23. 22 - Goodbyes are Hard

22 - Goodbyes are Hard

It took two more weeks before we could have Tash’s funeral. Just before we left to go we received the confirmation we’d been waiting for. Dina was not Josh’s daughter. Reesa stared down at the results for a few long moments before she looked back up. “He put us through all this for nothing.”

“At least you know. Maybe knowing that goes a little toward you being able to forgive him.” My woman was too smart to not have worked out what I already put together.

“He wouldn’t have scrambled to get that money to Terry if there wasn’t a chance that Dina was his. He cheated on me, and he did it early on before we even married. Who knows if he did it again later on? He had already gotten away with it back then, so he could have done it again.”

“At least Dina no longer goes to the school.” Terry had been killed in the crossfire between Trouble and the Martinelli Mafia. According to Trinity and Trouble, he had been the one to take her out and no one from our club felt the least bit bad about it considering she murdered Tash when she thought it was my woman, and possibly her children, in the car. The kids had been sent to live with a grandparent in Tennessee, and with any luck, they wouldn’t be back. None of us needed to run into a living reminder of what happened when we accidentally crossed paths with them.

We stood around at the gravesite and listened to some preacher talk about young lives lost far too soon and I wanted to punch the fucker and make him shut up. Spike stood stoically beside his boys. Each of them wore a similar outfit. They all three wore black jeans, boots, and a white t-shirt. Spike wore his kutte. Diesel wore his mother’s kutte, which swamped him. Griffon wore a prospect kutte for the Aces High MC.

Griffon technically couldn’t become a member until he turned 18, but he was a few months away from 17 and got his motorcycle endorsement on his license. Quickshot approved his request early so that he could wear a kutte at the graveside service. When it came time to say our final goodbyes, everyone moved in a line to drop a white rose on Tash’s casket. As it was lowered into the ground, Diesel took his mom’s kutte off and dropped it in with all the roses.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd as all the women who had been friends with her started bawling when we heard Jamie call out from somewhere in the back, “Where is Tash? She should be here for this.” Ghost and Sweet, who had come back without his kids to attend the funeral, had to physically remove her before she upset anyone else.

It was like the women of their MC were mourning multiple fallen members. MiMi was gone too. She took her own life while in our cell. We were trying to figure out what to do with her, because in her own way, she was just as fucked up as Angel Girl had been. Her brain never fully came back from the last brutal attack she suffered at the hands of the traffickers the women of S.H.E. took out.

After Ghost took his daughter out of the cells, MiMi stripped naked and used her clothes as a makeshift noose. She hung herself in the cell and Quickshot found her the next day.

The girls lost her in the wake of Tash’s death and in a way, they had already lost their fearless leader to her disease. It was a tough day full of goodbyes. I made my way to the side of my best friend. “You ready to get out of here?”

“I can’t believe she’s gone.” I stood there with him staring at the hole in the earth that swallowed her coffin up a few moments ago. Ree had already swept the boys up and took them down to the line of Harleys that were waiting on Spike to lead them away from the final goodbye for Tash.

“Fuck, how do I leave her here? We wouldn’t have made it, man. She was dead set on ending things between us, but we were still friends. I still loved her. She’s my son’s mom and he won’t grow up with her now. I have so many conflicting feelings and I don’t know how to walk away and leave her in the fucking ground.”

“There’s no good way to do it. Let’s go get your son strapped in with you, so you can make sure he gets to hang onto the memory of her memorial ride with his dad.”

We turned and looked down the hill to where everyone waited on him. The two rows of motorcycles lined the entire road into the cemetery. Riders waited and once they noticed that Spike started down the hill from where Tash was buried, they started their machines up and revved them. The noise rumbled through the ground and rattled our bones as we made our way down to our own motorcycles. Once he was on, we helped Diesel into the seat in front of Spike and strapped him into the specialized harness he had made to make sure his son was safe on the ride.

“Hands up, son.” Diesel reached up and held onto the lower portion of the handlebar as his father straightened up and stood his Harley straight. He let Diesel reach up and rev the engine for him. That was the signal for everyone else to start it up again. The sound of all those engines roaring drowned out the sadness for just a moment. Then, Spike took off into the lead and I followed behind him with Griffon at my side on a much smaller bike. Quickshot and Keys followed and then JoJo and Steel.

I wished Ree was on the back with me for this ride, but she had volunteered to go back to the clubhouse early with and the prospects to watch all the kids that couldn’t go on the memorial ride. I had plans to thank her for the sacrifice. Those plans involved her on the back of my bike and a ride to the house I bought for us. It had a little more room for everyone and extra space to accommodate guests.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a good surprise, just hold on and enjoy the ride, it’s part of the experience.”

“I wish I could have gone with you earlier today.”

“Me too, baby. Thank you for taking on the kids for everyone, though. I know the club appreciated it.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t be there tonight?”

I shook my head. There was a wake at the S.H.E. MC clubhouse, but we were skipping it because our little trip was time sensitive. Once I got Ree geared up with her helmet and the leather jacket that had my property patch on the back of it, the sun had already drawn down too low in the sky. I meant to get her there before sunset.

“Hang on to me,” I instructed as I pulled her arms around my midsection and clasped her hands together. “Lock your fingers for the first ride. When I lean, you lean with me. We won’t tip over, I promise.”

“Okay, I trust you.”

“Fuck baby, nothing sounds better than you telling me that.”

“It’s the truth, honey.”

‘Hang on tight,” I reiterated and then I revved my Harley and took off. Reesa giggled happily as we picked up speed.

“Oh my God, this is amazing,” she shouted, not realizing that we were connected with the inner helmet microphone and speakers. I glanced into the rearview mirror and saw her grin with her head back. “Wish I could take the helmet off and just feel the wind blow over me.”

“Your hair will thank you for tying it back and having the helmet on.”

Her arms squeezed tighter around me as she leaned into the curve with me. She felt like heaven at my back and took the bike like a natural. I didn’t even mind sounding like a pussy when I thought about how my heart fucking soared as we rode toward our future together.

It took another fifteen minutes to get to the house I’d purchased. It was an older cabin but had recently been updated and modernized. When we rolled up the drive, she squeezed me with her legs too.

“Where are we?”

“We’re home, baby.”

“Home?”

“Yeah, welcome home.”

“Wait, this house is for us?”

“This house is for our family, Ree.”

The minute I parked and put the kickstand down, my woman jumped off the bike and ran to the porch but thought better of it and turned to wait patiently for me to catch up to her. I don’t think she even realized she still wore her helmet.

I reached up and unfastened the helmet and gently pulled it from her head. I leaned down to set it on the porch, then took her hand in mind as we climbed the five steps up to the wraparound porch. Once we got up there, Reesa turned around and wrapped my arms around her body. She leaned her back into my chest and we stood there and watched the rest of the sun set behind the mountains off on the horizon.

“Nothing beats that view,” Reesa whispered.

“I don’t know, my view is a little bit better.” She leaned back and cocked her head to look up at me. I was staring down at her. Her smile met my own and then she rose up on her toes and kissed me.

We lingered in that kiss for a few minutes before I spun her out and brought her back to me. We danced there on the porch to the sounds of nature as the light dimmed further and the first stars finally made themselves known.

“We should probably go inside now.” I suggested. Reesa sighed and bobbed her head in agreement.

“I can’t believe you bought this place.”

“When I saw it, I wanted to bring you to get your opinion, but it was perfect and there was another couple ready to put in an offer. I had to jump on it or lose it.”

“I’m glad you jumped.”

“Me too, baby, come see.” We made our way inside the house, and I showed her around. The first floor consisted of a large living room that flowed into the dining area and then the big open-concept farmhouse kitchen. All the appliances were state of the art and brand fucking new. There was a large mud room on the backside of the house that also had a laundry room in it. The master bedroom was downstairs as well. It was twice the size of Ree’s room in the house she rented and had an ensuite bathroom with a shower big enough to throw a party in. There was also a tub in there I couldn’t wait to try out with her.

“This place is amazing, Walker.”

“Glad you think so. Wanna see the upstairs?”

“What’s up there?”

“Four bedrooms and two bathrooms.”

“Kids rooms?” She asked.

“Yeah, baby.”

“Let’s wait. I want to see them for the first time with the kids.”

“As you wish.”

“You already got furniture for our bedroom,” she pointed out.

“I hoped we could put it to good use since Trinity has the kids tonight.”

“That sounds like the best plan ever, honey.”

I took her face in my hands and brought my mouth down on hers to seal the idea with a kiss. “I love you.”

“Not possibly as much as I love you.”

“Maybe more,” I argued.”

“It feels wrong to be this happy when everyone else has lost so much over the past month.”

“We can’t live in the grief, baby. None of them would want us to.”

“Still, it feels like we need to appreciate all these little moments that much more. Thank you for bringing me here tonight and making it special between us.”

“We’ll make it just as special for the kids when we bring them out here tomorrow.” I backed her up toward the bed. “For now, I think we really need to test this bed out to make sure it’s the one we want to stick with.”

“How do you propose we do that?”

“The guy at the store suggested that a vigorous workout on the mattress might give us a really good idea of just how worth it the thing is.”

“Is that so?” I answered with an emphatic nod of my head which made Ree laugh. “In that case, maybe we should also do it naked, so we have room to move all over.”

“You’re so damn smart, baby. That’s the best idea you’ve had yet.”

She rolled her eyes at me just before pulling her shirt up and over her head. “It’s like Christmas every time you do that.”

“Do what?” She giggled as she kicked her shoes off.

“Strip down to those lacey bras you love so much.”

“I think you mean lacey bras you love so much.”

“That too.” I made a grabby hands gesture toward Ree, but she shook her head.

“Nope, I think you forgot that you’re supposed to get naked too. It’s not fair if I’m the only one.”

There was no need to argue that point. The less clothes between us meant the closer I was to being in my favorite place in the whole fucking world. There was nothing better than being inside my woman as she hit another orgasm while wrapped around my cock.

“Thinking awfully hard over there,” Ree teased.

“Oh, something’s hard, but it ain’t my thoughts, baby.”

She crooked her finger at me, and I obliged. Once we closed the distance between us, I pulled her up tight to my body and placed her hand over the middle of my chest, directly over the gargoyle who had guarded my fucking heart until this beautiful woman became infatuated with both of us. “You feel that?” I asked her. She smiled up at me and nodded her head. “It’s yours for as long as you want it.”

“What if I said I want it to be mine forever?”

“Then you’d make me the happiest man in the world, whether I deserved it or not.”

“You more than deserve it, Walker. We deserve everything we make of this life together.”

“I really want to believe that.”

“Then hold onto me tight, honey. I’m going to make you so happy you’ll never doubt it again.”

“Fuck, I love you. Come here and let me show you how much.” I laid her down on our new bed and made love to my woman in our new house with so much fucking hope in my heart I almost forgot what it was like to wake up in the morning to find myself still in that prospect patch wondering if I should even go on living.

“Mine forever, Ree.”

“Okay, honey. That sounds perfect.”