The dinner between Olive and Kace and the one with my parents were night and day. Olive hugged him the second he crossed the threshold to her house. It was a long hug too. She smiled at him wide without caution. Without falsity.
She asked questions about his background, not even blinking at his history with foster care, not shying away from the subject either.
When he asked questions about her life, she answered freely, speaking about Ranger with that same glint of heartbreak in her eye that she’d always have but in a way that didn’t make it uncomfortable.
That was Olive. That was her magic.
She’d pulled me aside while Kace was doing the dishes. “I like him,” she whispered. “Really like him. He’s good for you. For the kids. You deserve this, sweetheart.” She squeezed my hand, and I did my best not to burst into tears.
We’d had various couples’ dinners with everyone in the Sons of Templar family. Since the warnings had already been distributed, none of the women treated Kace any different. They welcomed him. Teased him. It was becoming more real. More normal. And that was the danger. The normality of it all. That we were settling in to each other. Creating a new kind of life together.
Which freaked me the fuck out.
Luckily, I had a night with Evie scheduled. Kace was at home with the kids, something he didn’t do often. Not because I didn’t trust him with them, because the threat of... whatever or whoever was still out there, and he didn’t like me traveling anywhere without him. Evie’s house was little more than a fortress, and there were two prospects outside. I was safe. As safe as I could be.
“It’s more than fucking now, isn’t it?” Evie suggested as we sat in the backyard. “He’s your Old Man.”
No judgement. Never any judgement.
I bit my lip. “He’s young,” I frowned. “Too young.”
Evie shrugged. “No one would be sayin’ that if you were a man and he was a woman.”
I raised my brow at her. “You know better than anyone that gender equality doesn’t really exist in this world, of all places.”
She raised her brow back at me. “And you know better than anyone that this world has no rules or judgment when it comes to fucking. As long as everyone’s a consenting adult.”
“I have children. I’m a mother.” I didn’t even know why I was fighting her on this anymore. The fighting was done. I’d lost. Or won. Depending on how you looked at it.
“You’re also a woman,” Evie acknowledged. “One who needs to and deserves to get fucked well and right.” She paused. “He do that?”
Heat crept up my neck at the mere memory. I nodded once.
She grinned. “Well then, baby. Age is really just a number. And put it this way, younger men tend to die on you less.”
I stared at Evie. Should I really be surprised that she was saying shit like this? Evie was not one to pull punches nor be delicate. But I found myself relieved. As fragile as I felt, people treating me with care made me feel close to truly breaking down than anything else.
I smiled, something I hadn’t thought I’d do when someone was joking about my dead husband and my new... Old Man? It was fucked up, but it was a smile, nonetheless.
“You and I both know when it comes to death and sex, age is just a number, baby.”
I pursed my lips.
“You love him,” she said, sucking on her cigarette.
Her words hit me in the throat. Because she hadn’t structured them as a question. She was saying it as if it were some kind of forgone conclusion. It scared me. That she could think such a thing. See such a thing.
“Of course I don’t,” I choked out.
Her eyes narrowed, and her face changed to an expression usually reserved for club girls who didn’t know their place. Cold. Calculating. Terrifying.
She stood, jabbing out her cigarette in the ash tray on the table.
“Where are you going?” I asked, slightly panicked to be without her company and to be on the receiving end of such a look.
“I don’t drink with liars, honey,” she admonished, showing her pack of smokes in her back pocket. “And you’re lying to us both.”
“I’m not meant to love anyone,” I blurted as she walked away.
She paused, back turned before she turned and made her way back to the table.
“What? You’re meant to sew up your pussy and your heart because you lost your Old Man?” she countered. “You’re too smart to think that shit,” she continued without waiting for me to answer. “You’ve been in this life long enough to know the ugly truths of this world. We’re not people who get fed bullshit about things like happily ever afters, one true loves and the American fucking dream. You forfeit your ignorance the second you made the decision to stick by your man. To become part of this club. You also accepted the fact that you might lose him one day. Whether it be to him thinking with his dick and working out his problems on club girls instead of talking through his shit or dying to protect the club.”