The After Party (A Badboys Boxset)

by Karr, Kim

  Logan thrust inside me once more with a shout, and then stopped with a shudder. He moved a second later, once, twice, then stopped again. When he dropped his head to the crook of my neck, he said, “I love you.”

  My own planetarium show came to an end and as I tried to catch my breath, I held on to him as tightly as I could. “I love you, too,” I said in a whisper.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Funny, I’d forgotten all about the floor until that moment.

  “More than okay,” I said and kissed him.

  Beep. Beep.

  Beep. Beep.

  Beep. Beep.

  “Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit,” Logan cursed as he jumped to his feet, not exactly startled by the car horn but rather flustered.

  Blinking, I sat up and watched as he shoved his feet into his jeans and then scurried to the closet and opened it.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Get dressed, fast.”

  He was in such a state of distress, I did what he said without question. My nerves got a little frazzled, but it didn’t seem like he was worried. It seemed like he was nervous. I buttoned my blouse and said, “What’s going on?”

  He blew out the candles and looked at that expensive watch that he seemed to have become fonder of. “They’re early.”

  “Who is early?” I questioned, combing my fingers through my hair.

  Logan had a bag in his hand, and he pulled out the red blindfold we’d taken from the boutique months ago but had not used.

  I raised a very curious brow.

  He shrugged and the corners of his mouth tipped up. “I thought we’d have time for this, but now I have to ask you to put it on.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “Please,” he begged and stepped toward me.

  I held a finger up. “Hang on. You were going to let me blindfold you?”

  He nodded. “That was the plan, but then I got lost in you.”

  I bit my lip. “I didn’t mind, really.”

  His grin was devilish as he strode toward me. “Turn around.”

  With a shake of my head, I waved my finger back and forth. “No, no, no, you turn around.”

  Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

  “Please, I promise you can use the blindfold and the handcuffs on me later if you just turn around and let me put this on you now.”

  He was vowing to give up control one night in the future. I didn’t have to think twice. I stuck my hand out in shaking position.

  He raised a brow.

  “Deal,” I said.

  He shook his head and then my hand. “Deal.”

  With the blindfold over my eyes I was surprised it didn’t freak me out, but it didn’t. I always felt safe with Logan.

  Step by step he guided me down each stair, and when we were at my front door he opened it.

  Music started to blare and I heard the sound of Peyton’s laugher. “Declan, turn that off,” she chided.

  “Dumb ass,” Logan muttered.

  I heard other voices too. “What’s going on?” I asked Logan.

  He tugged my blindfold and it fell to the ground. “Well, this is not how this was supposed to happen, but I’ll just have to roll with it.”

  Everyone we knew—Frank, Molly, Sean, Declan and Peyton holding hands, Rachel and her boyfriend, Miles, Erin and her husband and kids, and even Mrs. R and Clementine—were standing in the street with red balloons in their hands. “I thought we were supposed to go see each of them.”

  Logan shrugged. “I thought it would be better this way.”

  I nodded. I had to agree it was. I’d come to love each and every one of these people and I was going to miss them, but I’d made a promise to Michael and I intended to live up to it.

  Logan gave a slight nod toward the crowd and then they all backed away to reveal a shiny red Prius. “Bon voyage!” they yelled.

  Tears stung the back of my eyelids and I brought my hands to my mouth. “How did you even remember I’d wanted one in the midst of everything going on?”

  His grin was cocky. “A very wise man once told me that it’s the little things that make the biggest difference.”

  I threw myself at him. “He wasn’t wrong.”

  Logan twirled me around on the stairs and then tossed me over his shoulder and started to carry me to the car.

  “Hey, this isn’t very romantic.”

  He laughed. “I told you I wasn’t good at romance.”

  I think I might have been giggling and crying at the same time because he couldn’t have been more wrong.

  When he opened the driver’s door, he set me down and smiled at me with that smile that from the very first time I saw it made my stomach flip.

  “Mommy,” I heard Clementine say.

  “I got her.” Logan closed my door and extended his hands to Mrs. R, who brought her to him. He strode around the car whispering something to her and then the two of them got in on the passenger side.

  I smiled at her. “Hi, silly girl.”

  “Shiny,” she kept saying.

  I was laughing. “It is very shiny.”

  “She’s not talking about the car,” Logan said, holding her on his lap.

  I glanced into the backseat and all I saw was a car seat.

  When I turned back around, Logan had his hand around Clementine’s. “Open it,” he whispered.

  She did.

  I gasped.

  “Elle Sterling, will you marry me and let me be a part of your and Clementine’s life?”

  My jaw dropped. My body shook. Never in a million years was I expecting this. Happiness surged through me and I was fighting to hold back the tears. I couldn’t remember a time in my life ever feeling like this.

  “Say yes, say no, say anything,” he said, sounding mildly distressed.

  “Yes,” Clementine answered.

  My laughter and joy turned into big, sobbing tears as I struggled to talk. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  The ring was the absolute most beautiful thing I had ever seen. “Logan, it’s exquisite,” I said through my tears.

  He slid it on my finger and it fit perfectly. “It was my grandmother’s and before my grandfather died, he gave it to me and told me he wanted you to wear it. Somehow, some way, he knew you were made for me.”

  I threw my arms around him and Clementine and found his lips. “That’s because he knew we were made for each other.”

  When Clementine would have no more of being constrained, Logan opened the door and handed her to his father. Then he turned back and honked the horn. As if it was a signal, everyone let go of their red balloons.

  Clementine was clapping her little hands together like it was a show.

  I watched as the sky filled with my favorite color. The color I always saw as hope.

  “You ready to say goodbye?” he asked.

  I nodded. I knew we wouldn’t be saying goodbye forever. There would be visits. But it was time to go.

  The three of us were starting a new life together away from the madness of Boston. I never in my life would have thought I’d have a family of my own. I never in my life would have thought I could be so happy. But here I sat in my new car, with my new fiancé, and my newly court-appointed daughter, and life couldn’t be any sweeter.

  The sorrow that brought us here would always remain in my heart, but I wouldn’t wear it on my sleeve.

  I was stronger than that.

  We held hands and watched through the windshield until we couldn’t see any more balloons, and then we turned toward each other.

  Logan ran his finger over the slight scar on my cheek.

  I ran mine down the one under his eye.

  War wounds.

  Tragic memories from our past that we would never forget but together would be able to put behind us.

  Together.

  Not apart.

  Not alone.

  Together.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  DAY 275

  LOGAN

  Brooklyn is the
place we call home.

  Here, I found myself no longer divided between worlds.

  My grandfather Ryan owned an authentic brownstone built around the turn of the century by his father’s father and when he heard how much Elle loved the architecture of Beacon Hill, he gave it to Elle and me as a wedding gift.

  It’s odd because before I met Elle, I never wanted to get married, but with her, I couldn’t even tell you anymore why.

  We married in the Botanical Gardens with fewer than thirty guests. We both decided on something small and meaningful. The vows we recited included Clementine, and she even stood up at the altar with us.

  My father had moved to Brooklyn as well, and together we opened McPherson and Son Family Law.

  Elle chose to run her online boutique from home to be closer to Clementine and I try to stay home one, sometimes two days a week to pull my share and give her time. She loves her life and her circle of friends. She’s even recruited them to help her. Phoebe, Lindsay, and Lily go with her as she combs through antique stores looking for the best of the best.

  I’d been thinking about my grandfather Killian a lot lately. He was a man of great wisdom and guidance. Sure, I knew he was an outlaw, but that was a part of his life I never saw. To me he was one of a kind. A man who loved his grandson. And there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss him. I’m thankful, though, for the time he spent with me because those memories are what will keep him alive in my mind forever.

  There’s this pizza place in Brooklyn called Paulie Gee’s. Elle and I took Clementine there last week.

  It was then that I saw it on the menu, and for the first time since my grandfather’s death, I laughed at the thought of him. “Forget the pepperoni, kid,” he used to say, “Corned beef is the way to go.”

  I would never try it and always made a face in disgust.

  Today, I came here alone. “I’ll have the pizza with corned beef,” I said to the waitress.

  She was older and smiled. “You must be Irish.”

  I nodded, proud of my roots.

  As I waited for my pizza, I pulled the note from my pocket that was in the safety deposit box along with the ring. Do not open this until you smile when you think of me was written across it.

  I set it on the table. He had given his life for what I’d done and that was one guilt I’d never shed.

  The television was on over the bar and a news alert flashed across the screen: Record-breaking drug bust in Boston shuts down the biggest cocaine ring to hit the streets since the seventies: DEA officials to comment soon.

  I smiled. They got Seamus, that son of a bitch. He’d been MIA for months. Video footage showed Blanchet and Miles with DEA-issued jackets leaving a church.

  I sat back in the booth and crossed my feet at the ankles. Chapter closed on that son of a bitch. Miles always said he wasn’t stopping until he could put him away for life. Now it looked like he got what he needed and finally nailed the bastard.

  When my pizza arrived, I stared at it for a bit and remembered that little boy who sat across from the old man and never took a bite. I folded a slice in half the way he did and brought it to my mouth. I smelled the corned beef. Not so bad smelling, I thought, and then took a bite. “Not so bad, old man,” I said aloud with a smile.

  I wiped my hands and opened the envelope, sliding the piece of paper out. With a deep breath, I read it.

  Logan,

  Choices are made and consequences paid. It’s the smaller man who dwells and the bigger man who moves forward. I’ve spent my life making one bad choice after the other, and the only choice I can say that I never regretted was marrying my Millie.

  I’ve tried to teach you the things I faltered in, so that hopefully you wouldn’t take the same wrong steps I had. It wasn’t until after you left today that I realized I don’t have to worry about you. You are your own man. Strong. Confident. Competent. And I hope I had just a little to do with it.

  But it’s time for me to join my love.

  Don’t let my choice crush you.

  Don’t be sad that I’m gone.

  Don’t dwell.

  Know I’m where I’m supposed to be.

  I love you.

  I swallowed down the emotion I felt and read the note again. After I finished reading it for a third time, I couldn’t help but think my grandfather was a man of infinite wisdom.

  The road I had taken in life wasn’t always easy. In fact, sometimes it was extremely difficult. Still, in the end he was right . . . I truly believed we all ended up where we were supposed to be.

  EPILOGUE

  DAY 1,220

  ELLE

  “Cover your eyes.”

  “They are covered, Mommy,” Clementine insisted.

  “You have to squeeze your fingers together.”

  “They are.”

  I put my hand sideways over my eyes with my fingers touching each other, not splayed apart as hers were. “Like this, silly girl.”

  With her fingers wide she looked at Sean. “Grandpa, tell her I can’t see this way.”

  He raised his brows, fighting back his grin. “Elle, she can’t see like that.”

  I rolled my eyes as I walked toward the front door and muttered, “She’s got you wrapped around her little finger.”

  Logan was waiting on the other side of the door and I hurried to swing it open wide. Carrying the small blue bundle in his arms, my husband stepped inside. My heart skipped a beat when I looked at him. Passion. Love. Lust. Desire. And family. It was all standing right in front of me—long, lean, and incredibly sexy. His grin was absolutely adorable, as was he, and what he was holding.

  I looked down. “Clementine, are you ready to meet your new baby brother?”

  The pitter-patter of little feet had long since morphed into the thump-thump of what she liked to call big-girl feet. In her miniature classic Converse sneakers that she had to have because they matched her daddy’s perfectly, she ran toward Logan and her new baby brother. “He came, he came!” she yelled in excitement.

  Logan crouched down as she approached him. “Clementine, meet Killian.”

  I lowered myself beside Logan and adoringly gazed at our new son and my incredibly sexy husband. The adoption had been arranged, but we weren’t expecting Killian to be born until next month. When we got the news, we didn’t tell Clementine about his early delivery because we wanted to surprise her.

  Her eyes were wide as she looked at him.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  She twisted her lip.

  “Clementine?” Logan prompted with unwarranted concern in his tone.

  She put her little hands on her hips. “Daddy, I told you I wanted the one with the curly hair.”

  All of us burst into laughter.

  Infectious as it was, she didn’t laugh. Instead, she eyed Killian and then pursed her lips. “Where’s the button to push? I want to see what he says.”

  As if on cue, Killian Sean McPherson began to cry.

  Clementine covered her ears. “Turn it down.”

  I took her hand and lowered myself to her level. “We talked about this, silly girl. He’s not a Build-A-Bear.”

  She seemed to contemplate this for a long while.

  “What do you think, Mommy?” Logan asked, placing a soft kiss on my lips.

  “I think we all have some things to learn, Daddy,” I said, kissing him back.

  This had Clementine now covering her eyes. “Not again,” she whined.

  We both shook our head.

  She was just too funny.

  Logan stood and held his free hand to her. “Come with me, Clementine. You and I are both new at this baby thing and we need to figure out how to feed him.”

  Her grin grew incredibly wide. “Oh, Daddy, I already know how to do that.”

  Looking absolutely adorable himself, Logan said, “Well, maybe you could show me.”

  Clementine looked over at me. “Mommy, could you please get us a bottle? I have to teach Daddy how
to feed my new baby brother.”

  Tears stung the corners of my eyes. “I have one right here,” I said as I reached in the diaper bag I had set next to the door when I came in before Logan to prepare Clementine.

  I watched as Clementine and Logan, with baby Killian in his arms, made their way to the couch, matching sneakers and a matching bounce of optimism in their steps. And when they sat down and Logan helped Clementine onto his lap so she could show him how to hold the bottle, my tears could no longer be contained.

  “We’re very lucky,” Sean said, placing his hand on my shoulder.

  “Yes, we are,” I managed to say and squeezed his hand.

  The days had turned into years, and everything bad that had happened around Logan and me when we first met now seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Just then the cuckoo clock on the wall chirped and my eyes went to his hazel pools. Every time it went off, Logan rolled his eyes, and it made me laugh. This time was no different.

  As I stepped toward my family, the one thing that ran through my mind was that all those years ago I had been wrong about love.

  It really does conquer all.

  AUTHOR NOTE

  Although I tried to stay true to Boston, I did take some liberties with locations, dates, and timing.

  If you enjoyed this book, there are a number of ways that you can support it.

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  If you’d like to read more of my books, on the next page is a list of other titles.

  BLOW

  KIM KARR

  PROLOGUE

  FOUR MONTHS BEFORE

  LOGAN

  Mile after mile, I ran. Faster, feet pounding against the broken asphalt, breath crystalizing in the air. I’d been fleeing along the edge of the road for what seemed like eternity. Trucks zoomed past me, taillights fading in the distance, and still there were no sirens.