Epilogue

Noah

 

Several months later

 

Shannon sat on the back porch with our baby boy bouncing on her knee. I still didn’t understand how I’d gotten so lucky, but I stopped trying to figure it out. The summer heat wasn’t too unbearable, and we’d decided to grill. Jude and Tracy had come up for a visit, and with Tracy being six months pregnant, she had plenty of cravings. One being steak. We’d had it every night she’d arrived.

 

“Think my baby will be this cute?” Tracy asked, holding onto Jason’s pudgy hand.

 

“No, but he’ll be almost as cute,” Shannon teased.

 

It was good to hear her so comfortable and happy.

 

“Oh, don’t tease her,” Grandma Tina chastised with a grin. “No one will be as cute as this baby boy, not even close.”

 

“Thanks, ‘Grandma’,” Tracy said, moving in her seat again. Poor woman couldn’t get comfortable.

 

Tina laughed and gave Tracy a kiss on the cheek. “I’m teasing, sweetie.”

 

“You think you’ll survive being up here in suburbia?” Jude asked me when I handed him another beer.

 

“I have my bike shop and my family. What else could I want?”

 

“The thrill?”

 

I shook my head. “The risk? No way. I’m not doing anything that could jeopardize what I have right here,” I said, pointing at Shannon. She was too busy playing with Jason to realize I was staring at her.

 

“I think I get that.” Jude looked at his own woman. “She’s… I don’t know, like everything, you know? Like no matter what drama is going on at the club, I just want to get home to her.”

 

I nodded. “Yeah, that happens. You think you’ll ever leave it?”

 

He shook his head. “No, but I’m getting out of the courier shit. With Tommy being president now, I have more choices. I think I’m going to get work outside the club – not be so involved – but no, I don’t want to leave. And Tracy has a solid group of friends there.”

 

I could understand that. Maybe if Shannon had melded into my world better, I wouldn’t have wanted to leave either. But as it stood, my world was her world, and she belonged here.

 

Jude turned the steaks on the grill. “Man, when do the cravings at least change?”

 

I laughed. “Cravings aren’t anything. Just wait until the baby comes and you’re up every two hours helping with diapers and getting that kid to latch on to her tit.”

 

Jude looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “You do that?”

 

I smacked his shoulder. “A real man does that. Besides…” I took a pull of my beer. “I think her grandma would skin me alive if she found out I didn’t.”

 

Jude laughed.

 

It probably did look funny – a guy as big as me, as scary looking as me, confessing to getting up for diaper changes. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Shannon completely submitted to me in every way, and I was there for her in every way she needed.

 

Any other way would have been wrong.

 

THE END