Page 46 of My Veteran Biker

"Good different or bad different?"

"Good. Scary, but good."

His hand stills on my back. "You scared of this?"

"A little. It's fast. Everything about us is fast."

"We can slow down if you want."

"No. I don't want to slow down. I just want to... acknowledge that it's happening. That we're doing this."

"We're doing this," he says. "You and me. Building something real."

"Yeah."

I close my eyes and let myself settle into the reality of it. Knox's solid presence beside me. His house that's becoming our house. Dad three doors down who'll need us more as time goes on. The club and its complications. All of it, messy and imperfect and real.

This is what a life looks like. Not perfect, not simple, but chosen. Deliberately, consciously chosen.

And I'm choosing it.

I'm choosing him.

"I love you," I say.

"I love you too."

We fall asleep tangled together, and for the first time since I arrived in Bloomfield, I don't wake up in the middle of the night. I just sleep, deep and dreamless, in the arms of the man I left seventeen years ago and found again.

The man I'm keeping this time.

Epilogue — Knox

Four Years Later

The roast is drying out.

I can smell it from the living room where I'm helping Jim from his wheelchair to the walker. His hands shake worse on Sundays for some reason, worse in the evenings, and transferring from chair to walker takes longer than it used to.

"I've got you," I say when his left leg buckles slightly.

"I know you do." His grip on my forearm is weak, but his voice is steady. "Getting slower, aren't I?"

"You're doing fine."

"Liar."

I get him standing and position the walker in front of him. He shuffles forward six inches at a time while I stay close enough to catch him if he goes down. The fifteen feet from living room to kitchen table takes three minutes.

Francis is pulling the roast from the oven when we make it to the table.

She glances over, sees us, doesn't rush to help. She learned early that Jim needs to do what he can do for as long as he can do it.

I get him settled in his chair, the one closest to the bathroom because that matters now.

Francis sets the roast on the table beside mashed potatoes and green beans. Real green beans this time, not from a can. She's been trying new recipes lately, things her mother used to make.

"Smells good, Frannie," Jim says.