Chapter Twenty-Three

Brooks - 1 day

"How'd it go?" Fallon asked when I emerged from my room sometime around eight in the morning. Cali was still out cold. I'd stolen her phone earlier to call Sage and tell her that she wasn't going to be in for a few days.

It was pure selfishness on my part.

She was safe to go home now.

I just wanted her at my side, uninterrupted, for a few days.

The night before had been… a lot. For both of us. We earned a little break from everything else.

"It… went," I said, reaching for a mug, and pouring some coffee. "We weighed our options after talking to Jax. And it just… I didn't want to take any risks of anyone coming back to fuck with Cali in the future."

"They're all gone?" he asked.

"Yeah. We caught them off-guard when we went in. Four guys were picked off before they could even get out of their chairs," I told him, flashing back to us sneaking in through the back of the fish store, finding a group of six sitting around a table playing cards.

"It was Rune and Croft who drew first and shot first," I told Fallon, since he wanted to know how they handled themselves in tense situations. "They were calm and cool. No expression. Just action. Shots were pretty fucking precise too."

One head shot. One double-tap to the chest.

"Perish rushed through the door to the front, more intent on using his fists than the gun. Which might be something he needs to work on, depending on the situation."

"Okay. Good to know. How many more were there?"

I was still stepping over the body I'd taken out when I heard shots popping off out front where Perish and Rune had disappeared.

Croft had nodded at me, and I'd moved out with him at my six. Just in time for me to pick off someone who was trying to sneak up on Perish as Rune wrestled with the other guy, his gun scattered across the floor in the shuffle.

Just a few feet to my side, Croft waited for an opening that, in my opinion, was a little too fucking small, and picked off the guy fighting with his brother.

Again, very calm and calculated. Like they'd done shit like this a thousand times before.

"Then… it was all over. Under ten minutes," I told Fallon. "Then, fucking Perish…" I said, shaking my head.

"What'd he do?" Fallon asked, wincing. He was partial to the fucker, so he was clearly hoping it wasn't bad enough to need to second-guess his involvement in the club.

I was just checking the pulse on one guy, making sure he was gone, when Perish called out my name.

When I turned, I found him moving toward me, someone's wrist in his meaty hand, dragging the fucking corpse across the room behind him.

"Isn't this that watch you were talking about?" he asked as the body came to rest right by my shoes.

Fallon snorted at that, shaking his head.

"Yeah," I agreed. "But it was Clay's watch."

"After that?"

"The usual. Clean-up," I told him, thinking of how we'd carefully picked up our casings, found and destroyed the footage on the cameras, wiping down the wrist of the guy Perish had touched, in case of the potential for any sort of fingerprint or trace evidence. "And double so when we came home. Everything washed and bleached."

"Yo, get out here," a voice called from the living room, making Fallon and I exchange a look before walking out to find Croft standing there in nothing but sleep pants, his gaze laser-focused on the TV.

"What—" I started, but then I saw it.

News footage of the fish store up in flames. A blazing fucking inferno, actually. The fire department was struggling to make any progress.

"Don't look at me," I said, shaking my head at Fallon. "We didn't do this," I added. Sure, it would have been an easier way to cover up any evidence. But we didn't usually solve our problems with arson.

We were still watching the news coverage, everyone silent and lost in our own thoughts, when suddenly the door opened, and in walked… fucking Andres Alcazar.

"‘Morning," he called out like his appearance was an everyday occurrence. "Brought some bagels," he said, holding up a big brown bag full of said bagels as a pittie walked in beside him, its gaze eyeing us up, trying to decide if we were friends or foes.

"It was you," I said, thinking about what Jax's man, Dante, had said about the dead man being one of Andres's guys.

"Ya got me," he said with a slow, wicked little smirk. "Couldn't let the cops get all those goodies you all left in the walk-in freezer, now, could I?" he asked.

By ‘goodies' he meant half a dozen boxes full of bricks of heroin.

"Did you know they'd killed one of your men?" I asked.

"Had my suspicions," he said, walking into the kitchen like he belonged there as the dog sniffed around the common room. "You guys got butter, I hope," he said, placing the bagels on the counter. "I bought some cream cheeses. Got lot of fucking choices these days. Look at this: cinnamon sugar. Not my thing, but that fucker you got around here always has a sweet tooth. Got plates?" he asked.

Croft tilted his head and fetched them.

"Aw, come on. Why the long faces? Way I see it, we all had a successful night last night, no?"

"Oh, hi, sweetie!" Cali cooed from the other room, making me shift position to see her squatting down as the pittie walked to her, its whole body moving its tail was wagging so hard. "You are the sweetest thing, aren't you?" she asked as the dog started to lick her face.

"Your girl likes dogs, huh?" Andres asked with a strange smile I didn't understand before he moved out to talk to Cali as the dog attempted to crawl inside her skin it was so close.

"Hope you like dogs, man," Fallon said with a smirk. "‘Cause that fucker is going to drop one off on your doorstep in the near future. Mark my fucking words."

Honestly, I'd never had many feelings either way about having a dog. I liked the ones that the guys brought around the club, but I never gave a thought to having my own.

But if one would make her smile that she was flashing at A's dog, I was fucking game.

"I have some bad news," Cali told me as she walked into the kitchen, face severe, making my stomach tense. "I have a new love in my life. His name is Pepe. And he is very fond of kissing me."

"Who wouldn't be?" I asked, pressing my lips to her forehead. "I called you out of work."

"I saw the texts from Sage."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing tame enough to share in mixed company," she said, giving me a smile. "Oh, bagels. Is that cinnamon sugar cream cheese?" she asked, brightening even more. "That's my favorite."

"Where the fuck did A go?" Fallon asked, looking around.

"The guy with the dog? He said he had to go to the bookstore," she said, shrugging, oblivious to the events of the evening and morning. "So… do you like dogs?" she asked, looking up at me as she smeared cinnamon sugar cream cheese onto a cinnamon raisin bagel.

It looked like Fallon was right.

If Andres didn't drop off a dog, I was gonna have to go and pick out one myself for her.

Cali - 4 weeks

"We don't have to do this!" Brooks called out over the roar of the small plane's engine.

My entire body was vibrating.

Whether that was from the plane or my anxiety was anyone's guess.

The instructor seemed wholly unfazed by my deer eyes and the way my arms were thrown back around Brooks's neck, our bodies bound together with the two-person harness we were strapped into.

We'd hemmed and hawed our configuration for a while, debating if I would be better off being the one, essentially, on his back. But that was the position of the person who had to pull the parachute, and we were worried I would be too freaked out to have good reaction times. So I was attached to his chest. That normally meant I would be the one facing out of the plane, staring down at almost certain death.

Okay.

Fine.

Almost no one died skydiving.

But it felt like certain death now that we were all the way up here. I was almost shocked that I didn't pass out from stress with the takeoff of the tiny little hobby plane.

"It's go time," the instructor yelled, reaching out to push my goggles more firmly in place, and giving a nod to Brooks.

"We could turn back," Brooks called to me.

But no.

No, we couldn't.

"We got this far," I said, voice shaking as much as the rest of me.

To that, Brooks nodded to the instructor, then moved us into the doorway, turning us so that he was the one with his back facing out, holding both of us in the opening by the bar over my head.

"I love you, Cali," he said in my ear, making my heart leap.

Just before he released the bar.

And my heart damn near flew out of my chest as the world bottomed out below us.

I was thankful then, as we first started to fall, that I wasn't behind Brooks, because I was pretty sure I would have made him deaf with how long and loud I screamed.

Slowly, though, it was like my body just… accepted the fall, seeing as there was nothing it could do.

Almost at the same time, Brooks's hand went to the lever, and we were jerked upward as the parachute flew open, slowing our descent.

It was terrifying and electrifying and the biggest feeling of being alive I'd ever experienced.

It was over so soon, our legs running across the ground, but we ended up tumbling anyway, landing in a mass of tangled limbs, hearts pounding, blood rushing.

Brooks reached to release the harness, giving me the freedom to roll my body over his. "I love you too," I told him, feeling it down to my bones before I sealed my lips to his.

We were interrupted, though, by the instructor walking up to us, his hair wind-mussed, looking like he'd just taken a casual stroll, not dropped out of a plane.

"You did it," he said, beaming at me.

And, hell yes, I had.

I'd slowed down a little on the frantic attempts to scratch everything off my bucket list. It was still a goal of mine, to get through it all.

This time, though, I was happy to share the experiences with Brooks. Even if he wasn't super interested in whatever the task was, he was right by my side, a happy participant, often urging me to overcome my fears, finding the freedom on the other side of it.

Sometimes, I wasn't even aware I was ticking off a bucket list item. Like the time I was pulled over for speeding and found myself arrested, fingerprinted, had mug shots taken, and was tossed into a cell, my heart in a free fall the whole time. I sat there in that cold holding cell, thinking about how I needed to call Brooks, how he would get me out of this.

Only to have him walk up an hour or so later, smirking, and holding a picture frame where he had my mugshot and fingerprints framed.

Because it was all a hoax.

To get that item off my list.

Yeah, I did still had my concerns about the fact that every member of my family had passed before their time, that maybe the same fate would belong to me one day.

Now, though, I had lots of other things to think about.

Good things.

Happy things.

I wasn't so afraid anymore.

Brooks - 6 months

"I still see the blank spot," I said, squinting at the Christmas tree we'd put up two weeks before.

I'd never considered myself much of a decorator before. I guess because I never had my own place to get ready for the holidays. I hadn't anticipated how much I would enjoy shit like walking down the aisles in the store, deciding a color scheme for the house, then spending endless hours making our vision a reality.

But the tree.

The damn tree.

I just couldn't seem to get the lights how I saw them in my head.

"I think you're just looking at it too hard. I don't see any blank spots," Cali said, bringing two steaming mugs of hot chocolate loaded with mini marshmallows into the living room, handing me one as she stood next to me, head tilting side to side, trying to find the spot I was hyper focusing on.

"I think this might just be my version of decorating the porch," I decided, remembering her frantically arranging and rearranging it for days on end because it just never quite felt right.

To be fair, it was our first holiday together.

In our home together.

We'd opted on buying a townhouse just a few doors down from Colson, one of the OG club members. Mostly, we went that route because neither of us were really all that invested in the idea of lawn and garden maintenance, and the townhouse meant that someone else dealt with that.

We'd both agreed to go in halves on it, as much as I'd tried to push to just buy it myself, to not let her use Clay's life insurance to put up half. I mean, I was planning on spending the rest of my life with this woman. There was no reason for her to have to spend her money on the house.

But she'd put her foot down about it.

And I understood her desire to have her name on it too.

So, the week of Thanksgiving, we'd closed on a three-bedroom townhouse with a finished lower level, in case we needed another bedroom sometime down the line.

Then we'd set to trying to get it furnished, since everything Cali had owned had been destroyed, and I didn't have much of anything myself.

We still didn't have anything in the extra bedrooms.

But we had fucking spectacular Christmas decorations.

"I still think the swing needs another pillow or two," Cali declared as we moved over to sit down on the off-white corduroy sectional we'd picked out for the living room. Mostly because it had been in stock and deliverable the next day and we were sick of sitting on our dining chairs all the time.

"Sounds like we need to take a trip back to the store tomorrow," I said, happy to indulge her obsession.

I didn't understand it, but there was something about watching her nest that appealed to some primal part of me. Suddenly, I was having mental images of her making up nurseries, wrapping up toys, and sitting with me watching our kids opening stuff on Christmas morning.

I'd never imagined a future with kids before.

Now, though, it was on my mind a lot.

After, of course, getting Cali with a ring on her finger and walking toward me in a white dress.

"Expecting anyone?" I asked when the doorbell rang, making both of us sit up straighter.

We'd had a bunch of visitors since we got the place. Everyone wanted to stop by and drop off housewarming presents, or help us with little projects like painting or redoing the floors in the master since Cali was adamantly against all things wall-to-wall carpeting.

"No," she said, shrugging. "Maybe Sage is dropping over," she said, going to get to her feet.

"I'll get it," I said, grabbing her thigh.

"That overprotective thing is both frustrating and hot," she told me, shooting me a saucy smile as I walked toward the front door, glancing out the peephole, but seeing no one.

Figuring it was maybe just a package, I unlocked the door and pulled it open.

And there it was.

The thing I'd been waiting on for months now.

With a fucking big red bow around its neck.

"Baby, it's for you," I called, holding the door partially closed, so she didn't see it until she was close. "Give me that," I said, taking the mug from her hands, then swinging the door open.

Then I watched as shock morphed to absolute joy as she looked at the little block-headed black pittie puppy waiting for her on the front step.

It looked like Andres Alcazar had finally dropped off our housewarming present.

The squeal that escaped Cali had the puppy wiggling and charging toward her, all kisses, as she got on the ground and wrapped it up.

"This is mine?" she asked, half laughing and half crying as she cuddled the puppy to her chest.

"Seems like it," I said, nodding my chin toward a black SUV as it pulled slowly past the house, before driving off.

"Oh my god. We're keeping it," she said, shooting a stern look up at me. "I know this is where I'm supposed to ask if we can keep it. But I'm just gonna have to put my foot down about this. We're keeping it… him," she said as the puppy rolled onto its back for scratches, and let us know his gender at the same time.

"I would never deny you something that makes you this happy," I said, shaking my head. "We need stuff now, though," I said. "Food. Bowls. Toys. A bed."

A light started in her eyes.

"That's what the club has prospects for, isn't it?" she asked, smiling. "We're going to get you so many things for Christmas," she told the puppy, rubbing his belly until his leg started tapping.

And, indeed, we did.

In fact, almost every gift under the tree belonged to the puppy we'd decided to name Bolter, which had been Clay's nickname when he'd played football in high school.

"Oh, wait wait wait," she called, rushing toward Bolter, and pulling the package out of his mouth. "That one's for Daddy," she said, and there was no explaining the way my heart melted at her calling me that. "Your son is really sorry about messing up your wrapping paper," she said, coming up to sit next to me as she handed me the package.

"He's been sorry about a lot of things this week," I said as he violently shook one of the boxes his new toys had come in. "My boots. My belt. Your bra."

"In his defense," she said, smirking at me, "we'd carelessly left that on the floor when you'd ripped it off of me."

"True," I agreed, pulling at the festive paper that was slightly damp from Bolter's mouth.

I'd already opened a bunch of shit from her, and her from me. There was only one left for me, it seemed. And her final one was nestled in my pocket. Safely in the box I'd brought it home in two months before. Then had to take right back out of the house. Because I learned something new about Cali once we moved in together.

She was a snoop.

She couldn't help herself. She ripped the house apart trying to find her Christmas presents.

I wasn't sure how their parents or, later, Clay, had managed to hide her shit when she was little and still believed in Santa.

Luckily for me, I had the clubhouse.

Until, of course, she started tearing that apart as well.

Leading me to be desperate enough to ask Fallon if I could hide all her stuff in the fucking gun safe in the basement.

I opened the box and felt my heart stutter at what I saw nestled inside.

Clay's watch.

"Cali…" I said, feeling a little choked up at what she was giving me. Not just her brother's—and my best friend's—watch. But her family history. And, in a way, her future wishes for us.

"You should have it. I want to see you wearing it," she said, as glassy-eyed as I felt.

Then she was slipping it onto my wrist, and securing it in place. "I thought about fixing the second hand," she said. "But then I decided it was perfect just as it is," she told me, leaning into the kiss I sealed to her lips.

There was no better time, in my opinion, to reach into my pocket, and offer her my last gift.

The best thing I had to give her.

My whole fucking future.

Cali - 11 months

"Cal," Brooks called as he walked in the door, Bolter's tags clicking on his collar as Brooks unhooked his leash.

Those two had a ritual. Every single morning, before Brooks went to the clubhouse, the two of them took a turn around the neighborhood. We had a small little fenced in backyard area that was big enough for potty breaks, but Bolter had a lot of energy that he needed to work out. Especially on the days when Brooks wasn't bringing him to the clubhouse, where he would have lots of room to run around and tons of people to play with.

The past few weeks, Brooks had insisted on Bolter staying with me.

‘For protection.'

There were no active threats on me, mind you. He was just ultra paranoid now that I was into my second trimester.

My version of nesting was doing and redoing the nursery. Brooks's involved a lot of safety shit.

There was a flashy new security system. Every single cabinet and drawer had child locks.

We had tons of new gates at the top and bottom of each staircase, even though the baby wasn't even here yet, let alone mobile enough to fall down the stairs.

There were extra smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Fire ladders and slides in each upstairs closet, including the bathroom. He'd even included emergency dog-carrying backpacks for going down a ladder in a life-or-death situation.

My car had been in the shop no fewer than four times in as many weeks because he swore something was making a noise, or something needed to be tweaked. He'd even been looking into the safest cars on the market, and trying to talk me into buying one, despite my car being relatively new.

It was obsessive, but sweet.

And I knew our baby, whenever he or she came out to meet us, was going to have the best daddy in the world.

"Baby?" Brooks called, voice immediately concerned as he rushed up the three steps in the foyer and into the open floor plan of the common area. "Caliana!" he yelled before turning into the kitchen, and finding me sitting on the floor, a bottle of lemon cleaner in my hands, taking little sniffs.

It was the anniversary.

Of the crash.

Of the worst day of my life.

I saw as Brooks looked at me, then put the pieces together.

"Oh, baby," he said, coming over to sit next to me, then leaning down to take a sniff himself. "I didn't realize."

"I didn't either," I admitted, sniffling.

I'd just gone about my morning like I did every other day. I made my decaf coffee. I took my shower. I made myself some avocado toast with cucumbers, lettuce, honey mustard, and a sprinkling of hemp seeds, which was my current obsession now that the nausea of my first trimester was gone.

Then, suddenly, I glanced at the calendar.

It took a second, the date nettling at me for a moment until it flashed into my head.

Clay's headstone.

With this date at the end, minus one year.

I'd immediately felt the wave of grief wash over me.

One year without Clay. A whole Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years.

My engagement.

Our wedding.

The baby.

Things he didn't get to share with us.

"Sometimes I worry there will come a time when I will miss him more than I remember him," I admitted, squeezing my eyes tight against the wave of tears.

"We'll keep his memory alive together," Brooks said, taking another sniff of the lemon cleaner. It had been in a gift basket from one of the club moms who didn't know the sentimental value it held. I hadn't had the heart to open and use it since it showed up. But, god, I was glad for its existence right then.

"Yeah," I agreed, leaning my head into him, glad to have someone to share my life with who loved Clay as much as I did, who could sit around with me on the kitchen floor and share favorite memories. As he said, keeping him alive with us.

Brooks - 9 years

"Don't tell your father," I heard Sully whisper as I came around the corner of the clubhouse.

"Don't tell their father what?" I asked, making Sully and both my kids turn, eyes wide.

"Busteddddd," Sully said, beaming at me.

"What are those?" I asked as all three of them tucked something behind their backs.

"Oh, nothing. Just super secret kid stuff," Sully told me.

"Says the biggest kid of them all," I agreed, shaking my head. "I'm going to go ahead and not ask anything else. With the understanding that my kids will stay alive and relatively unharmed at the end of this. And you'll clean up whatever mess you make," I added, looking around the backyard of the clubhouse for any signs of what antics they were up to.

Then out of nowhere, another set of kids came rushing out from behind the trees, each sporting a whipped cream dispenser, and taking aim at my kids.

"Alive. Unharmed," Sully said, raising his own dispenser like a gun. "But I never made any promises about not being sticky."

"And the clean up?" I asked as he poured whipped cream down on one of his kids' heads.

"That's what prospects are for," he declared, ducking behind a chaise lounge before his kids could take their revenge.

Knowing the kids were in surprisingly capable—if not wholly irresponsible—hands, I made my way back into the clubhouse, finding Cali standing in the kitchen, giving me a raised brow look.

"Did I see my children being nailed with whipped cream guns?" she asked with a head shake.

"If it makes you feel any better, I imagine he will hose them all off before he lets them come inside."

"My money is him letting them go in the pool," she countered. "I mean, wasn't it last week when he put his own kids in the pool instead of giving them a bath?"

"Good point," I agreed.

"How long do you think we have before they start demanding we feed them again?" she asked, glancing at the clock.

"Well, we fed them half an hour ago. So… maybe twenty more minutes," I said. "Why?"

She didn't answer me with words, just grabbing the edge of my cut and pulling me with her through the clubhouse, down the basement stairs, and then rushing ahead of me up the ladder.

I wouldn't say she was necessarily ‘cured' of her fear of heights. She still got a little dizzy sometimes. Even shaky. But when you've literally jumped out of a plane and bungeed off of a bridge, you definitely built a bit of a tolerance to much less intimidating heights.

Like the spiral staircase to the top of the lighthouse we'd taken the kids to on Clay's birthday. Or, of course, the ladder to the glass room on the roof.

Though, I was pretty sure, this was the first time she'd attempted going up it since that first night at the clubhouse all those years ago.

"You know, I agree with Sully—" she started as I climbed in the room with her.

"I beg of you, don't finish that fucking sentence. The last thing that man needs is anyone agreeing with his harebrained schemes."

"I'm just saying, a slide down would be a lot of fun. And, I mean, he was right about the pool, wasn't he?" she asked.

"I can't disagree with that. And it bothers me," I agreed.

I mean, objectively, I'd loosened up a lot on the club guys and prospects. Part of that was having Cali show me that life was about more than just control and rules. And, of course, a lot of it was because now my life and my wife and kids just took me away from the club more, leaving me not breathing down their necks like I used to.

But I swear, even all these years after he patched in himself, Sully was still whispering in the ears of the prospects with some asinine idea he thinks they should try out.

"So, what did you want—" I started.

But then her hands were at my waistband, working my button and zipper free.

"Here?" I asked, looking around.

"Well, I was told by a certain former club girl that these glass walls have film on them that makes it impossible to see through during the day," she said, reaching inside to grab my cock, working me as she leaned in, pressing her lips to my neck.

"She's not wrong," I agreed.

"And I was just thinking… since we conceived our first kid in your bed in the club, and the second in that old car at the back of the property, that it's only fitting that we make the third one up here," she told me as she lowered down in front of me, taking my cock into her mouth exactly how I liked it. Deep, fast, messy. Sucking me as her eyes watered and her mascara ran.

"If you don't stop, I'm gonna come down your throat instead of deep inside of you," I warned, pulling her back by her hair.

My cock popped out from between her lips and she shot me a wicked smirk as she turned away from me, and started to hike up the long hem of her skirt.

A rumble moved through me as I moved closer, grabbing the waistband of her panties, and dragging them down until they slipped to her feet.

"Like this," she demanded, reaching one hand out to press into the glass wall, sticking her ass out toward me.

"Fuck yeah," I groaned, teasing my cock against her pussy, finding her already dripping for me.

I rocked against her until she was shoving her ass back into me, letting out those little whimpering sounds I loved so much.

Only then, I slipped back, then slammed deep inside of her, groaning as her walls tightened around me like they always did.

We fucked then like we did often these days, hard, fast, and satisfying, ever aware of the potential of one of the kids cutting things short if we didn't each get there as fast as possible.

My hand went between her thighs, working her clit as I slammed deep until her walls were spasming around me, taking me with her, coming deep inside her as she cried out her release.

Cali was still trying to yank her panties back up her legs when we heard some squealing from the backyard, making us share a look.

"I'll go check," I said, heading toward the ladder. "You want a piggyback?" I asked.

"Nah, I got this," she assured me, giving me a dreamy smile before I disappeared.

By the time I got to the bottom, she was halfway down.

She took a pitstop in the bathroom while I headed out the back door. Where I found all the kids squealing under the frigid spray of the hose.

"Don't want your old man yelling at me about getting whipped cream in the pool," he said as the kids turned in circles, so he could get all the runny whipped cream off of them.

"Guess we were both right," Cali said as she moved in at my side as our oldest was deemed clean enough, and made a mad dash toward the pool.

"Mommy, watch!" the younger called, as they stepped into a watermelon-colored tube, yanked it up around their waist, then leapt into the pool, splashing water all over Cali in the process.

I watched as the cold made shock cross her face before she busted out laughing, her big smile breaking across her gorgeous features as she got down on her knees.

"You're gonna pay for that!" she warned as she started slapping the water in the direction of our shrieking kid.

I stood there for a moment, watching the love of my life play with our two perfect fucking kids, while another very possibly was about to be on its way, and I'd never been filled with so much fucking joy.

I glanced up at the sky, taking a deep breath.

"Know you wanted me to save her, man, but I think she saved me just as much."

"Get daddy!" the kids yelled in unison.

Then all three of those traitors started splashing water at me.

And as the water soaked through my clothes to the delight of my wife and kids, I was pretty sure Clay was smiling down on us, knowing exactly what he had done to bring us all together.

XX