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None of the newer members had a patch yet. Cam, Colson, West.
And Vance was well behind all of them.
So far, we had no idea what the deal with Vance was, why he had abruptly given up a somewhat successful - in a local way - musical career.
Whether Reign knew the truth was unknown.
He kept to himself a lot, seemed plagued with something, a little too weighted for someone his age.
I saw a lot of my young self in him.
I couldn't help but wonder if maybe Ferryn's disappearance had plagued him more than he had let on. If he felt guilt about it, about the situation that led to her leaving.
I had once asked Roan if I should look for Ferryn. I was sure I could find her given some time, given some privacy to work on it, some space to hit the road for a bit to track down leads.
No one disappeared.
Not even a highly trained daughter of a gun-running MC president.
She was somewhere.
I could find her.
Surprisingly, Roan had told me not to. He thought that if she felt she needed to be away, she needed to be away. She was an adult now. She had every right to live her life on her own terms. I couldn't help but think of a young me, how much I would have appreciated it if someone had reached out to me, let me know I was loved and missed.
But Roan knew Ferryn.
I didn't.
I had to trust his opinion.
"So... the spare bedrooms," Roan started, voice tense. I almost never heard that tone, so it made me turn, brows furrowed, finding his gaze focused forward, avoiding eye-contact, something that had me stiffening.
"What about them?" I asked, belly tensing.
"We just... we never talked about it. Back then, you were so young. And now, well, we were making up for lost time."
"Spit it out," I demanded, hating anticipation, uncertainty.
"Did you want to fill them?"
"Fill them with what?"
"Kids," he finally spat out, voice crushed.
"Oh, God, no." Realizing how awful that sounded, I rushed to cover. "I mean, I don't hate kids," I told him, shrugging. "I just... that birthday party last month? That screaming. Why do they scream so much? When they're happy, they scream. Upset, scream. Excited, scream. Bored, scream. And that was outside! Can you imagine that sound in here?" I paused there, belly sinking. "Did you want kids?"
There was a pause, his breath rushing out. "I know I am supposed to want kids..."
"We're not supposed to want anything but what we want," I cut him off.
"I never saw myself with kids. I mean, as more than an uncle anyway."
"We can certainly get our fill of kids with your brothers and their extended network of friends," I agreed. I especially liked the older kids. The ones who were eager to learn things, who needed a little direction in life. But I knew I didn't have the nerves, the patience to raise a kid from birth to that age that I enjoyed.
"Yeah. And this way, we can fuck anywhere we want without having to worry someone might walk in on us," he told me, lips twitching, wolfish eyes full of mischief.
"That's true. So, where are we leaving a mark first?"
"Basement?" he asked, smile full of memories. "Not quite a potato cellar, but it will work," he told me, popping up to his feet, reaching down, and hauling me over his shoulder.
Then, well, we broke in the basement.Roan - 1.5 years"I'm just saying, what's the rush, man?" West asked, eyes horrified as my finger traced over the top of the box in my hand.
"Rush? I knew her since she was nineteen."
"Yeah, but... not like the whole fifteen years, man."
"Even just the two years we have had together is usually the right amount of time before a man pops the question," I informed him, maybe enjoying his disgust at the idea of matrimony. "I mean, even that fuck over there is married," I reminding him, jerking my chin toward Pagan.
"Wasn't letting anybody else get that woman," Pagan agreed, shrugging.
"Still..."
"You know," Lo's voice said, making all the men smile knowingly. "Every single one of these men in this room have been in your shoes, West. Swearing out they'd never get married. And yet..."
"I have nothing against marriage. It's just... I love women, y'know? Why would I want to just have one, when I could have them all?"
"First, not everyone wants to fuck you, West," Lo told him, smile warm. "Second, you'll see."
"Oh, shit," Renny said, kicking back on the couch. "Now you're fucked. Anytime Lo has said that to one of us, we've ended up the next to settle down."
"Maybe you guys, not me," West insisted, seeming anxious to leave the room, to get away from any possible energies Lo might be putting out into the world that might attract a clinging vine of a woman into his life.
