Brawn

 

“Is that the last of it?” I asked Maria as I came outside and put the last box of her things in the back of the truck.

 

“That’s it,” she said with a big glowing smile on her face. I wanted to kiss those lips, but in my bed, not in Kelly’s front yard.

 

“What about your furniture?” I asked her. “Everything’s still up there.”

 

“I’ll get new furniture. None of that was really mine anyway,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand as she opened the passenger side door of the truck.

 

“Are you sure? You know, once we leave today, I’m never coming back here,” I told her.

 

“I’m sure. Let’s go,” she said, encouraging me to get in the truck with her.

 

I hopped in and cranked up the A/C. The cool air froze against my sweat, cooling me off. I sank into the seat and sighed.

 

Maria grabbed and squeezed my hand. “Come on, baby, let’s go,” she said.

 

I liked this new Maria. She’d been more openly affectionate with me since I’d pulled her out of the warehouse. It was definitely a new phase of our relationship. I hoped it meant we were going to be talking about our status before too much longer.

 

I pulled out of her yard and started driving away from her old house, away from her old life. We had both come a long way over the last few months. She was going to pursue something besides nursing in school. I was going to pursue a leadership role in the MC once I got my promotion. Things were really looking up for both of us.

 

I drove her back to my house, where I unloaded the truck while she held the door for me. Luckily, I wasn’t having to lug her boxes back upstairs. I was taking them straight into the house and putting them in the extra bedroom, which was going to become her personal room for the time being, until we could talk things over and decide how to redo the whole house.

 

I couldn’t believe I was letting her move in full-time. Our life together was going beyond working together and trying to help each other succeed. Work and school no longer made up all of it.

 

When I pulled the last box in, she closed the door behind me and followed me to her room. I put the last box on top of the stack of boxes in the corner and stepped back to look at them.

 

“My whole life,” she said. “Or at least the important parts. It’s all in those boxes.”

 

“Not all of it,” I said, turning around and pulling her into my arms. Sometimes I found it easy to forget how much shorter than me she was, but when I held her close to me, her head rested perfectly on my chest. I put a finger under her chin and lifted her face to mine. I leaned down and kissed her. Our lips met tenderly and lingered for a moment before we pulled apart from each other. “I’m glad you’re here,” I told her.

 

“Me too,” she agreed.

 

“I think it’s time for us to talk,” I said in a more serious tone.

 

“I think so, too.”

 

“Good. Come on.” I took her hand and walked her into the dining room, where we sat at the table, across from each other.

 

“This feels so official,” she remarked, laughing.

 

“It almost feels like it should be, doesn’t it?” I asked her.

 

“It does, oddly enough,” she laughed.

 

“Maybe that’s because we’ve spent so much time fooling ourselves into thinking this whole thing was official. You know, we’ve been treating our relationship like it’s just business this whole time, ignoring a lot of things we both feel, and ignoring where our relationship is going naturally,” I said.

 

She blinked and opened her eyes wide. “You said a mouthful,” she told me with a chuckle.

 

I knew I had to be the one to set the tone, so I decided to start over. I reached across the table and took her hand. I stared deep into her beautiful eyes. The golden afternoon light coming in from my kitchen window got caught in her hair and set it ablaze. She was, quite possibly, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. “Okay, how do I say this?” I asked.

 

“Just say it,” she said thoughtfully.

 

I smiled. “Thank you for that.”

 

“You’re welcome. Anything I can do to help.”

 

I laughed. “We get along really well, don’t we?” I asked her.

 

“It would seem so,” she answered, looking at me with a playful smile on her face.

 

“Maybe a little too well sometimes, I guess,” I said. “I’m trying to be serious here, and we can’t stop cracking jokes at each other for two minutes.”

 

She made a serious face. “I’m sorry. I’ll be serious.”

 

“Now that you’re back — now that things have gotten completely out of hand between us and with Lucas, I think it’s time for us to define a few things about who and what we are,” I started again.

 

“Okay, I agree. I think we’ve waited entirely too long.” She looked at me with a certain light in her eyes that said she was waiting on me to say it for her. She wanted me to be the man and take charge, her independence be damned.

 

“First, I don’t want you going off again. I don’t want you to leave. I know you’ve been ‘staying’ here, but I want it to be more than that.” I made the quotation marks with my hands.

 

“What are you asking?” she asked me.

 

“I’m asking you to move in. Full-time, not just sleeping under the same roof. Sleeping under the same covers, in the same bed. I want you to live with me. I want to see you through school and help you achieve your dreams. I know we talked last night about you getting back to school and changing your major. If that’s what you want to do, you have my support, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to do that for me,” I said.

 

She wrapped her fingers tightly around mine and opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She stared and blinked at me like she couldn’t believe what I was saying, but also like she wanted to hear it.

 

“The job at the shop is always yours. You created that job. You helped me achieve my dream, and you helped make me a bigger part of the MC by doing it. You’ve done so much for me; I want you to be able to pursue your dreams, too. But I want you to do it from here, from our home,” I continued.

 

“Are you asking me what I think you’re asking me?” she finally said.

 

I smiled, and she blushed. Her face was so cute when her cheeks turned red. She pulled her hands up and covered the smile spreading across her face.

 

“Maria, I want you to be my old lady,” I said. “I want you to be by my side. You’re already my partner in crime, and we even teamed up to bring down a powerful local member of the mob who was more involved than anyone else had realized. You’ve used our relationship to strengthen my bond with The Twisted Ghosts. We’ve already been together for a few months now. You’re already my old lady, whether we’ve wanted to admit it or not, but I want you to call yourself that from now on,” I told her.

 

“I will,” she said. She threw her arms around my neck. “I’m yours, Brawn. I have been and I will continue to be.”

 

I kissed her deeply. Our lips pressed against each other, and our mouths opened to let our tongues tangle. I felt her pressing her body towards me. The table was between us, keeping us apart, or else we would have been tearing each other’s clothes off. We eventually pulled apart.

 

“Does this mean we can be affectionate in public now?” she asked.

 

“You tell me.”

 

“I’ve wanted to be for so long,” she said.

 

“Well, then, don’t get mad when I grab your ass in front of people or walk down the street with my arm wrapped around your waist,” I told her with a grin.

 

“So, what does this mean now?”

 

“This means I’m going to take you to the clubhouse and formally introduce you to the MC as my old lady. They need to know you as that. They need to know that we’ve finally admitted that our relationship has made it to that point.”

 

“What all does it mean, though?” she asked with a concerned look on her face all of a sudden. “The girls at the office have made it sound like the guys are really controlling.”

 

“It depends on the guy, and the old lady. Some of our old ladies run the show. You don’t tell them what to do. They tell you. Others are completely submissive to their men. I don’t see that being a problem between us. We are both very independent people. I think some of the guys already look at you as a member of the MC anyway, so you’ll fit in just fine,” I assured her.

 

“What about a kutte? Do I get to wear a vest?”

 

“You can wear a vest if you want, but you won’t get any colors as an old lady, and we don’t allow full female members.”

 

“So what’s the point of calling me something besides your girlfriend?” she asked.

 

“It’s different. There’s a different kind of loyalty in the MC. Not only do you have me, but you’ve got all the other old ladies, and you’ve got the members of the MC. If anything happens, we’ll all be there. We’re a family. Those are my brothers, and if you want to look at the other women as your sisters, that’s perfectly acceptable,” I explained.

 

“I never thought about it that way.”

 

“Yeah, that’s part of the appeal of the whole thing. You’ve got a lot of people who have your back, pretty much immediately. You know, we don’t accept full members lightly. And senior members, you’ve got to prove yourself before you get there. So, everyone who wears The Twisted Ghosts kutte with full colors has been vetted. We’ve all proven ourselves with full or senior members vouching for us. If you’re chosen by a member of the MC to be his old lady, all of his credentials sort of transfer over to you,” I explained.

 

“Wow. So, what you’re saying is, we’re reflections of each other in the MC,” she clarified.

 

“Pretty much, but it sounds a lot more complicated than it really is,” I explained.

 

“Yeah, it really does sound like a lot.” She’d started to sound nervous, like all this talk was scaring her away.

 

“It’s not. It’s just so simple that sometimes it takes a lot to explain it.”

 

“It doesn’t matter. I’m happy we’re finally together, and it’s finally official. We don’t have to hide it anymore,” she said with a smile on her face again. “I’m happy to know you feel the same way I do about you.”

 

I wanted to kiss her again. I wanted to put her on the table right there and take her again. I wanted to make her mine physically as well as emotionally. Sure, we’d slept together a couple of times already over the last few months, but we hadn’t actually been together. Not officially.

 

“Let’s get showered and everything. I want to take you by the clubhouse tonight to introduce you to everyone,” I said, distracting myself from my desire. I wanted to wait until the time was right.

 

“Can’t wait to show me off, huh?” she joked.

 

“Absolutely not. I want to make everyone jealous that I’ve got the hottest old lady there.”