty glass and was going to sink into her husband’s embrace. He kissed her red hair first, then her mouth, like he wasn’t holding a two-year-old kid. Then again, I was sure Kingston had already seen his parents’ PDA.
Lizzie smiled. She didn’t stay on them for long; instead she found Mia, chasing around Rocko, who seemed to have some form of weapon in his chubby toddler hands. I smiled myself. That kid was going to be crazier than both Lucky and Gage combined when he grew up. Shit, he was crazier than them now.
He let out a little scream of joy when his normally stoic father scooped him up with smiling eyes, kissing his son’s head and shaking his own at the same time when he saw what was in his small hands. Mia put her hands on her hips, scowling at her husband with a glare filled with love.
“You helped a single mom understand that the man she loved was broken almost beyond repair, and you helped her figure out how to fix him,” Lizzie said softly. Her eyes glimmered. “Even though seeing him with someone else who wasn’t your best friend hurt every part of you. You were finally saying goodbye, realizing she was finally gone.” Her words were thick with emotion, true to the core, as if she’d plucked my grief from my mind.
Laurie was part of her life too. A big part. Which meant even now, years later, we both felt the wind whistling through that empty piece of us.
I leaned over to squeeze her hand. She smiled, the expression full of melancholy, then squeezed back. She sucked in a painful gulp of air, then moved her gaze once more. It found Lily, sitting slightly removed from the chaos, pushing a stroller with that absent rhythm a mother has, almost without thinking. Her eyes were far away, focusing on the horizon. Then they weren’t. Then they focused on her husband, lighting with love and happiness so genuine and beautiful it was almost hard to look at. He returned the gaze tenfold. Seeing them apart, you would never guess the shy, beautiful woman would fit with the large, muscled biker. He reached her, gently removing her hand from the stroller, though not before checking inside with that same love glowing in his eye, visible even from across the party. It’d be visible from the moon. Satisfied his daughter was safely slumbering, he yanked his wife into his body, kissing her fully and not at all chastely on the mouth.
And there it was. They fit.
I was still staring when a voice punctured the quiet beauty of the moment.
“Gabriel, you asshole! Put me the fuck down,” a voice demanded.
Lizzie and I focused our attention on the source of the yell, both of us already grinning. We couldn’t see Bex’s midnight cropped hair, just the top of her ass cheek that rested on top of Lucky’s cut as he carted her inside over his shoulder.
He caught my eye and winked at the exact same moment he landed a firm slap on Bex’s ass.
That resulted in another string of curses. Lucky’s grin widened. As did mine.
“You took in a beautiful and immensely broken girl,” Lizzie whispered. “Took her into your home, took care of her when she couldn’t take care of herself. Protected her the best you could from her own demons, even if it meant living with your own.” She paused. “You pulled the trigger on a man who deserved to die, even though you didn’t deserve the nightmares that came from taking his life.”
Her words, her tone, were as gentle as the touch of a feather, but the memories they carried weighed on me like a stone.
“You did that, even if it meant putting a bullet wound in your own happily ever after. Without a second of hesitation.”
Lizzie’s hands squeezed mine, and I blinked away the grim reaper that beckoned me as a comrade. A friend.
I focused on her midnight-blue eyes as they crossed the party once more, meeting Ranger’s as he wrestled with a toddler to try and clean ice cream off his face.
“Little help, babe,” he bellowed across the party.
Lizzie grinned. “You’re a big bad biker. I think you can handle it,” she teased.
“I’ll handle you,” he growled, eyes glowing with erotic promise.
Lizzie’s cheeks reddened as she giggled like a schoolgirl, even almost a decade into her marriage. She was still madly in love with her husband. Like a teenager. And even though he was wrestling a toddler much like a man might wrangle with an alligator, his gaze never left her for long, as if he was afraid if he didn’t glance at her enough, she might slip away. The way a man might look at the stars to make sure he didn’t get lost forever in dark and lonely woods.
“You rescued a marriage that had lost its way,” she said, almost too low to hear. “You did something that made sure two people weren’t walking around bleeding without a half of themselves for the rest of their lives. You made sure I still had this wonderful life that I let others pollute and taint.”
I blinked away the tears at the corner of my eyes. Not many people knew about the darkest days of Lizzie’s and Ranger’s lives. They were two of the cornerstones of this club. Never in the spotlight, but always there. Throughout all the drama and death, they remained constant support. Like Steg and Evie, or Goldie and Kurt, they were the couple that made you not give up on the magic.
For a moment, the magic gave up on them. They had to fight harder for anyone else in this club for a love that blew Romeo and Juliet out of the water.
No one knew.
Because that wasn’t my story to tell.
“You’ve fought for us all. And each and every one of us knows you’d fight to the bitter, or hopefully happy, end,” Lizzie continued. “But you need to start fighting for yourself. The one person you’ve neglected all these years. You have been God knows where doing God knows what. I don’t want to know because I’m not like you. I’m not strong enough to handle what one of the most precious people in my life has struggled through. I don’t need to know because it’s written all over your face. It’s changed you. And I know you went through that because you were helping someone. Know you would’ve plunged into horror that would even make Gage blush if it meant you were helping someone. Fighting for someone. But you’re home now. You’ve done it. Saved everyone who needed saving. Now it’s time to do it for yourself. Save yourself, babe.”