Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(109)

“And I know I don’t have to get into all the other times you’ve been there for me. For the boys. For Black.”

“Keekee,” he murmured.

“He was ours. And he was yours. And now you’re ours,” I reminded him.

He turned fully toward me, lifted his free hand to cup my jaw, bending his neck so his face was closer to mine, and he spoke.

Gently.

“All right, baby, like you share how shit is between you and Bev, I’ll share how shit is between me and my brothers, one of those brothers bein’ Black. I know you know what that cut meant to him. I know you know what this bike meant to him. I also know you know what you and Dutch and Jag meant to him. Those are his and his alone. I’ve staked my claim now that he’s gone but this thing that you’re doin’ with those things that were not his, but him, I can’t be a part of that.”

“The boys will want you there,” I asserted.

“The boys will get it immediately that I’m not. It’s you who has to understand why I can’t be there,” he refuted.

I stared up at him and it sucked, but the truth of the matter was, he was right.

I dropped my head and did a forehead plant in his chest.

His hand slid from my jaw to the back of my neck.

“You do the handovers, Keekee, the boys are gone and they’ve taken their pieces of their old man with them, you call me and I’ll come to you right away, yeah?” he asked quietly.

I nodded, my forehead rolling on his chest.

He changed the subject, thankfully.

“Now, got Jean and my places paid for until the end of the month but I’ll tell my landlord I’m clearin’ out both. Need your help with Jean’s stuff, babe. And the boys. Most of it can go but it’s not gonna be easy, siftin’ through it so gotta ask you, all a’ you, to be there with me.”

I tipped my head back and promised, “We’ll all be there.”

He gave the back of my neck a squeeze then moved his arm so he could wrap it around me with the other one.

“We’ll get rid of what you got down there and move my stuff in your basement. Then I’ll be all the way in.”

Yet another ceremony of letting go of the material remnants of someone important and moving on, holding tight to only memories.

But at least in the end, I’d totally have Hound and he’d be all in with me, so we’d be all set to make new memories.

I nodded, giving him a happy squeeze, but saying, “And we need to talk to her rabbi about moving the mezuzah to my house.”

“Say what?” he asked.

“I don’t know the way it’s supposed to go. So we need to ask how we’re supposed to do that. Move that piece of her here to be with you because that part of her needs to be with you.”

“Right,” he murmured, melancholy hitting his eyes so I held him tighter. He powered through it and muttered, “Seems when we said we didn’t wanna go slow, we were both all in with that.”

I gave him a small smile.

He bent his head and kissed it.

He didn’t go very far when he pulled away.

“Saw your panic last night when there came a knock on the door,” he noted.

Oh Lord.

I wasn’t sure I was ready for this particular change of subject.

“Shep—” I tried.

“We’re all in with doin’ shit fast, the brothers gotta know.”

Shit.

“I’m not ready for that,” I shared.

“I dig that and you were right when you said that the brothers are gonna get it, we kept it from them in the beginning. They might not get it so much Dutch and Jag know, Bev knows, the boys got their pieces of their dad, and I’m moved in. Shy and Tab kept things on the down low and that did not go over too good, a brother startin’ shit up with his brother’s daughter and not sayin’ dick about it to anybody. What’s happenin’ here is gonna be even less popular so it might be good to get the bad shit outta the way so the brotherhood can start to heal and you don’t gotta live with that hangin’ over your head.”

And it sucked yet again that he was right.

“Can we have a little more time?” I asked.

“You can have anything you want, it’s in my power to give it to you, baby. You wanna keep it just us for twenty years, I’ll be down with that for you. But I got a feeling you wanna be on the back of my bike close to as much as I want you there and that cannot happen until we bring Chaos into our lives.”

My lips quirked in a not entirely amused grin at his wording and when he saw them do that, Hound’s did the same.

“Just a little more time,” I whispered.

He nodded and sealed that when he again dropped his head and touched his lips to mine.

And again, when he pulled away, he didn’t go far.

“That ceremony, Keekee,” he said softly. “My advice, make that all you. Don’t make your boys watch you let go of their father again. Whatever you gotta do to make it okay you hand over the last of what you been holdin’ onto of their dad that isn’t in permanent residence in your heart, do it on your own. When you give that cut to Dutch and those keys to Jag, do it as their mother, not their father’s widow. You do that last, they won’t want to take it from you, and it’s time they take hold of Black’s legacy. You understandin’ me?”