Chapter Thirty
Rooster was nervous. He’d been called to the clubhouse by not only Liam but Tyler. He’d been involved in meetings before, but that was usually when he knew what the meeting was going to entail. These calls had come out of nowhere. He’d been at the gym and neither one of them would take no for an answer. Putting his backpack on his back, he hopped on his bike and did his best to obey all the traffic laws as he made his way out to the clubhouse.
Usually he enjoyed the drive down Porter Pike, but this time he couldn’t appreciate it. There were too many thoughts in his head, too many scenarios playing out. Before he realized it, he was pulling up at the clubhouse. He shut off his bike and sat on it for a few moments, trying to compose himself.
“C’mon, man, we’re waitin’ on you,” Steele told him from the doorway.
That was great, they were waiting on him. Shit. “I’m coming,” he yelled back, putting his helmet on the bike and running into the clubhouse. He looked around, not seeing anyone in the main room; he realized they were all in the meeting room. This shit could not be good. He walked in, taking his backpack off. “What’s up?”
Liam glanced up at him, his face stern, and his lips a thin line. “We’ve got some business to discuss, and we needed you here to do it.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. What the fuck had he done now? He did not have a good feeling about this. He wondered if he should take his backpack off his shoulders so that he would have a weapon to use if need be. Thinking better of it, he took it off, instead resting the pack in his lap. “Is there something I can help you all with?”
“Someone came to me yesterday, actually two people,” Liam started. “They aren’t in this club, but I care about them a great deal, and they wondered what it would take for us to patch a new member. This person they wanted to nominate has done a lot for us. He left the life and job he knew to come hang out with us. Some of us have taken the time to get to know him. Some of us have been wary of him, but I’m here to tell you this. If my sister and my son see what a great guy he is, then there’s no other doubt in my mind that we need him on our sides. So I bring up a vote. Should Rooster become a part of Heaven Hill?”
Rooster was blown away. Roni and Drew had spoken up for him, had gotten him a nomination. This was something he had never expected to happen, not in a million years. As they went around the table there were a ton of yesses and it was amazing to hear. It came back to Liam.
“We lost track of what was important as teenagers and young adults, but now that we’re older and hopefully wiser, I know that friends like you don’t come around every day. I’m blessed to have the family that I do and friends I have, but there’s always been something missing, and that’s you, man.” He reached underneath the table and pulled a box out. “If you want it, this is yours. There’s a property patch in there for Roni too. I know she wants to wear it, like yesterday.”
It was hard to talk past the tightness in his throat. He hadn’t been accepted in a long time. In his family, he had been the outcast who went to the camp for teenagers; on the force he’d been the one trying to do the right thing, but sometimes realizing it was the people who were sworn to protect that were wrong; and then even in this clubhouse at first people hadn’t wanted to trust him. Now he was getting that trust, and he didn’t know what the fuck to do with it. He opened the box and inhaled deeply as he saw the cut there. It had his name on it, along with the patch of the Heaven Hill MC. There was no prospect on this patch; he would be a full-fledged member.
“What do you say?” Travis asked from where he sat. “Be a part of this family. We both know the one you got ain’t doin’ you any favors.”
That was it in a nutshell. He needed to belong somewhere. He needed someone to care and he had it here. He had it at this table with this group of people. If he said yes, he’d never be alone again. Loner had never suited him, he’d felt on the outside looking in for too many years. He was going to embrace this with everything he had. “Can I put it on?” he asked, laughing to cover up his emotion.
“If you want to, but know that if you do, you’re a part of this now,” Liam told him. “No going back.”
“I don’t want to go back.” Rooster said it with conviction and honesty. The most honest thing he’d ever said in his life.
“Awesome,” Tyler said from where he sat next to Liam. “So, we’ll be getting you signed up for your first run next week.”
The group laughed, all starting to cut Rooster down as men tend to do when it gets too emotional. As they calmed and Rooster pulled the box closer to him, he saw the property patch there and knew that he had to go to her now. He had to tell her just what she meant to him.
Roni sat on her couch, flipping through her DVR, much like she had been doing back in March. It amazed her the difference a few months could make. Gone were the fears of being alone, gone was the not knowing what she was going to do with her life. Gone were the secrets that had plagued her for most of her adult hood. It felt good to breathe, good to just be. Pointing her remote to the TV, there was a loud knock at her door. “Shit,” she breathed, pressing the pause button.
“Roni, I know you’re in there.” It was Rooster, and she was having serious déjà vu.
“Give me a sec,” she laughed. Throwing the door open, that laugh caught in her throat when she saw what he wore. “They did it?”
“They did.” He nodded as he picked her up and spun her around.
She squealed with delight and hung onto his shoulders as he spun them until they were both dizzy.
“I came right over to tell you and to give you this.” He pulled the property patch out of his pocket. “Please tell me that you want this, please tell me you want to spend the rest of your life with me and do all that domestic shit I told myself I would never do.”
“As long as you want babies, because I really do, and I want to try as soon as possible.” There, it was out and she wouldn’t be able to take it back—better to know how he felt before she got too deep into this that she couldn’t get out.
“I’m glad you said that because I want it all with you. All that stuff we never got to have before because people and circumstances came in between us. It’s not there anymore and I want everything.” He cupped her face in his hands. “Tell me you want everything too.”
She bit her lip. “I do,” she squealed. “Is this real?”
“It’s as real as it’s ever gonna get.” He leaned in, kissing her hard, kissing her deep, kissing her thoroughly. “I wanted to make sure you knew I was real,” he joked as he pulled away, both of them breathing hard.
He was right. This was as real as it was ever going to get.