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He nodded and kicked back against the truck the same way he leaned against the counter in the kitchen earlier as if he had nothing better to do. I took off to go see Prez.
“What shitstorm have you brewed up today?” Ratchet asked as I walked into his office. I grinned at him in answer and the man shook his head and sighed, as if he already knew he wasn’t going to like what I had to say.
“I’d like permission to build something out back.”
“You gonna tell me what that something is?”
I moved into the office and shut the door before I divulged my plan. “You know how Kim is always wandering to the middle of the backyard?”
“Yeah, you fools put up those solar lights for her, so she wouldn’t trip on nothin’.”
“Well, I’d like to build her a gazebo out there. I guess other folks could use it too, but I want to build it and put a plaque or something on it that says it’s hers. It needs to be her space to go to relax away from everything else, but one that anchors her here to the club, too.”
“If someone doesn’t claim her, she won’t be able to use it long,” Ratchet said, and I glared at him.
“I already claimed her, just because she’s being stubborn and refusing to wear her cut doesn’t mean she isn’t still my old lady.”
“Not the way she sees it,” he said again.
“Well, I’m going to change the way she sees shit.”
“Then you have my permission to build whatever the fuck will keep her around. Son, one day, the keys of the kingdom are going to pass to you. When you’re ready, I hope she’ll be by your side because she’s going to make you a better man.”
I nodded my head because I already knew that was true. It was the same thing I thought when standing in that grocery store parking lot with June. It took me blowing my life up again, with one stupid kiss to realize exactly what I had and what kind of time I’d been wasting.
I took off out of Ratchet’s office with his permission and went to grab Mack. “Hop in,” I ordered when I got close to the truck.
“Where are we going now?”
“Out back to build your sister a gazebo. Ratchet approved.”
Mack threw his head back and laughed. “Fuck man! You bought all this shit before you asked him?”
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “Was hoping he’d say yes, and if not, I guess we would have built it in your backyard.”
“My backyard ain’t shit.”
“It would have been when we got done with it.”
“All right. I think you’re on to something here,” he finally acknowledged as we pulled up out back where Kim usually took her breaks.
“We need to get a prospect to tell her there’s some construction going on out here and its off limits for the next few days. Then we need to put up some poles here and there,” I pointed out. “And throw a tarp or something over a string between the two, so no one can see what we’re building back here until it’s done.”
“She’s gonna be cranky,” Mack warned.
“I think all her cranky shit will go away when she sees what we built for her.”
Chapter 20
Tripp
“Make sure this gets nailed on the front, just there.”
“I’ve got this. Go on before you’re late and she leaves your ass here,” Mack hollered to me, but I was already running. The plaque was the last thing we needed to finish the gazebo.
We had strung up a clothesline of sorts and threw a heavy-duty tarp over to block Kim from seeing what we were building out there. By the time I got to the parking lot, Kim looked about ready to leave without my ass like her brother had warned. I slid into the passenger side just as she started to back up.
“I was about to leave without you.”
