“I think my brain might literally be fried,” Isabel groans, shutting her laptop.

“Last one, though, right?” I ask. “Now you have a month to recover before spring term.”

“It might not be long enough,” she sighs. “That was the hardest exam I’ve ever taken. God, I hate statistics.”

“Good thing you’re shut of it, then,” I say, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. “Time to officially begin your Christmas break. Up you go. Let’s get a move on.”

“What are you talking about?” Isabel turns to look up at me, confusion on her face.

“I’m taking you on a Christmas holiday,” I reply. “Bags are packed and in the car. Come on, let’s go.”

“Are you kidding?” She looks bewildered.

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” I shoot back, giving her a severe look. “Now, up with you. Don’t make me lose my temper. I’m not a man who’s used to being disobeyed.”

I’ve been planning this trip for over a month. Somehow, I’ve managed to keep it a surprise from Isabel all this time. This is the end of her first term back at college, and successful completion of all her classes calls for a celebration. She’s enrolled in an online associates degree program to become a nurse. She’s still working on her prerequisites at the moment, but — with the exception of statistics — she seems to really like it so far. When she’s not working on her online classes, she’s racking up volunteer hours at the local hospital. She’s worked incredibly hard this term, and I couldn’t be more proud of her.

“Where are we going?” Isabel asks as I hustle her out to the garage and pile her into the car.

“It’s a surprise.”

“Seriously?” Isabel’s mouth quirks up at me as I shut her door and go round to the other side.

“Yes, seriously. Now, settle in and stop asking questions. We’ll be in the car for a bit.”

It’s about an hour’s drive to where we’re going, but I don’t tell that to Isabel. In fact, I don’t tell her anything else at all, despite the fact she’s badgering me like crazy for the first twenty minutes. Eventually, she realizes I really am not going to divulge my secret, and begins to pout visibly until I laugh at her and tell her she’s worse than a little kid.

It actually takes her much longer than it should to figure out our destination. But I can’t say I fault her for that. After all, the last time she came here, she was blindfolded the entire way. I keep stealing glances over at her to see when the light bulb is going to come on. She finally puts two and two together when I slow down on a two-lane highway and turn into a driveway that’s barely even visible from the road.

“Thorn!” she cries, her eyes shining. “Oh my gosh! We’re going to the safe house!”

“We call it Connegut,” I tell her. “Because of the river it’s on. I thought we’d spend a week or so here. Go back to Tanner Springs a day or two after Christmas.”

She lets out a little scream and bounces up and down in her seat a couple of times. “This is so perfect! I love this so much!”

This trip to Connegut is the last vacation we’re likely to get together, before all hell breaks loose with the wedding in the spring. We’re planning it for right after the end of Isabel’s classes in May. Alix, Samantha, Sydney, Jenna, and Isabel’s friend Deb have been doing most of the work, truth be told. My ma has been calling me weekly, to make sure Isabel hasn’t come to her senses and called it all off. Ma’s been putting off buying her ticket from Ireland until the last minute, even though Isabel has assured her repeatedly she’s not going anywhere. Even Isabel’s mother herself is making the trip back from Venezuela for the ceremony.

The Lords of Carnage will all be there, of course, as well as their old ladies and their families. And the Death Devils. Isabel jokes it’ll be like a royal wedding. The joining of two houses, and all that shite.

As we pull up to the house in the late afternoon, it’s just starting to get dark. All sorts of memories come flooding back to me, and looking over at Isabel I can tell they are for her, too. This is where it all started for us. Where I learned to hate her. And then, where I learned to love her.

We work as a team, carrying our bags and the groceries I packed into the house. The familiar musty smell greets us the second we walk in the door. I turn on the heat, and go out go haul in some firewood from the pile by the side of the house. When I come back in with an armload to start a fire, Isabel looks up from putting groceries away and smiles.

“You know, I used to watch you from the window while you were chopping wood,” she grins.

“I went out there to get the hell away from you.” I shake my head.

“God, you were an asshole when we first got here,” Isabel laughs. She stands in the middle of the kitchen and twirls around, like a kid trying to get dizzy. “So cranky and brooding all the time.”

“I was trying to keep my mind off how much I wanted to get into your pants,” I point out. “Trying to keep my distance. Making you hate me was part of the strategy.”

Her eyes twinkle. “After that first time we had sex, I started dressing skimpier, to try to tempt you into doing it again.”

I come up and wrap my arms around her from behind. “You little vixen,” I chastise her, and nip at her earlobe. “Well, it worked like a charm, so I hope you’re happy.”

“Very,” she sighs. “You know, we should have started having sex way earlier,” she continues dreamily. “Think of how many hours of boredom we could have saved ourselves. God, remember how bored we were? And you wouldn’t even play cards with me or anything!”

“I don’t remember refusing to play cards with you,” I frown. “Why would I do that? Are you sure you aren’t making things up?”

“Yes you did!” she insists. “Look, I distinctly remember finding cards in this drawer over here and asking you.” Isabel crosses the room and goes to the end table next to the couch. Flopping down on the floor, she opens it.

“What’re you doing?”

“Looking for a game to play!”

I’m perplexed. “You want to play a game? Are you joking? Don’t you think we can find better ways to spend our time?”

But Isabel sees what she wants and lets out a shout of triumph.

“Candyland!” she crows gleefully, holding up a box and shaking at me.

“What’re you playing at?” I frown. “What the hell is Candyland?”

“Are you kidding me? You mean you never played this?”

“I think I’d remember if I’d played something with a bollocks name like fuckin’ Candyland!”

“It’s a little kids game,” she explains. “It’s for like three year-olds. You don’t need to know how to do anything except count to two, and know your colors.” Isabel stands and sets the game on the coffee table. “We are totally playing this later.”

“You cannot be asking me to play a game for three year-olds, Isabel,” I protest, giving her my best cross look.

She cocks her head winks at me deviously. “How about strip Candyland, then?”

Isabel shoots me a dazzling grin, and just like that, I’m a goner.

“Fine,” I sigh, mock-rolling my eyes. “We’ll play your game.”

Which we do. After dinner, Isabel sets out the board and the pieces and the little cards, and I’m playing fucking strip Candyland like it’s a totally normal way to spend an evening. We have to make up the rules as we go along, of course, because the game is not exactly set up for this. At first, I’m regretting that I ever agreed to any of it. But then Isabel has to take off her shirt, and things start to get more interesting.

Somewhere around the middle of the game, Isabel points to something out the window. It’s started to snow outside, in big, chicken-feather flakes. It’s fucking beautiful. As we look at it together, I realize I’m happy as hell just being here with Isabel.

God, I used to hate this place. It almost makes me laugh now. But Isabel has changed that. Just like she’s transformed almost every other aspect of my life. Now, I could almost stay here indefinitely, as long as she was here with me. Just the two of us, hidden away from the world.

Turns out, I’m better at strip Candyland than a man has any right to be. Eventually, Isabel is in her bra and panties, and I’m about to go fucking mad, sitting there and doing nothing about it. But she’s insisting we have to finish the game, and having what is clearly a spectacular time winding me up.

“Ha!” she says during her turn. She holds out the card she’s just picked up and shows me. Two red squares — that means I have to take something off. I’m still pretty much fully clothed except for boots, socks, and my cut, so it’s time to remove my shirt. Which means it’s time to show her my little surprise.

“So, I’ve got an early Christmas present for you,” I tell her.

Isabel rolls her eyes. “You’re just stalling for time.”

“Not at all.” I reach down to the hem of my shirt.

“Ooh, I’m liking this present already!” she grins. “But don’t be dishonest. I won your shirt fair and square.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” I mock-bark at her. “And anyway, the shirt isn’t the present. This is.”

I pull off my shirt the rest of the way, revealing a bandage over my right pec. Isabel watches in confusion as I remove the tape to show her the tattoo I got done this morning at Rebel Ink, while she was studying for her last exam.

It’s a starfish.

Isabel’s eyes grow wide, her lips parting in surprised wonder.

“It seemed about time I got ink that represented you,” I say. “I couldn’t think of anything better than this. Your ma was right: you’re the sea and the stars, Isabel. But you’re also the creature that regenerates. You’re resilient. You’re unstoppable.” I take her into my arms. “Best of all, you’re mine.”

Isabel’s eyes are glowing in the light of the fire. “Yes, I am.” She presses against me, her eyes growing hooded with desire. “I forfeit the game,” she whispers to me. “Take me to bed, Mr. O’Malley.”

* * *

“So, as it turns out, I sort of like Candyland,” I say afterwards.

Isabel laughs, still breathing raggedly. “That’s not exactly the way you’re meant to play it. It’s significantly more fun this way.” She lays her head on my chest. “It’s funny that there’d be a kids’ game here, at an MC safe house.”

I shrug. “Some of the Lords have kids. I imagine one of the families left it up here.”

A moment of comfortable silence passes between us. We haven’t talked about kids before, but I know they’ll be coming sooner or later. There was a time when I would have said that was the last thing I’d ever want. But that was before I met Isabel. Before I had a home.

“I can picture you,” she whispers. “Playing Candyland with a miniature version of you.”

“Or of you,” I point out.

“No. I want a boy first.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “Named James. Jimmy.”

My heart catches in my throat at the mention of my cousin. The cousin I couldn’t protect. For the first time since it happened all those years ago, the thought of him doesn’t send a slice of pain through me.

I’ll always wish things had been different. That I could have seen Jimmy grow up. Become a man. Have a family of his own. Be a father. Maybe do a better job of it than most of the people around us managed to do.

If I’d been able to save Jimmy, I’d have never come to the States. Never joined the Lords. Never met Isabel.

“Jimmy, eh?” ask. The words come out hoarse. “Yeah, I could do that.”

The time has come to stop regretting what could have been.

Living in the past will never bring Jimmy back. I can’t bring him back.

But maybe in some small way, naming his future cousin after him will.

Together, Isabel and I can do our best to make his memory live on.