Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sage

It's Annie's first time in a plane, and she is not amused. The rattling shudder that accompanied takeoff got her dander up, and if she wasn't confined to her carrier, she'd have torn the place to shreds by now. I only hope she can handle the pressure changes as we climb.

Bash slips his hand into mine. "What are you thinking?"

I give his fingers a squeeze. "I was worrying about Annie. But also… I can see it now."

"See what?" He leans over me to look out the window. "The ranch? I don't think so, but I trust your intuition."

"No, that's not what I mean. Since I met you, my vision has been obscured. I couldn't figure out how we could be together. There was so much in the way. I kept making up excuses for why it couldn't work instead of trying to find a way that it could, and I'm sorry for that. Most of all, I'm sorry about leaving without kissing you goodbye."

"I did the same thing." Bash rests his chin on the top of my head and sighs. "Although my reasons were a little different. I wasn't sure you wanted to stay. I would have called you when I got your text, but I wasn't sure you wanted to come back. Then Noah told me about Trevor—"

"You should have heard it from me. To be fair, I never would have believed he'd come all the way to Vegas to blackmail me."

"Is that what he did?" Bash recoils.

"More or less. He showed me the foreclosure notice. Maybe he thought of it more as a bribe. It's not like he threatened to do anything the bank wasn't already doing." I close my eyes and let the headrest take my weight. I've carried so much on my shoulders lately, but I'm finally free. I need a massage to work out the muscle tension.

Bash mutters something ominous in French. "If you are thinking of Trevor as an obstacle, trust me, he was never in the way. I could remove him."

I chuckle. "By wrestling him in my driveway?"

"By doing what he was offering to do, but with no strings attached."

That makes me open my eyes, if only so I can take in the mixture of affection and defiance etched on my boyfriend's face. "There would have been strings, though. There always are. For this to work, I had to find my own way. I couldn't depend on you or take advantage of you. I'm not that girl."

His nostrils flare, but he does me the courtesy of thinking before he responds. "With me, though, you're safe to be that girl. You can always count on me, mon amour ."

"I appreciate that." I nuzzle close to him again. "But I want to be equal partners, to carry my own financial burdens. I never want you to think this is an arrangement and not a love story. Get it?"

"Something could happen," Bash warns. "And if you need me in the future, I will help you."

"And I'll do the same. There's a difference between supporting each other through our trials and starting a relationship with such a massive financial imbalance."

"If you say so, ma chérie ."

I take a deep breath and let myself imagine the future with Bash—wedding, kids, and hockey games. I'll go to Quebec. He'll come to Montana. During the season, I'll rep for The Pink Boot and keep up my TikTok lives helping women with their DIY projects. During the off-season, we'll find more ways to be together.

It's not the future I've been told to want, one where my desires and identity are shackled to the whims of my partner. It's not going to be normal. It's going to be something we build together through trial and error. And this is the perfect man for the task.

It's going to be so fucking beautiful.

"Are these tears?" Bash lifts a thumb to my cheek. "What's wrong?"

I sniffle. "I'm just getting emotional. Damn it, I can see our whole life together. Is this my fantasy or a Hallmark movie? I would've said we need a bigger van, but we're leaving it behind. And I'm okay with that. Everything that truly matters is right here."

He kisses my cheeks until my tears dry, and soon we're both laughing. Annie is still grumbling in her carrier, but I know she'll be happy to return to Bash's huge house and her boyfriend, Nudi. Maybe Bash will even let me build her a catio in her backyard oasis. This has been a long few days for all of us.

When the plane lands, we find a limo waiting for us on the blacktop. "Golly, Dante really thinks of everything, doesn't he?"

"He can be nice when he wants to be," Bash says. "I bet Julie bullied him into this."

Bash loses that bet when we climb into the limo and find Julie and Dante waiting for us with a stack of paperwork even thicker than the one Lacey gave me last night.

He doesn't wait long enough for me to buckle my seatbelt before pressing the pen into my hands. "This is for you."

"And what is it, exactly?" I scan the first page and learn almost nothing from the legal mumbo-jumbo printed there.

He waves a hand. "Oh, you know… just a little something my lawyer drew up to absolve me of any wrongdoing and prevent the possibility of future litigation. It's a technicality. Sign here. And initial at each flag."

Bash narrows his eyes. "Dante!"

"What?" Dante glares at him. "You got your happy ending, didn't you? I'm just ensuring that it doesn't come back to bite me in the ass. There's also a nice little chunk of change included for your trouble. I'm not a total asshole."

"I tried to talk him out of the legal papers and just go for the settlement." Julie sighs. I can appreciate a woman who knows how to pick her battles. "This time, he wouldn't be swayed."

Annie presses her face to the door of her crate and makes a strange keening noise that I've never heard from her before. Dante does a double take. "What now? What do you want?"

"I think she wants you to pet her," I say, although I'm not sure. I've never seen Annie as desperate to climb all over a stranger, and it's strange that she'd pick Dante. I trust her instincts, though.

"Fine." Dante opens the crate's door and Annie spills out, in the semi-liquid way that only cats can. Within seconds, she's sitting in Dante's lap, bumping her nose against his while her deep purr reverberates through the luxury vehicle.

"Don't you dare scratch me," Dante warns. He rubs Annie's head with wary fingers.

Her purring intensifies.

"I don't think you need a piece of paper for comfort," I tell Dante.

His eyes narrow over the top of Annie's head. "Meaning?"

"That forgiveness doesn't come from a contract. Besides, you've more than made up for it, especially given that the accident wasn't your fault in the first place. There are no hard feelings on my end."

With one hand on my cat, he reaches out his other to give me a fist bump. I know this guy rubs most people the wrong way, but I come from sterner stuff. I totally get him.

If Dante wants me to sign, I'll sign. I have no intention of suing him, and after all, I wouldn't be here with Bash if Dante's fleet hadn't been hacked in the first place. Whether I'd be marrying Trevor in a few weeks or not is hard to say since I know for a fact that my following skyrocketed after I started including members of the Venom in my TikToks, and Julie was the one who ordered our riding outfits from The Pink Boot. What else would be different?

It doesn't bear thinking about. Either way, I'm the furthest thing from holding a grudge.

Dante puffs out his cheeks and pats Annie again while making smooching noises at her. She responds by leaning into him with a loud purr. "Do you promise not to sue me?"

I hold up one hand. "We can shake on it if you like. I'll even spit on my palm to seal the deal."

"Oh, God." Dante's face pinches with disgust. "Please don't. Julie?" He holds his free hand out to her.

She reaches into her purse for a travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer, which he passes to me. I squeeze some into my palm without comment and shake his hand when 99.99% of my hand germs have been killed, or so the label claims.

We shake on it. Dante takes the contract and rips it in half. "There we go. I'll consider it settled." He hands the two halves of the contract to Julie, who shoots him an incredulous look even as she accepts them. Into the purse they go.

I smother a laugh. Annie, annoyed that Dante's hands have been occupied with something other than petting her, rumbles and butts her head against his chin until his attention resumes.

Dante smiles. Like, with his whole face. It makes him appear ten years younger. He almost looks… handsome. "Julie, find me one of these fucking cats. She's my kind of people."

"She's not people," Bash says.

"True. Because I actually like her, which is more than I can say for the rest of you." Dante turns his head to glower at Julie. "People can't be trusted. They'll blackmail you at the first opportunity."

"I'll blackmail you as often as I like," Julie retorts. "If you'd just do what I tell you the first time around, you'd be a hell of a lot more efficient."

The limo pulls to a stop, and I realize we've reached Bash's house. Bash reaches for the door handle and then pauses. I can see him weighing his options. He lands on politeness. "Would you like to come in, Dante?"

Dante shakes his head. "Hell, no. I need to defur. This is Armani."

Julie's groans. "Are you sure you want a cat?"

"Yes. One that walks on a leash and is potty-trained, like this one. And I expect you to carry a lint remover at all times. Perhaps multiple."

"This job just gets better and better," she mutters.

I bundle Annie back into her carrier, and Bash and I collect our things from the back. We wave as the limo pulls away.

"Do you think they're sleeping together?" I ask.

Bash shrugs. "I'd rather not think about it, to be honest."

"Fair enough." I turn back to our stack of luggage, then pause. "Hold on. Do you hear that?" There's music coming from somewhere, not quite loud enough for me to make out the lyrics. The rest of the street is suspiciously quiet.

It doesn't take long for us to find the source of the sound. People are moving around in the kitchen. Molly lets out a squeal of surprise when she sees us.

"You came back!" she exclaims and launches herself across the living room into my arms.

Bash is visibly bewildered. "You're… in my house."

"Coop had your spare key," Molly explains. She's still clinging to me like a limpet. "We've got a party set up in the backyard. Oh my God, I'm so excited! Sage is back!"

From the kitchen, Layla adds, "I didn't have a lot of time to plan it, but we figured we should be here either way… to celebrate your return or make Bash feel better if you turned him down."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Bash complains, but he's grinning from ear to ear. "I love you guys."

We help Layla and Molly carry an armload of containers from the fridge through the sliding glass door out back. The whole team is back there, along with Cash and Marco and all the wives. Viv screams my name when she sees me and comes running. I barely have time to dump the Tupperware on the picnic table before she collides with me.

"Welcome home!" she says, echoing the words of the banner flying above her head. Even as I hug her, I catch Bash's eye. He grins, and I realize that Viv is right.

Bash and I are home. Wherever he is, that's where I belong. I don't have to choose between the things I love. I just have to choose to love them.

And I chose Bash. Even better, we chose each other.