“The guy you were engaged to?”
I ran my hands up and down his ribs like I was trying to soothe a wild animal and gave a little nod. “Yeah. Apparently the girl he was engaged to turned the tables on him and did the exact same thing to him that he did to me. I guess he was just looking for someone to commiserate with.”
“Why are you just telling me this now?” I didn’t like the note of accusation in his tone, so I dug the edge of my fingernails into his flesh.
“Because I deleted it. I don’t care about him or anything he has to say to me. It was a long time ago, and at one point in time all I wanted was for him to apologize and realize how badly he hurt me. Now I don’t need it. Now I have you.”
I narrowed my eyes right back at him.
“Plus you didn’t tell me about the truck or the fact that you have some pissed-off biker all over your ass looking for retribution because you didn’t want me to worry about it. It’s the same thing, big guy.”
“No, Cora, it sure the hell is not.” He rolled us over so that I was sitting upright on him. He crossed his arms behind his head and continued to glower up at me. This was the weirdest position I had ever been in while having an argument in my life. I was annoyed at him, but apparently all my lady parts were tired of being full of all that delightful flesh and not doing anything productive with it. I could feel my inner walls start to ripple along his cock. And of course Rome being the superhero that he was had no problem turning around and getting hard again.
“I wasn’t in love with that little biker punk. I didn’t agree to marry him. He didn’t break my heart into a million pieces, making it hard for me to see what is right in front of me. This guy isn’t just your ex, Cora. He changed your life.”
I frowned at him because I didn’t like that he could read between the lines that easily.
“I see you, Rome.” I grabbed one of his hands and put it on my belly. “It’s kind of impossible not to. And when it comes to life-changing, you win. Hands down.”
He took his other hand from behind his head and put it on the other side of the gentle swell so that the little bump was framed in his palms.
“I know you see me, Cora. But do you just see me as this kid’s dad? Do you just see me as a guy with a shit ton of problems slowly trying to figure it out? Do you see me as someone that is just okay for now because you know how much I care for you and that baby and something better might come along? Or do you see me as yours, as someone you are going to be with for the long haul? Because if you are just riding this out until your Mr. Perfect comes along, I got news for you … he’s going to have a hell of a fight on his hands getting through me.”
I just stared at him because I couldn’t think of anything to say. All I wanted was for a guy to be one hundred percent in it with me, and here this amazing man was demanding the same thing from me. Like I said, Rome won in the game of life-changing every time.
“I see all of it, Rome, and whatever it ends up looking like is already perfect. This”—I put my hand over his heart and made sure he could feel me squeeze him from the inside—“is as perfect as it gets. You’re my guy, no one else does to me or for me what you do, and that’s all there is to it. I didn’t know what perfect meant until you.”
I couldn’t tell him I loved him yet. I still wasn’t ready to take that leap, but I sure could show him and hope he understood the message I was trying to say with my body. I saw Rome Archer as clearly I saw my own face in the mirror. He was just simply the best of all the imperfect things I could ever have asked for. I could only hope that he wouldn’t get sick of waiting for me to put my fear to rest and tell him exactly how I felt.
CHAPTER 14
Rome
The digital jukebox I just paid a mint for was playing the Eagles and my brother was acting more twitchy and irritable than normal. He had an untouched beer in front of him, and every time I asked him if he was all right, he just glared at me. I don’t know why he was down here when the bar he usually hit up with the guys was right outside the shop on the Hill, but I could see that he wanted to talk about something; he just needed to get there in his own time.
Asa was busy chatting up a really pretty coed at the other end of the bar, and Dixie, the very sexy redhead he had convinced me to hire not just to help him out, but to cocktail the floor because it was getting that busy, was taking care of the rest of the customers. I poured myself a soda, checked to make sure Darcy was doing okay in the kitchen with the dinnertime rush, and went to plop down next to my little brother. His pale eyes flashed up to me and his mouth pulled down in a frown.
“You and Tink have any luck finding a place you both like?”
“No.” I wanted to stay on the Hill and she wanted to stay in Wash Park. We both agreed we needed to find a house to rent with a backyard and a garage, but that was about all we agreed on.
“Aren’t you worried about taking such a big step with someone you haven’t really known that long?”
I snorted and looked at him out of the corner of my eye.
“I think having a kid is a little bit more of a major step than just moving in together. It’s what needs to happen. I love her, Rule.”
He nodded his head and wrapped his hands around his beer.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately.”
I lifted my eyebrow. “The fact that I love Cora?”
He made a face and elbowed me in the side, which caused me to grunt.
“No. The fact that I love Shaw. I never thought I would feel about anyone the way I feel about her, ya know. She is just … my whole f**king world.”
I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I know. I can see it. I’m superproud of you for figuring it out. I know I was hard on you when I got back and that wasn’t fair. You’re amazing together.”
He gulped and the frost in his eyes thawed just the barest fraction.
“I want her forever.”
“Pretty sure you got her.”
“I want to ask her to marry me.”
I almost fell off my stool. Not because I didn’t think he loved Shaw, or that he would make an awesome husband, but because he was my impulsive, wild, unhinged little brother. Rule was not a guy that I ever thought would settle into the role of responsible homeowner and faithful husband. I just stared at him until he got mad and snapped.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just never thought I would hear you say that. Has she been hinting that she wants you to ask her?”
He shook his head and took a healthy slug of beer. The beer signs were making his typically wild hair even more outrageous with the neon lights shining on the white strands.
“No. She’s perfect. She doesn’t fuss, doesn’t nag, she trusts me absolutely no matter how dumb I act, and she never, ever holds the past against me. Which, come on, it would be really easy for her to do. On top of it, she’s mind-blowing in bed and I can’t keep my hands off of her. She’s too good to be true, so why would she want to spend the rest of her life with me?”
I thought the answer was easy. Shaw had loved Rule forever. For longer than he probably really knew. He was it for her and always had been. I had never seen Rule self-conscious or in doubt like this. It was eye-opening. He really did love that little girl as much as she loved him.
“Just ask her. She’s going to say yes. She loves you. She has always been in love with you and she will always be in love with you. For her, you were too good to be true as well. You’re both lucky to have each other.”
He dropped his head in his hands and sighed. The knuckles of his hand that had Shaw’s name inked across them caught my eye. I pointed to them.
“You have her with you forever already, a ring isn’t going to make that much of a difference, bro.”
“I need to wait until she’s done with school next semester. She needs to graduate and focus on starting med school. I don’t want her worrying about me or a wedding while she does it. Honestly, talking to Lando made me start thinking about it. God forbid something happened to me or to her. I want everyone on the planet to know how much she means to me. How she changed my life and made me want to be a better man for her and her alone.”
I shook my head in the negative when Asa lined up a round of shots on the bar rail and lifted an eyebrow to ask if I wanted one. I was doing pretty well with the no-drinking thing. I had a beer here and there, did a shot with Asa at the end of the night occasionally, but for the most part I was too busy with the actual running of the bar and keeping an eye on the customers to get tempted. Plus having easy access to my pixie and her particular brand of help with my stress management was so much more fun—and a much more healing balm for my soul—that vodka and the inevitable hangover held zero appeal.
“Rule, she’s always been an Archer. Putting a rock on her finger is just a formality. No one doubts how much you care about her, or that you are committed to her and her alone. Screw her obnoxious family and whatever headache Mom and Dad might want to cause, you want her forever, ask her.”
He looked up at me and lifted both of his eyebrows in question. The barbells that decorated them looked like they were winking at me.
“So you don’t think you want to marry Cora? You’re just gonna knock her up and live in sin?” Coming from anyone else, that would’ve pissed me off. Coming from him and hearing the humor underlying his tone, I was able to take it for what it was worth. I shoved him hard, which made him laugh at me.
“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s hard enough trying to make a new relationship work with an unexpected baby on the way.”
“Yeah. How exactly did that happen? You used to shove condoms in my pockets before I snuck out of the house at night. You drilled safe sex into me before I ever even saw a girl topless. It seems pretty against character for you to have an accident of that kind of proportion.”
I crossed my arms on the newly finished bar and leaned on the rail. I looked at my hands, the scars that dotted them.
“Sometimes things are just meant to be. I never thought about having kids, never thought about the kind of girl I would want to settle down with, never thought much beyond the next mission, and then when I got home it was beyond the next endless day. Everything was all shades of gray and I was just disappearing into the fog. I thought I needed direction, needed something to define me. I didn’t. I don’t. I can just be a guy, a guy that messes up, but as long as I’m accountable, that’s okay.”
Rule finished his beer and put his hands on my shoulders so that we were eye to eye.
“You will NEVER just be a guy, Rome. You’re the best brother a guy could have. You’re a f**king hero. No one, and I mean no one, has ever had my back the way you have. You are an incredible person, be it in the army fighting a war or sitting on the goddamn couch watching the game. Don’t forget it.”
He was serious and that was important to me. We had always been close, but after learning about Remy and trying to navigate how I fit into his life now that he had Shaw, I had let distance and my own pride come between us.
I clicked the edge of my glass against the edge of his beer mug.
“I lucked out in the brother department as well. Not only do I think you will make a rocking husband, but I think you’ll be that baby’s favorite uncle.”
He laughed and turned around so that he was looking out into the bar. “Won’t I be the only uncle? Cora is an only child.”
“Semantics.” I copied his pose and was going to see if I could work any info out of him about Cora’s ex when the door to the bar opened and we both went stiff and on high alert. Now that I wasn’t under the pool table, I had no problem recognizing Torch and his lieutenants from the motorcycle club. Not that there was any missing those cuts or the badass biker vibe that rolled right in with them.