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“No, you didn’t mention it. How long will you be gone?”
“A week. It’s club business.”
“Yeah, I know how it works.” She forced a smile. “I also know when Maddox takes his crew on runs, it usually means a lot of strip clubs and partying.”
“You have nothing to worry about. I’m a one-woman man. You’re all I want, Em.”
“If you can’t be faithful, we should just stop now. You can hang with the prez and get your jollies to your heart’s content.”
“No. That’s not what I want. I’m ready to claim you.”
Her eyes went wide. “Don’t you think that’s a little fast? You haven’t even been home for a week. We only just made up, and I could be pregnant with another man’s baby.”
“Don’t say it like that,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“But it’s true.”
“If you’re pregnant, it’s mine.”
“Dante—”
“No, Em. No.” I got out of bed and went to the bathroom, irritated as hell. If she was pregnant, nobody would ever know about the sperm donor, especially not the baby. I’d claim him or her as my own, just as I wanted to claim her now.
It wasn’t too fast. We’d known each other our whole lives. Yeah, I’d been an idiot back then, not seeing what was right in front of me. Birdie had been the cream of the crop. The girl every guy wanted, but her heart had always belonged to my cousin Raymond. I’d just refused to see it, and apparently, he was as ignorant as me—poor stubborn fool.
After my run with Maddox, I’d hunt for a place of my own and then I’ll ask Em to move in with me. I didn’t need to wait for the results of a pregnancy test because I’d put my baby in her stomach before summer, if she wasn’t already pregnant.
15
Ember
Would smiling like a fool actually break my face? If it did, I didn’t care. After the few days and nights I’d spent with Dante before he left on the run with Maddox, I wasn’t able to stop smiling. Even sitting in the kitchen alone with a bowl of soggy cereal didn’t dampen my mood like it used to. God, I’d been a sad, angsty girl the past six years, but I had changed seemingly overnight. It was all because of Dante.
I missed Dante like crazy after only two days and had five more to get through before I could wrap my arms around him and smother him with kisses. They’d gone to the North Dakota chapter first and arrived in Montana last night. It was safe to assume I was counting down the seconds until he returned.
In the meantime, I couldn’t stop thinking about the hint Dante had dropped about looking for a place of his own when he got back to Bastion. I’ll be looking for a home big enough for a family, he’d said.
I was confident he was going to ask me to move in with him.
The decision was an easy one. I’d say yes, of course.
How had my life changed so much, after only ten days? I was nervous and even a little afraid at the speed of things, but my answer was definitely yes.
I wanted Dante.
Had wanted him since I was fourteen.
Despite my failed relationships and general distrust of men, I knew Dante and I would be amazing together. We’d been close friends our whole lives and the love I’d felt for him was growing rapidly, which made me curious about two things.
One: Had I ever stopped loving Dante like I’d thought I had?
Two: Had Dante loved me all along, too?
The more I dissected things, like the way he looked at me, touched me, and kissed me, the more I believed his feelings for me ran a lot deeper than I knew. He wasn’t at all like the conceited and selfish guys I’d gone out with.
In public, Dante always held my hand, so everyone knew I was with him. He was proud to be with me, and I was over the moon to call him mine.
I moved my spoon through the milk in the bowl, wishing Dante would text me. He had said he would every morning and before he went to bed—and he had.
