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“And you haven’t even talked about it since then?”
“Nope.”
“Not once? Neither of you brought it up? Even casually?”
“Nope,” I repeated, cringing when I admitted how much of a coward I’d been out loud.
“Then how do you know she hasn’t changed her mind?”
“She hasn’t.”
“You’ll never know for sure until you ask again. Especially if it means that much to you. I can’t imagine being with Reece for that long and not being married. That’s crazy.”
“Youarethe overly sentimental one out of the two of us,” I jested, even though I didn’t find anything funny about my situation.
If my younger self stood in front of me right now, he’d punch me in the nuts, asking me why in the hell I’d ever want to do a dumb thing like getting hitched. But I was a different person than I was back then, thankfully. I’d been through hell and had come out on the other side, mostly intact.
When I was laid up in the hospital last year after taking several bullets, the worst one being to the gut, I’d had plenty of time to reflect. Almost meeting one’s maker would do that to a man. And the one person who infiltrated most of my thoughts was my woman. I didn’t know what I’d do without her, and I wanted to make things legal between us. But I’d chickened out and never brought up the subject. Like I just told my brother, I didn’t want to get rejected again.
But it was more than that.
I feared every time she said no to the idea of us getting married, she was saying no to me. And that eventually she’d break things off for good. Whether my fear was rational or not I couldn’t say, but my concern felt real.
“Listen, Hawke. You have two choices. You can either talk to Edana about getting married, and state your case if she’s still against it, or you can stew in uncertainty for the rest of your fuckin’ life. Choice is yours. If you’re smart, like I hate to admit you are,” he said, smacking my arm and smirking, “you’ll talk to her about it. Besides, I’ve seen you kill men without an ounce of hesitation. Why is this the area of your life where you puss out?”
When he said it like that, I had no reasonable answer. But I tried to refute his comment anyway.
“I’m not pussin’ out.”
“You are.” He held his hand up to stop me from arguing. “You two have been together forever. It’s time. Tell her I said that.” The crook of his grin made me smile, even though the trepidation swirling inside me hadn’t waned much since I’d sat down.
But Tripp was right. I had a path to choose.
Now all I had to do was come up with a plan.
3
“My favorite uncle.”
Luke threw his arm over my shoulder and gave me a quick side hug in greeting, his brown eyes, which were a similar shade to mine, studying me as if he knew I had a secret. My nephew always appeared to be in a good mood, an attribute I sometimes envied. He’d grown up differently than his dad and I, never having to wonder if his mother loved him, or having to deal with the loss of his father.
Tripp and I hadn’t been as lucky. Our mom took off on us when we were kids, leaving our dad to care for us, which he did. The ol’ man was awesome, someone both of us looked up to, and when we lost him to cancer many years ago, our lives changed forever. I still thought about him often, catching myself smiling over a fond memory I stored away for when I needed my spirits lifted.
“I’m your only uncle.”
“Doesn’t change the fact,” he responded, the quirk of his lips causing me to mirror his expression.
Luke took after his mom in the looks department but got his height from his dad. He wasn’t as tall as Tripp but standing a couple inches shorter than his ol’ man, at six-foot-two, he was taller than me. Broad like my older brother too. Every now and again, I had to remind Luke, I could still kick his ass, taking advantage of the boxing ring housed in the clubhouse lot.
“Whatcha doin’ here?” I asked, finishing off the rest of my beer, remnants of my conversation with Tripp still swirling through my head. Perhaps my nephew would be the perfect distraction. For now, at least. At some point I had to decide what to do about Edana, and my future with her.
“Mom told me to meet her here. Said she wanted me to help drag some boxes of decorations out of the storage shed.”
Every year around this time, the ol’ ladies got together and decorated the clubhouse for Christmas. While everyone’s families spent the actual holiday at home, they held a huge party here at the club the day before, on Christmas Eve. The last one I attended had been a few years prior, so I was looking forward to this one.
Whenever I came in, I tended to spend most of my time with the guys and with my brother and his family. It was a rarity I hung out with everyone at once.Everyonebeing the other wives and all the kids.
“Hey, bud.” Tripp waltzed up next to his son, ruffling the strands of his ash brown hair. “Where’s your mom? I thought she was coming with you.” He scoured the area before returning his attention to Luke.
