Dad backs up and blows out a heavy breath. I shake my head at him as I pass and head for the front door. On my way out, I hear him calling for Holly, who screams something at him before her voice trails off, probably downstairs to their bedroom. I hope she’s angry at him for how shitty he just was to me. But even if she is, I’m not all that happy with her for sitting in the corner and not saying or doing a fucking thing. So much for having my back.
I’m back in my car and speeding to Jeremy once again. This time when I pull up, I park in the driveway and don’t bother cutting the lights until I turn the car off. The porch light flicks on, so somebody is obviously still awake. As if he sensed me coming, Jeremy opens the front door wearing only his boxers. I run out of the car and let the tears fall openly as I crash into him. He wraps his strong arms around me, holding me to his chest.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. Concern fills his voice.
“My dad, he... he wants me to go to culinary school. I don’t want to leave you. Not ever.” I sound like a whiny baby who isn’t getting her way, but I don’t care. This is Jeremy. He isn’t going to think I’m stupid.
“Don’t go,” he says lowly. It sounds so easy. To just not go and defy my dad. But then what happens to me? Where do I live? What if Dad actually makes me go? What if Jeremy gets in trouble for all of this—because of me? What if he realizes he’s not the only reason I want to stay? That aside from Mindy, my jerky father and Holly, and Grandma, I’m terrified to be so far away from the club. Up until recently, I’d always felt safe here. But regardless of what’s going on, I have to be safer here than anywhere else. San Francisco is huge, and nobody will know they’re not to mess with me. Nobody will know me, and nobody will care when they hear my last name.
“Stop worrying, baby.” He kisses my forehead and then my eyebrow and my cheek. He tilts my head back and places a final kiss on my lips.
“But what if he tries to make me go?” I need some reassurance and maybe even some muscle here. I can fight Dad to the end of the earth, but at the end of the day, he has the cash to keep me in the finer things in life—like food and electricity.
Jeremy becomes still, and his grip on my chin tightens. I’m about to say something to him, but then he opens his mouth. He’s working through something in his head, but then he speaks. And he blows me away.
“We’ll get married. Tonight. Just run away with me and fucking marry me.”
“You mean it?” I ask. “You want to marry me?”
“More than anything,” he whispers and rubs his nose against mine.
Voices sound from the other side of the open front door—one masculine and one feminine. We’ve woken up Duke and Nic, but I don’t give a damn. As long as we don’t wake up Robin, I don’t think they can be too mad. Still, the look on Nic’s face is murderous. The extra baby weight she hasn’t lost yet shows through her nightgown, emphasized by the way she folds her arms over her chest and purses her lips. Duke looks too exhausted to even swat at a fly, and I say a silent prayer for that. I’ve heard him yelling at Jeremy before, and there’s no doubt that Robin gets her set of lungs from her dad, even if Duke begs to differ.
“Knuck know you’re here?” Duke asks through a yawn.
“Yeah,” I say because he’d be stupid to think I’d go anywhere else. Duke will check with Dad, I know he will, so at least the cranky asshole won’t think I’m dead in a ditch somewhere.
“Then come in, shut the fuck up, and don’t wake up my kid,” he says slowly, losing his train of thought halfway through only to recapture it a moment later.
“I have ways to make you both wish you were fucking dead if my baby wakes up before she’s supposed to,” Nic says and drags Duke down the hallway to their bedroom.
Gulping, I look at Jeremy nervously and whisper, “How does she know when Robin is supposed to wake up?” As far as I know, babies are unpredictable little creatures.
“She doesn’t,” he whispers and takes my hand as he leads me toward his bedroom. “So I hope you like baby duty, because they’re going to find a way to get out of changing the next dirty diaper.”
“I gave you my virginity, Jeremy Whelan. The least you can do is spare me a poopy diaper,” I whisper-shout as I carefully close his bedroom door behind me.
I want Jeremy as my old man, and I want to be his old lady. I want what Duke and Nic have and what Ryan has with Alex—that deep kind of love you fight and sacrifice for. I want what Dad and Holly have and what Uncle Jim and Aunt Ruby have—the kind of love that doesn’t have to make sense and can last forever—and I’ll crawl over their destroyed Harleys to do it.
CHAPTER 21
April
12 months to Mancuso’s downfall
I flash my girl a million-dollar grin and wiggle my brows, saying, “Mrs. Whelan.”
Her smile is blinding, so fucking wide it’s practically ear to ear, and she giggles a high-pitched giggle that morphs into a squeal. It’s not quite four in the morning, and if she’s up for it, I could totally go a round before we crash. She recognizes the change in my demeanor—from playful to pervy—and her expression darkens.