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I laugh. It wouldn’t be the first time. Unfortunately, he’s not ugly. Fine. I take a deep breath, trying to settle my nerves, and then I take a step out on the stage. I keep my eyes trained on him instead of looking at the guys, or the audience, whose cheers are assaulting my ears. Whistles sound in a firework manner, one going off after the other.
He’s smiling when I make it to him, his eyes slightly lazy and his skin sweaty from the heat coming off the lighting, making him sexier. “You better be glad I love you.” I cross my arms over my chest, so nervous I’m nauseous. “Let me see it.”
He opens his fist, revealing a black box, but before he opens it, he lowers down until his right knee is on the stage. As if that was all it took, my eyes well up with tears. I bow my head a little for my hair to fall. I hate people seeing me cry. He becomes serious. As if it was planned, the audience becomes silent. “You love me enough to spend the rest of your life with only me? To have my kids? To grow old together?”
My bottom lip trembles just in time for those damn tears to fall. Flashes of light hit my peripheral vision. He’s so blurry. I wipe underneath my eyes to try and salvage my makeup. “Yes. Asshole.”
“Then Paxtyn Dunagin, will you marry me? I want you to have my last name. I’m ready to plan a future that includes a family. I’ll never step out on you. I’ll never neglect you. I’ll never abandon you. I want this forever—you and me.”
Tears fall like rain. My face is probably ugly, somewhere between a sob and a smile, and my eye makeup is likely fucked, but I’ll never forget this. “Yes,” I whisper, nothing else making it out with how emotional I am. After a speech like that, his parents would be so proud. I can’t wait to tell them, in detail, and embarrass the hell out of him.
His smile returns, and he opens the box, revealing a large pear-shaped diamond with two layers of diamonds outlining it, all within a dainty setting. I couldn’t have pictured a more perfect ring if I’d tried, and maybe that’s because he chose it himself. I still wear my necklace he got me that Christmas in Lake Tahoe daily.
“It’s beautiful,” I admit, as he pulls the ring out of its secured slit and takes my left hand, pushing it on my ring finger.
I stare at it when it’s in place, waiting for him to get up, and the second he’s standing in front of me, I jump in his arms and wrap around him like a bear on a tree, hugging him tight. “I love you,” he says.
“I love you too. I’ll never forget how you looked on your knee.”
“No one else can bring me to my knees but you. As soon as we get married, I want you to get off birth control if you’re ready.”
“Okay. It’ll probably take forever anyway. Been on it forever.” And I’m okay with that too. I like just us enough that anything more is a bonus.
We get applauded, both by the crowd and the other band mates. “Fucking finally,” Maddox says into his microphone, before giving us a celebratory drum solo.
Along with the crowd, I laugh, reveling in being held on stage by the only guy I’ve ever loved. When my eyes meet Maddox’s, he winks. My heart is so full. You learn to love them all. They all have their strengths individually, but when they come together, they’re an unstoppable force. Savage Saints. One day, they’ll be legends.
EPILOGUE PART TWO
PAXTYN
Sixteen months later . . .
Ipeel my eyes open, the morning light coming in through the windows of the master bedroom. My chest feels heavy, more like engorged, and sore, along with other things. I’ll be honest, it feels like I took a beating, and the amount of blood coming out of my body makes me wonder how I’m not dead.
Something is wet. My eyes widen when I feel my shirt, realizing where it’s coming from. The second I touch my boobs, I regret it. They’re hard as rocks. My nipples feel like they’re on fire from being so raw, which makes me wonder why women talk about how beautiful breastfeeding is. Maybe I’ll talk about the not-so-pretty side of it, if nothing more than to warn a girl. We’ll see how this goes. I can’t promise it’ll last.
I glance over to an empty bed, realizing Landon isn’t in here. I look over my side, seeing that the electric rocker is also empty. That’s weird. I didn’t hear him wake up. I get out of bed and grab my cardigan off the dresser where I left it, pulling it on to go hunting. Murphy jumps off the foot of the bed and follows me out of the room.
I halt when I come into the main space of the house, seeing Landon asleep in the recliner with our newborn on his chest, his arms around our son in a protective way. My chest constricts. We’ve only been home from the hospital for two days, and already, he’s doing more than I ever imagined.
I pull each side of my cardigan together to cover my leaking boobs, and then walk to where they are. When I get there, I straddle the foot prop in a stance and put my hands out, hovering over Levi’s back and head because I know Landon doesn’t like to be woken up out of a deep sleep, and then I close in and press my lips to his.
My love for him grows daily. After he proposed, I didn’t want a lengthy engagement. I didn’t see the point in it when we’d been together so long, and the main reason people wait is to plan an elaborate, highly overpriced, one-night affair, which I care nothing about. I want the marriage, not the wedding, so we agreed to do a destination wedding in the islands with the people closest to us.
We were engaged for six months and were still able to have a ‘summer’ wedding in the middle of winter. It gave us everything we wanted without the ungodly price tag of hiring out for every single thing, and the handful of guests we wanted present got a vacation out of it. My parents voluntarily paid for the guests’ resort stay since they weren’t having to pay out as much as they always anticipated for a wedding, so the only expense was airfare and spending. It was a win for everyone.
What Ididn’tplan was to get pregnant within a month of being married. The only reason I even bought a test was because I was late, which I never am, and we were going out to an event where I knew alcohol was present. Landon and I have always been social drinkers. I took the test to be responsible, assuming getting off the birth control was just messing up my body while trying to regulate itself. I never expected for it to be positive. I freaked out, thinking it was sooner than he was expecting, but when I told Landon half dressed for the event, he just looked at me like it was another day and said it was a miracle it didn’t happen earlier. We were both ready and stable in our relationship to be parents. That was it.
He jumps with my lips on his, just like I knew he would, but his arms tighten around our son like he reflexively knew he had him, his tired eyes immediately finding mine when I pull back. I smile. “You could have woken me up.”
“I figured I’d give you a break after pushing a seven-pound baby out of your pussy. I’ve never seen anything like that. I don’t know how you did it, but I’m glad you did.”
My lips curl even more. “Is this your way of saying ‘thank you for giving me a son?’”
“That’s exactly what it means,” he returns. “I was trying to let you sleep. We couldn’t sleep for shit in that hospital with all the staff coming in and out, and you were up the first night.”
I joke, but having Landon by my side while giving birth was a special experience I’ll never forget. He was all in from the second I went into labor, never leaving my side during the hard parts. At one point after Levi was out and it was confirmed he was a boy, I saw him wipe his eye.
