Pinned Down: A Triple Threat Sports Romance (43 page)

He looked straight ahead like he was putting it together. “So you and Grayson got married and now you’re not married anymore?”

“That’s right.”

“How come, though? How come you had to not be married anymore?”

I sighed. “It’s very hard to explain, honey. Back then, when I was scared of the bad man, I didn’t know what I was doing. Sometimes grownups make bad choices. Like you know how sometimes I tell you you’ve got to make a choice. Like if you want to stay up late, but you have school in the morning, what do I tell you?”

“That I have to make a choice if I wanna be tired in the morning, or go to bed on time,” David said, repeating the words I’d spoken a hundred times.

“Right. That’s a choice. I made a bad one because I was scared. I thought I was doing the right thing, though. I thought I was keeping us all safe. And I did for a long time,” I pointed out. “But that’s all a story for another time. When you’re a little older, you’ll understand it better.”

He sighed. “I hope so. I don’t understand it now.”

Grayson chuckled. “I don’t understand it all, either,” he admitted. “Maybe, I don’t know, maybe we can figure it out together? You know, like if you wanna talk about it. We can do that.”

David looked up at his father, all shyness. “Okay. We can do that.” My heart just about exploded.

“It is okay that I’m your daddy? Are you unhappy about it?” Grayson asked.

David appeared to think it over—he was always so serious. He wasn’t like some kids, who would rush to judgment. He always appeared to think things through. “No,” he finally decided. “I like it. You’re funny and nice. And you saved Mama like you said you would.” It was a start. I wished I could go back to being a kid, when everything was that simple. You’re funny, you’re nice, and you kept your promise. That was all David needed. Why did the rest of us have to make things so complicated?

“Okay, big guy, I think that’s enough talking for one night. We’ll talk about it more in the morning. I just wanted you to know who your daddy was. I didn’t want you not to know anymore. You understand?”

“I understand.” I picked him up with the intent of putting him to bed. He stopped me.

“Can Grayson come, too?” Grayson’s smile, reminiscent of the one on his face when Cindy hugged him, told me everything I needed to know.

Epilogue I

Grayson

“Come on, already,” I muttered, while Tony fumbled with my bowtie. “I thought you said you knew how to do this.”

“I thought I did,” he muttered back, and I felt his fingers on the tie. He cursed, sighed, then tried again.

“Oh, my God. You’re gonna strangle me before you’re finished. Let me try.” I pulled away, looking in the mirror as I tried to fix it. “Can somebody please look up how to tie to bow tie online? It can’t be this hard. Come on. Somebody get my back today, huh?”

“Jesus,” Marco joked. “You’d think you never got married before.”

I shot him a look. “That was different back then. We didn’t do it right.”

“Seems to me you just get a license, have a ceremony, and you’re married.” Marco shrugged.

“Yeah, well, that’s how we did it before. I don’t know, I always felt like she might have missed out on something. Like she wanted to have a big wedding, even if she pretended like it didn’t matter. It did. I want her to have everything she wants from now on, even if that means I have to wear one of these fucking tuxedos.” I felt more uncomfortable than I ever had in my life. I didn’t think I ever wore so much clothing at one time, either. I had to fight the urge to pull at my collar. I felt like it was strangling me.

“I don’t see why you couldn’t have gotten married in your kutte,” Tony grumbled.

“You’re only pissed because she made you wear a tux, too,” I laughed.

“Whatever. She didn’t make me do shit.” We all waited for maybe three seconds before we burst out laughing. Tony’s big, round face went red. Jess hadn’t exactly been quiet in her insistence that Tony fall in line with what she wanted. She’d marched into the clubhouse with an order form in hand and told him if he didn’t go to the store to get fitted for a tux, she would take the measurements herself. He had lasted maybe ten minutes before he got on his bike, with her following in her car to make sure he actually went.

I looked around the room, at my crew. It meant a lot to me that they would all be there, watching me marry the woman I loved for the second time. When I was a kid, it had mattered, but I hadn’t understood a lot of what it meant to get married. I thought it was something people did, especially when they loved each other the way Jess and I had. I didn’t understand back then that there was more to it. It was a family thing, too, as much as it was between the two of us. We were joining our lives together. The guys were part of my life, and I wanted them to be there to watch me make the second best decision I never made. The first was marrying her the first time.

One of the guys finally found a YouTube video on how to do a bow tie, and I watched two or three times before I followed along with him. By the time I finished, it looked pretty good. “See? That wasn’t so hard,” I said, even though I felt a little sweaty. It was nerves, I told myself, or the restrictive fucking clothes I was wearing.

Tony muttered something about how he couldn’t wait to get out of his tux. “Come on, brother. It’s not that bad. I mean, you can’t stand it for a few hours? If that?”

“A few hours! I thought I could take it off after the ceremony! Oh, this is getting better and better.”

“I dare you to take that off after the ceremony and put on your regular clothes. If you think she would keep from clawing you because she didn’t want to get blood on her dress, think again.” Tony glared at me. “And if you don’t stop being a bitch about it, I’m gonna tell her that you whined the whole day.”

A knock at the door. “Come in.” Cindy stepped in, wearing her bridesmaid dress. She got a lot of whistles and catcalls, even though it was totally modest and down to the floor.

She smirked. “Nice example, guys. I wanted to bring David in. He said he wanted to be with the guys instead of the girls.” I looked around the room, and everybody knew from my face that they had to be on their best behavior.

David came in, looking pretty sharp in a matching tux. “Hey, your bow tie looks better than mine does, buddy.”

“It’s easy. See?” He showed me how the tie only clipped in place.

“What? You mean we could do that if we wanted to?” Tony asked.

“Yeah, if you’re eight years old, you can do that.” I rolled my eyes, then turned my attention back to my son. “How you holding up today, big guy? You look great.”

“Thanks. Mama helped me. You look good, too, Dad.”

“Thanks, buddy.” I gave him a hug. It still sounded weird, him calling me Dad. He had started with it maybe a few weeks after we told him who I was. Before then, he called me Grayson. Jess had worried about it, but I gave him time to get used to it. I wasn’t in any hurry. I knew I was his father, and that was what mattered. When he first called me “Dad,” it was off-hand. Like he didn’t mean to do it, but it just came out. He didn’t even seem to notice that he said it. But I did. And so did his mother, who ran into another room and cried her eyes out.

In the six months since then, it had gotten easier for him to say, and easier for me to hear. I loved him, but it was still a big mental jump to go from an outlaw to a father overnight.

“How’s your mom doing?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes, then whispered behind his hand. “She’s crazy.” He rolled the tip of his finger in a circle on the side of his head. I didn’t know where he got that one from, but it took a lot of self-control not to laugh.

“I think all women are crazy on their wedding day,” I explained.

“But you already did this before,” he pointed out.

“Exactly what I said,” Tony agreed.

“Yeah, but it’s different this time,” I explained, shooting Tony another look. “Now, it’s for real. And now we’re already a family, right?”

“Right.” David nodded, smiling. “But she’s still acting crazy. And Uncle Tony, she gave me a message for you.”

“Oh? What’d she say?”

He took a deep breath and concentrated, like it was very important for him to get it just right. “She said you better believe you’re gonna wear your tuxedo all day, so don’t complain to her about it.”

“Damn,” Tony muttered.

***

It was a perfect day for the wedding—bright, cloudless, and not too hot since it was already mid-September. That was one thing Tony had complained about the most, standing outside in a tux during the ceremony. “Us big guys have to think about stuff like that,” he’d argued. He didn’t have anything to bitch about since the breeze almost made it feel cool.

There weren’t a ton of people there, in the chairs the planners had lined up in front of the little arch where Jess and I would say our vows. Only five dozen or so. We didn’t need the whole world with us, just the people who mattered the most. Our friends, my club. Our club, actually, since she would be my old lady and I would lead with her at my side.

That was something we had talked about a lot in the months leading up to the wedding. One night, in bed, she asked me how I wanted to run things. How did I want her to be?

“What’s that mean?” I had asked.

“What sort of old lady should I be? The kind who expects to know things, or what?”

I hadn’t thought about it before that. “I just want you to be Jess. If there were ever a day when you didn’t expect to know something, I would be worried.”

“Thanks,” she’d said, poking me in the ribs.

“I mean it, though,” I’d continued after I stopped laughing. “I want you behind me, next to me. I don’t wanna keep things from you ever again, because we both know what happens when we do that to each other.” I had told her long before that why I’d pushed her away at the end of our first marriage. The shame and guilt I had felt. It wasn’t worth it, tearing our marriage apart because I didn’t feel like I could talk to her. She was the most important person in my life, right next to our son. I owed her the truth.

“So you think I should know things? I should be privy to what goes on in the club?”

“Are you okay with that?” I asked, looking at her. She had her head on my chest and didn’t answer for a minute.

“Yeah, I guess I am.” She sounded surprised.

“Why do you sound unsure of yourself? We’ll do this any way you want to.”

“I guess I just never pictured you as president back then. I mean, I know you always told me you would be, that Axel wanted to groom you for the job. But I didn’t put it together. It wasn’t real back then. Now it’s very real. And it worries me.”

“I can’t step down, if that’s what you’re asking me to do,” I’d murmured.

She’d looked up at me, gasping. “No! I would never, ever ask you to do that. I’m just saying, it’s a lot to get used to. It’s dangerous. That’s all.”

“Things aren’t the way they used to be,” I’d reminded her. “This isn’t Axel’s reign. I’m a different man, and we’re a different club. Still tough. We don’t take shit from anybody, as you know. But we don’t kill for no reason, we don’t take business from other people with no reason. And we’re not into the bloody shit Axel got us into, either. I’ve seen to that.”

“That’s a relief,” she’d admitted. “I don’t want to worry about you every time you leave the house.”

“And you won’t have to.” I intended to keep that promise. I had more than just myself to think about again. I had her and my son, and that was worth keeping as much peace as possible. Things didn’t have to be the way they were with Axel. That was the exception more than the rule with most clubs. Nobody wanted a lot of blood. We just wanted to do business and make our money and get home at the end of the day.

I knew it would take time to get Jess to understand, and I wouldn’t push things before she did. After a while, she would see things weren’t the way they used to be. I wouldn’t let the club come between us again, as much as I loved it. I loved her, too. I had to find out the hard way that without her, nothing mattered as much. I needed her to make life worth living.

It was almost time to get started. The Reverend waited next to me, with Tony behind me. He didn’t want to make it obvious, but he was just as nervous and excited as I was. He didn’t get to be there for our first wedding, and I knew it meant a lot to him to be there for us when we made it official. All his complaining was just a way to cover up the way he really felt. I knew him well enough that I didn’t need him to tell me so.

There were a few musicians playing, off to the side, and when the music changed, I knew it meant things were about to start. First came David, and I grinned at him as he walked down the aisle with our rings on a pillow. He handed them to Tony, then fist bumped me. I heard everybody laugh.

Cindy came next, in a flowing purple dress. It had taken her a minute to get used to the idea of Jess and me getting together since she never really knew anything about me before I came back into Jess’s life. I had been a secret, sort of, just something Jess never really talked about. I didn’t take it personally. Once she knew I was for real, and that I loved her friend and my son, she got used to the idea. It was an adjustment for everybody, especially since our relationship kicked back off with so much violence and fear.

“Here she comes,” David whispered, beaming. I knew how he felt. My heart thudded in my chest, and blood rushed in my ears. I couldn’t remember ever being more excited to see someone walk to me. Everybody stood and turned to watch.

I saw her, then, coming around the corner, walking down the runner between the chairs. Her dress was simple, just a flowing white gown that didn’t have a lot of beads or anything sparkly on it. Simple, the way she wanted it. Instead of a veil, she wore a bunch of flowers in her hair, tucked behind one ear. She carried a bouquet of roses to match them. I didn’t see any of it, really. I would remember it in bits and pieces later on. All I saw was her smile, and she took my breath away.

She handed her flowers to Cindy, and we joined hands. I felt in her wrists the way her pulse pounded, and I was sure mine did the same. Not that I had any questions about her. I knew from the minute we met that she would be the only one for me, and I wasn’t wrong. She was the only woman I had ever loved and would ever love for as long as I lived. It was excitement, more than anything else, that got my heart pounding. Knowing that we were lucky enough to start over, that sometimes people got a second chance. I didn’t know what I did to deserve her, or David, or the chance for us to be together as a family, but I would keep doing whatever it was for the rest of my life if it meant I would get to keep them with me.