"That must have taken months."
"Let's say I had Janie hook me up with some people pretty much as soon as you moved into the compound. I didn't want some cheesy C-level game."
Right after I moved into the compound? He knew he was going to marry me a year ago? Hell, a year ago, I wasn't sure if I could last a week of him never being able to hang up a wet towel. Let alone spending the rest of my life with him.
"Come on," he said, breaking through my swirling thoughts again, "what do you say you spend the rest of your life dealing with me fucking up, huh?"
Thrown off, maybe expecting a bit of cheesiness after all, but pleased that wasn't the route he took, I laughed. "Well, I've dealt with you pretty well this far," I offered, extending my hand toward him.
He slid the ring on and I felt the tears sting at my eyes when he leaned down and kissed it before moving up and sealing his lips over mine.
It was an important moment for me.
Not only because he loved me. He had loved me for a while. But because he was telling me that he never planned to stop. And, being someone who never had that kind of promise before, it meant the world.
But... I was rethinking my agreement to the whole marriage thing.
Not because I changed my mind about Renny.
Oh, no.
Let's just say... I had been completely unprepared for the girls club.
See, they were sneaky. They came up on me slowly, one by one or two by two, never letting me see what, exactly, it was like when they got all together.
For me, Janie, Lo, Alex, Maze, Summer, and Penny were all old news. But with Janie, Lo, Alex, Maze, Summer, and Penny... came the rest of the girls club. That introduced me formally to Amelia, Shooter's wife, and Elsie, Paine's wife.
I was sitting at a table covered in bridal magazines full of wedding gowns and centerpieces and venues and floral arrangements and different fonts for invitations and bakeries to taste test cakes at.
But they weren't the problem. Oh, no. I had all of that figured out in less than twenty minutes.
The problem?
That would be the fact that Alex and Janie would not wear dresses. And Elsie and Lo really preferred to not be in heels. But, then again, Penny would like the highest heels possible given that she was practically child-sized. Then we had to add in body shapes. Because Amelia would prefer something that drew attention away from her thighs and Lo wanted something to understate her breasts and Elsie and Maze, well, they were fans of their legs.
Really, the list of considerations for bridesmaid dresses was starting to make me genuinely think that, hey, hopping a plane and getting married in Vegas by Elvis wasn't that cheesy, right?
My gaze shifted over toward Ashley who had been sitting there perfectly quiet watching the goings-on with no small bit of amusement. She looked over and shrugged a shoulder. "I say you move this whole shindig to the beach and, if they don't quit their bitching, make every last one of them wear a G-string bikini."
That effectively shut up a lot of the conversation, Janie's gaze going to me. "You wouldn't."
"Wouldn't I?" I asked with a small smile.
"Why not just make it simple and say... everyone wears something black that they feel hot as shit in?" Alex supplied, always being the more impatient and level-headed of the girls club.
I looked down at my notes, scratching out the theme colors, for which I had chosen white (obviously) and a sage green and scribbled in black instead. "Alright. That's the plan then. Wear black. And for God's sake, I don't want to hear another word about hemlines or necklines."
I would swear, even giving them all the license to dress how they preferred, there was still some upset among the group.
I had a feeling that maybe by giving in so quickly (though it felt like the argument had gone on for days), that I had somehow ruined a tradition among the women.
But I was hoping, for all future members of the girls club's sake, I was making the tradition an easier one.
Renny- 1.5 years
"I'm not fixing the fuckin' thing again," Shooter supplied as I tugged at my tie for the fifth time that afternoon.
I hadn't worn a tie since I was a teenager. I had somehow gotten away with just a suit at all the other weddings I had needed to attend over the years. No one was ever paying that close of attention to me.
That couldn't exactly be said of my wedding day though.
As a whole, I was never a nervous person.
But standing in the room down the hall from the spot where I was going to marry Mina, yeah, I was freaking out a little.
Not because I wasn't sure I loved her and would continue to love her. I had never been more sure of anything in my life.
It was something deeper than that, more long-buried than that. It was some old demons rearing their ugly heads.
"Renny," Reeve's voice called, making my head snap up to find him standing in the open doorway.
"Yeah?"
"Mina wants to see you," he said, jerking his head toward the hallway.
Mina and Reeve had seemed to form a certain bond after the afternoon she dumped me a year and a half before. And after she finally learned his history, because one night he trusted her enough to tell her, well before any of the rest of us found out, it had gotten to be an even deeper connection.
As such, it was almost fitting he was the one walking me toward her room, that he was actually going to be the one giving her away since there was no way in ever-loving hell we were going to have her actual father do so or even be invited to the wedding.
"She alright?" I asked as we got closer to her door.
Reeve stopped just outside it, giving me a long look. "Nope," he declared, but did it with a smirk before clamping a hand on my shoulder and moving away.
Curious, I reached for the handle and went inside. At the sound, Mina swiveled around from where she had been sitting facing the triple vanity mirror.
"Marriage is stupid," she declared, her voice edgy.
"Alright," I said, nodding, trying to not smile.
Cold feet.
She was having fucking cold feet.
It was so unlike her that I wanted to laugh.
"Seriously. I mean... look at your parents. Look at mine. What are we thinking? If there are ever two people who could royally screw this kind of thing up, it's us. We had literally no good examples of happy and successful marriages growing up."
That wasn't untrue.
I exhaled slowly and walked over to her, kneeling down in front of her little wooden seat and putting my hands on her knees. "True, but that doesn't mean we don't have good examples to look to. For fuck's sake- we have Reign and Summer and Cash and Lo and Wolf and Janie and Repo and Maze and Duke and Penny and, if we want to dig a little deeper, there is Breaker and Alex and Shooter and Amelia and Paine and Elsie. We're fucking surrounded with successful and happy marriages, Mina."
"Sure, but if there are ever two people to break a perfect track record..."
"Mina," I said, waiting for a long second before her perfect fucking hazel eyes landed on mine. Then I felt my smile tease up a little. "You know what the problem is?"
Her brows drew together slightly at that as she shook her head. "No."
"See the girls club whisked you away last night and never brought you back..." I paused there, fingers sliding up her thighs. "Neither of us got to have breakfast," I added with a wicked smile and I started moving apart the ends of her short silk robe, watching as her eyes went a little heated. "I've been a little edgy this morning too. Figure maybe it's because I'm hungry," I added, pulling the sash and the entire thing parted to the sides. "Fucking famished actually."
"You know," she said, her breathing getting heavier as I leaned down and started to kiss up her thigh. "I think you're right. That must be it. We should... oh my God," she groaned as my mouth sucked in her clit through her pretty little silky white panties that I knew were supposed to be a surprise for me later.
I reached up, snagging t
he sides of the waist as I backed up slightly, pulling the material down her thighs and legs then off her feet. Her hands reached out, deftly untying the mother effing tie and making it so I could finally breathe again, before her hands started in on the buttons to my shirt.
"You know," she said as she pushed my shirt and jacket off my shoulders, "I think we're supposed to wait until after we're married to consummate it."
I laughed, unfastening my pants and pulling her down onto my lap, reaching between us to line my cock up with her hot, wet pussy. "Fuck that. I want you at that alter with my come still inside you," I declared, pulling her hips down so my cock slid in her tight pussy. "It can be our little secret," I added as she started to ride me, slow and sweet at first, but ending hard and rough and frantic, fucking up her hair and makeup and making it so there was no way the girls weren't going to know exactly what I did to calm her down when they came back in to finish getting her ready.
"See you down there, right?" I asked as she tied her sash back into place, her face post-fuck rosy, her entire body more lax than it had been twenty minutes before.
"Wouldn't want to be anywhere else," she said with such confidence that I knew that, among other places, I had warmed up her cold feet.
As I walked back down the hall to my room, I was a fuckuva lot calmer too. And when Shoot retied my tie for the sixth time, I knew without a doubt that we weren't going to be the exception to the rule.
We weren't doomed to repeat our parents' mistakes.
We weren't somehow unlovable because we had never been loved.
And there was no one, fucking no one in the world who could love Mina better than I could.
And, I was pretty fucking sure, no one would ever even want to love me the way she did.
We were going to be fine.
Mina- 4 years
"Blank slate," Renny declared, climbing into the bed with me, pulling back the blanket from her little pink face.
"I still can't decide if that is a good thing or not," I admitted, knowing it wasn't what you were supposed to say while holding your baby right after it got cleaned up, but preferring to be honest.
I had gotten the implant out of my arm almost two years before I got pregnant. It was due to come out and I just... never got it replaced. We were in a committed relationship and we figured whatever happened, happened. We weren't going to plan it, but if it happened, we would welcome it.
The month I missed my period, though, had been one of the most stressful in my life. It suddenly didn't matter how far Renny and I had gone, how much we had opened up and exposed our wounds so we could let them heal. It didn't matter that we were stable and Renny very rarely, if ever, got into one of his moods. Somehow, faced with impending parenthood, every single little flaw of mine felt amplified, felt insurmountable. And I couldn't help but worry that I would take our little blank slate and instill my own shortcomings on her.
"Mina, look at what we came from," Renny said, leaning down and kissing her little scrunched-up forehead. "And we turned out alright. We are going to be fine."
I didn't want to be fine. I wanted to be able to give her every advantage, every bit of encouragement, every bit of love that neither Renny or I got.
"Here's hoping," I agreed, smiling down at her face as she started wriggling and squirming and opening her mouth to scream.
I hadn't realized then that I had, inadvertently, named our daughter.
Because we knew from that moment that what we had most, along with a love neither of us believed we would find and the best of intentions, was hope.
Hope that we could do better than our parents.
Hope that we had learned from all our mistakes.
Hope that we could break the cycle.
Hope.
"Oh, I forgot," Renny said, climbing off the bed as I situated Hope for feeding. He went over to the windowsill where he had a small overnight bag and pulled out a very small, very familiar, rectangular package.
I knew what it was.
For any big event- birthday, anniversary, Christmas, along with a normal gift, I always had my little rectangle. I also got one anytime he was apologizing for something.
I had the kind of sock collection even a hoarder would look at and tell me I needed to thin it out a little.
But each and every pair represented a moment, a milestone, a time when he was thinking of me and the traditions we had started all those years ago.
So I didn't care that they were 'just' socks.
Every pair was the best present I ever got.
He moved back to the bed, sitting down on the edge and holding the package, ripping the edge for me so I could pull the rest of the paper off with one hand, the other holding Hope to my chest.
I pulled out the plastic holder and found a pair of very pink socks with print all over them: #1 Mom.
I looked up at him and that was about the moment that I finally believed it. I believed I could do it. We could do it.
I reached for him, pulling him down until he was laying beside me on the bed, his arm wrapped over my belly and his hand resting on our daughter.
"See?" he asked, looking over at me. "Aren't you glad I wore you down?" he said, giving me a boyish smile I had gotten so used to, so attached to.
And I was.
I was so incredibly happy that he hadn't given up, no matter how many times I shot him down, no matter how many times I fought my own attraction, no matter how I tried to push him away.
Because if he was any other guy, he wouldn't have hung in there and won me over.
And neither of us would have known what it was like to be truly, unconditionally loved and then make the decision to share that love with a new generation.
"Yeah," I agreed, giving him a smile. "Now all we have to worry about is moving out of the compound. Things are getting a little crazy over there with all the new blood..."
XX
DON'T FORGET
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ALSO BY JESSICA GADZIALA
The Henchmen MC
Reign
Cash
Wolf
Repo
Duke
The Savages
Monster
Killer
Savior
--
DEBT
For A Good Time, Call...
Shane
The Sex Surrogate
Dr. Chase Hudson
Dissent
Into The Green
What The Heart Needs
What The Heart Wants
What The Heart Finds
What The Heart Knows
The Stars Landing Deviant
Dark Mysteries
367 Days
Stuffed: A Thanksgiving Romance
Dark Secrets
Unwrapped
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jessica Gadziala is a full-time writer, parrot enthusiast, and coffee drinker from New Jersey. She enjoys short rides to the book store, sad songs, and cold weather.
She is very active on Goodreads, Facebook, as well as her personal groups on those sites. Join in. She's friendly.
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Renny (The Henchmen MC #6) Page 22