I raised my eyebrow and put my hand on my hip, my female battle stance. “Oh really? Your house. Your bed. Coming home to me. So you expect me to move into your house, don a Christian Dior New Look dress and hand you a martini at the end of every day?”
Brock’s anger cracked for a moment. “I don’t know who Christian Dior is, I fuckin’ hate martinis and I don’t give a shit who gets home first. I just care that it’s our home.”
“Well, maybe I like my house. Have you thought of that? I like my pool and my kitchen and my closet!”
Brock smirked for a moment. “I don’t get how the kitchen factors into it, babe, since you only use it for booze storage, but fine. If you want to do that I’ll move in here.”
I stilled for a moment. “You’ll move in here?”
“Yep.”
“What about your house?” I asked.
“I’ll sell it,” he shrugged.
“Don’t you like your house?”
“It’s just a place to rest my head, Sparky. It’s four walls full of my shit. As long as I’ve got my bike and I’ve got you I could be living in a straw hut and not be fazed, although I suspect you wouldn’t be happy about that.”
I was silent for a moment. “It’s really fast,” I said quietly.
Brock moved to touch my hips lightly. “It’s not fast. We’ve been waiting for a year and half for this shit to work out right. It has. I don’t want to waste any more time.”
I was dubious about living with a man. I mean, I was a girl. I’d only lived with girls. What if he didn’t put the seat down? Or left his chin whiskers in the sink?
“Okay,” I said quietly. The hands at my hips tightened and he leaned in for a kiss. I placed my hand on his lips. “But you can’t leave the seat up and you have to clean up your chin whiskers,” I ordered.
Brock chuckled and kissed me.
Of course, this peace had been short-lived when he demanded to be in charge of household expenses. When I informed him that we were mortgage free he demanded to pay for everything else. I should have been expecting such an order, considering Gwen’s similar experience with Cade when they moved in together.
“That’s not happening,” I declared firmly.
“Yes, it fuckin’ is,” Brock clipped.
“Look, I know you’ve got this ‘me the man, I take care of my woman’ thing going on, but it’s not going to fly on this. In the bedroom, yes. When I’ve got sore feet and want a footrub, yes. But not this. We can go halves,” I conceded.
Brock’s glare darkened. “Nope. That’s not me, babe. I’ll take care of it all.”
I took a deep calming breath. “Brock, you know—” How did I put this delicately? “You know I come from money. It’s not a problem for me.”
“I don’t give a shit,” he said sharply. “It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got in the bank, I take care of both of us.”
I stared at him. I knew he wouldn’t budge on this. “If you don’t let me win on this I’ll just do even worse things like buy you a ridiculously expensive watch every week,” I said with an evil grin.
Brock glared; he knew I wasn’t bluffing. “Fuck, you irritate me sometimes.”
I smiled sweetly at him. “That’s why you love me.”
He shook his head, pulling me into his arms. “No, I love you in spite of it.”
So that argument was won. I guessed I would pay for it somehow in some way I was yet to see. But now it was the first night of us living together and we decided to throw a party. Well, I decided to throw a party. Things on the club front had been quiet and I had recently just lost my constant chaperone, so I guessed the Clark threat was being dealt with.
I had been slowly getting used to the role of old lady, not a title I was hugely comfortable with, but I was supremely happy with Brock so I guess I’d learn to love it. Evie, the biker queen, had even accepted me into the fold with open arms.
“Glad you two finally got your shit together. But you hurt him again I’ll pull your shiny red hair out.”
So maybe not so open arms, but she had offered me a mimosa after so I guessed my hair was safe for now.
Gwen was ecstatic about the fact we were both old ladies and we spent evenings complaining over cocktails over some of the alpha tendencies of our bikers. Which was what we were doing right now. We were slightly separated from the party; I was bouncing Belle on my lap, Gwen was making the most of having baby free hands and was cradling a cosmo.
“Who would have thought we’d be biker old ladies and you’d have a freakin’ kid?” I asked lightly, looking around at our adopted family who I wouldn’t trade for any of the stuck up Manhattanites I had grown up with. The exceptions were Ry and Alex, who I secretly hoped would patch into the Sons. I expected Alex was the right amount of badass for the leather, but I didn’t think Ry would make the cut.
Gwen’s face turned melancholy for a moment. I knew she was thinking of Ian. “Yeah, it’s funny how life works, isn’t it?” she said quietly.
“You okay?” I asked, knowing it was a stupid question.
She focused her gaze on me, then Belle, then Cade who was staring at her from his biker huddle. He had a sixth sense when it came to Gwen; it was freaky.
“Yeah,” she said finally. “I never thought this would be my life. But I’ve never been so happy either, you know? I miss him though, Ames. I miss him every day.”
I was silent for a bit. “Yeah, me too,” I confessed.
She looked at me. “He wasn’t it for you though, was he? It’s Brock. He’s your soul mate.”
It wasn’t a question.