"Yes," I whisper. My head tilts forward until I’m close enough to feel his breath against my lips. "Because of you, I think I finally am.”
Epilogue
"I can't believe you're engaged! It feels like last week that you were asking me who Chase Anderson even was!"
"It was six months ago, but I agree. It's flown by so fast. Anyway, the wedding won't be for a while. Chase is just going through the divorce with Mirana now and we have to be careful not to get married right after or we’ll set off red flags I'm sure."
"Doesn't she have her Green Card already?"
"Yes, but she just got it a couple of months ago. I don't know if they can take it away, but we don't want to take any chances. I would hate for anything bad to happen to her or Diego. He's such a great kid. And she’s such a wonderful woman as well. The shelter would be lost without her. She really holds that place together."
"Well I'm sure you do your part as well. If I know you, you're working just as hard."
I shake my head. "Only on the foundation side of it, not the actual shelter. Honestly, Mirana is the glue that holds that place together. She’s so strong with all of those women. I don't know how she does it. All I do is push papers and make phone calls."
Evelyn is looking at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Okay, I do more than that, especially with the expansion plans on taking the shelters nationwide. But my point is that we don't want to do anything to put her legal status at risk. So we’ll probably wait at least six months before we get married. Maybe more. It doesn't matter. I'm happy as long as we're together, no matter what form that is."
"Well shit, with a ring that size I'd be happy too!" Evelyn grabs my hand and pulls it up to her face again. "Wow, it really is gorgeous! Did he pick it out himself?"
I nod. "I would never have let him buy something so big if I had been with him."
"So you're going to ask him to return it for something smaller?"
I yank my hand back and clutch it against my chest. "Of course not!" We both fall against her couch in laughter. "Let's not talk crazy..."
"Oh Lila, I've really missed you." Eve reaches for the bottle of wine and refills both of our glasses with Chardonnay. She has a heaviness about her lately. I've heard it on the phone when we’ve talked and it was one of the reasons I wanted to get out here and talk to her in person. It could just be that her job has kept her so busy that she hasn't had time to make any friends, and we're 2500 miles apart. She has her boyfriend of course, but she needs a friend too.
"I know. I'm sorry I haven't been out here to see you more."
"It's more my fault. I haven't been to Vegas at all since you moved there. Between work and Edward, I've been so busy. But that's no excuse."
"Well, I'm here now. And you have me for the whole weekend."
"Perfect. And I made sure to stock up enough wine for an army. So it should last us until Sunday."
We both laugh again. I've really missed spending time with my best friend.
We continue to talk and finish the bottle of wine. When Lila returns with another, I ask a question that's been weighing on my mind.
"Have you spoken to Harry recently?"
"Are you kidding? After what you told me about his screwing around with those hookers? No fucking way. I blocked him on my phone right after I sent him a message telling him what kind of a piece of shit I thought he was."
Evelyn always has my back, and I appreciate it so much. I know she was friends with Harry, hell she introduced us, but I shouldn’t have ever worried that she might take his side over mine. Not that he really has a side. But I was just happy to not have her talking to him anymore. That means I no longer have any ties to him, and that is the way I want to keep it.
"What about Chase and that Denise bitch? Do they still talk at all?"
I'd told Evelyn everything of course, and she has almost as much of a hate on for Denise as I do now. I shake my head, feeling tipsy as I do.
"No, thank god. He changed his cell phone number after she started trying to text him again after the house closed. But that was months ago. The last I heard, she'd moved on to someone new. I heard that she hooked up with some internet tycoon and the two of them moved to the Cayman Islands or something. Good fucking riddance."
"Cheers to that."
"I've had it up to here with exes. Well, Mirana doesn't count. She was never really with Chase anyway, and she’s actually really nice. At least I won't have to worry about his ex-wife. What about Edward? Any lurking evil exes in his past?"
Evelyn shakes her head. "He never really talks about ex-girlfriends, so I don't think there’s ever been anyone special. Certainly no one else has come sniffing around him in the last few months, so if he did have any they’ve moved on."
"How have things been going with you two, anyway?"
Evelyn sighs as she picks up her glass and drinks about half of it in a single swallow. "It's been good, but so busy. I mean, I knew it would be, don't get me wrong, but I've never been the assistant of someone so... rich and powerful, you know? I'm constantly running around the city doing things for Edward that I barely get to see him until the end of the day - and often by then we're both exhausted."
"So you're feeling overworked and under-appreciated?"
Evelyn smiles. "Something like that."
"So take a vacation."
"Ha ha. Edward would never leave the office for a few days, much less a week. Even a weekend to him means only working for a few hours on Saturday and Sunday, although usually he at least does that from home."
"So, who says you have to bring him? Come back with me to Vegas. You can stay at our house and you and I can lounge around the pool all day. Wouldn’t you like to leave this cold weather behind for a bit?"
"Oh Lila, it sounds lovely but I don't know. We're so busy at work. I don't know if Edward would want me gone for very long. You should have heard how much he whined about it when I said I would be unavailable this weekend!"
"What if you were to tell him that you needed to come to help me out?"
Evelyn shrugs. "I don't really know much about the non-profit foundation business."
"I'm not talking about that," I say. I can't hold back my grin any longer. I can feel it splitting my face in two as I stare at my friend, excited to see her reaction. "I wanted to ask if you could be my maid of honor?"
Evelyn lets out a little scream and grabs my hand. "Of course! Oh my god, Lila, that's so exciting!" She leans forward and gives me a very tight hug.
"Well, it does mean you'll have to see me more. At least to help pick out my dress and do some wedding planning." I point out when she finally lets me breathe again. "That’s what I was thinking you and I could do if you came to Vegas. Between our pool time, of course. Do you think Edward would have a problem with letting you go long enough for that?"
"Too fucking bad if he does. There’s no way I'm missing out on helping you plan your wedding."
We both lift our glasses and take another drink. I've missed hanging out with Evelyn, but my life with Chase has been amazing. There’s never a dull moment with that man, and the fact that he’s started this whole non-profit foundation and given it over for me to run has been like a dream come true. It's busy, but we still make time for each other. I can only hope that Evelyn can find the same balance in her life.
"So you'll come?"
"Honey, I wouldn’t miss it for the world." Evelyn gives me another hug and I feel the smile threatening to split my face again. With Chase waiting for me back in Vegas, the only thing that could make things even better right now is having my best friend by my side. I squeeze her back, even harder than she’s holding me. I knew she wouldn’t let me down.
I can't wait to get back and start planning my future with the two most important people in the world.
If you enjoyed this book and want to read about Lila’s friend Evelyn, check out Silver and Chrome - available on Amazon!
Bonus Book 3 - PRIDE
PRID
E is the first book of my now completed 3 book series, The Brody Bunch. If you’ve never ready any of the Brody’s, this is the place to start and although the series is best read together, each book is meant to also stand-alone. I’m also excited that the entire series is coming to audiobook very soon, with PRIDE kicking it off later this month.
At the end of this copy of PRIDE, I’ve also included the first couple chapters of Book 2 - LUST.
1
Reid
Waiting around was not my strong suit. Not for anybody, but least of all for Ash. You were supposed to be patient with family, give them a wide berth and unlimited second chances, but I didn’t give a fuck about virtues. Not back then, anyway. Back then, I was all about sin.
And my favorite was pride.
Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m the middle child, but I have what you might call a type-A personality. I can’t sit still. I’m always on the move. Like that Talladega Nights shit—“I wanna go fast.” And I do. I wanna go fast and hard and rough and show the world there’s nothin’ I can’t do. I am the best. I have to be. My ego demands nothing less.
Oh, you think that sounds bad now? Wait until you hear the rest of the story.
So there I was, sitting at a table at Trick Shots—a shitty dive I wouldn’t normally have agreed to even be seen at, were it not for my older brother’s low standards—waiting on his ass to show up while Wyatt slouched next to me, fucking around on his phone. It’s true—younger generations make for absolutely shit company, and Wyatt was no exception. Not that he was much better when he opened his mouth.
As the minutes ticked by, I was devolving from annoyed to pissed, bordering on furious. I had better places to be, and better people to be seen there with. Yet here I was, suckered into some kind of “family meeting” on a Friday night, instead of dusting some college-kid jackoff at the drag racing track clear across town.
My fingers itched to be curled around a gear shift. My arms ached with the desire to steer my suped-up ’69 Shelby around one of the track’s tight, luscious curves. So maybe racing classics wasn’t as turbo-fueled as racing some of the newer models—but for me, it wasn’t about speed. Not entirely, anyway. I was way more interested in the thrill of the chase, in the challenge.
Me and Ash, the eldest, noticeably absent member of our brotherly trio, had something in common there. Only it wasn’t the roar of the crowd or some kind of prize he was after. When Ash imagined luscious curves, they didn’t belong to a stretch of road—they were all woman. Which was probably why he was late. That dirty man-whore was probably banging some hot piece of ass and had forgotten all about us.
“Fucking Christ,” I muttered, as I finished up my third beer. “Wish he’d just zip up his pants and get the fuck over here already, huh?”
“Uh-huh,” Wyatt murmured in reply. He’d finally looked up from his phone, but not to join the conversation. He was thoroughly engrossed in the MMA fight on TV. The bartender had just turned the channel.
“So glad we took the time to have this little heart-to-heart,” I said, as I ordered another round. Wyatt didn’t even dignify that with a response; I’d have been better off talking to thin air.
I was just promising myself I’d leave after this last, cheap Coors when I heard the heavy footfalls of a pair of boots approaching our table. I shifted my gaze and caught Ash out of the corner of my eye, ambling through the sparse copse of patrons with more swagger than usual. Damn, maybe he really was getting laid.
“There he is,” I said, as Ash pulled out his chair. He sat, and I asked him, “How’s the syphilis?”
“Fuck you,” Ash answered. Witty—I’d expected nothing less. He grabbed the wrist of a cute chick wearing an employee t-shirt stretched tight over her double-D tits, stopping her dead in her tracks. “Hey, babe, you mind grabbin’ me some whiskey? On the rocks.”
Now, if I’d done that to a girl, she would’ve screamed bloody goddamn murder and probably hit me. Caused a whole scene and got me thrown out of the bar. But not Ash. When he manhandled a woman, she got all giggly and goo-goo-eyed and practically spat out her number like an ATM receipt. This particular chick was no exception.
She smiled wide, her glossy lips parting over perfect, white teeth. “Sure thing, handsome. Any kind in particular?”
“Surprise me,” Ash said, flashing her a wolfish grin. The blonde tittered and scampered away on her too-tall pumps, hips swinging, a spring in her step.
I snorted. “Whatever they’ve got layin’ around, huh?” Ash answered with a shrug, like nothing in the world could bother him tonight. That pissed me off even more. He’d left us hanging for a good hour, and now he had the audacity to be unflappable? Fuck him. I took a pull from my bottle. “Well, you always were a man of discerning tastes.”
“At least I have some,” he replied, following Wyatt’s gaze to the TV screen in the corner. “Real men drink liquor, Reid. Not Coors. And whatever the hell this is.” He turned Wyatt’s bottle around so he could see the label. “Pabst?”
Wyatt, in the first display of giving a shit I’d seen from him tonight, pulled his beer away from Ash’s grasp. “Fuck you. I like PBR just fine.”
Ash held up his hands disarmingly. “No skin off of my nose, bro. I’m just saying that if I didn’t know any better, I’d have to check your ID right now to make sure you weren’t a stack of toddlers sneaking in here dressed up in their daddy’s wife-beater and jeans. You know who drinks PBR?” Without waiting for an answer, Ash continued, “Hipsters. And nobody over the age of four.”
“It’s cheap and it gets the job done. And anyway, how the fuck do you imagine a stack of toddlers are gonna sneak in here wearing a wife-beater? They’d need a trench coat or some shit, at least.”
The waitress returned and set Ash’s tumbler down in front of him. He thanked her with a wink, then said, “I call out your manhood, and you’re worried about the realistic quality of the costume a pack of hypothetical toddlers are wearing? Damn, Wyatt. That’s fascinating.”
“You know what’s not fascinating?” I said, setting my beer down hard enough to make the girl at the next table over jump in her seat. “This conversation. Which we could’ve been having an hour ago, if you gave a rat’s ass about wasting my time.”
“C’mon, Reid,” Ash said, grinning and spreading his arms wide. “This is family night. You and your friends can play with your Hot Wheels anytime.”
“Fuck you,” I sneered.
Ash shook his head and took a drink. “Well, now that we’ve all got our fuck you’s out of the way, we can talk about the important things.” He eyed Wyatt hard. “Like how baby bro is well on his way to becoming a grade-A fuck-up.”
Wyatt sucked his teeth. “Come on, you said you wouldn’t harp on this shit.”
I frowned. “Why? What did you do now?”
When Wyatt didn’t answer me, Ash continued, “Some of the Bright Falls Beasts’ prospects got busted a couple weeks ago for startin’ shit with one of their rival clubs—and in broad fuckin’ daylight, too. This genius…” Here, he pointed at Wyatt. “…got picked up with the rest of them.”
“Fuck’s sakes, Wyatt,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Are you trying to put targets on all our backs again?”
“I didn’t do nothin’ wrong,” he insisted, fingers curled so tight around his beer his knuckles had turned white. Kid always did have a temper, and Ash knew just what buttons to press to make him go nuclear. From what I could see, he was dangerously close to entering in the launch codes now. “I was just hangin’ around when shit happened to go south. That’s all.”
Ash and I exchanged looks. Maybe Wyatt was a grown-ass man—barely—but damn if he didn’t still act like the kid who used to get the worst of our father’s belt. You’d think that would’ve made Wyatt want to distance himself from the kind of shit dear old Dad used to get into, but for years now, Ash and I had spent practically every waking moment making sure our youngest brother didn’t follow in Pops’ footsteps.
It made no fuck
ing sense. I’d always figured since Wyatt was so young when Dad went away, we’d gotten him out of that life of crime early enough to make a difference. If anything, it should’ve been me and Ash who had a hard time adjusting to life outside the criminal underbelly, but in comparison to Wyatt, we were adjusting fine. I shook my head, mystified, and not for the first time. Why Wyatt was so keen to self-destruct was something I’d probably never figure out.
Wyatt broke the silence when he muttered, “They’re not even gonna charge me with anything, okay? Lay off.” But that wasn’t good enough for Ash, who had a way of making us both furious with his whole “surrogate father” act.
We’d even made it into a drinking game, once. So whenever Ash leaned forward and pointed a finger at Wyatt, scowling, his chest puffed out, Wyatt and I both knocked back our beers in tandem and settled in for another one of Ash’s signature lectures.
“I get it, Wyatt. It’s not exactly easy to get by in a shithole like Bright Falls. Especially if the living you’re trying to make is an honest one. I understand the allure of a job where you can make the kind of money Dad used to pull in, where if you keep your nose to the grindstone, you don’t have to answer to anyone but yourself.”
Begrudgingly, I nodded in agreement. Ash was right. Once upon a time, that was exactly what had drawn us all into Dad’s little schemes. That, and it was the family business. We were the Brody Bunch: me, Ash, Wyatt, and Pops. The most notorious bad-asses this side of the Rio Grande. Only the cartels down in Mexico rivaled the cruelty of Pops’ MC, or its scope. The Bright Falls Beasts had catered to the dark desires of damn near the whole west coast, with chapters thriving from Arizona to Mon-fuckin’-tana, plus a few smaller ones settling into Oregon and Washington. Pops was damn near responsible for an empire.
But you know what empires do best, don’t you?
They fall.
We were just lucky that when it all came crashing down, we didn’t get caught in the crossfire—the shootout between the founding chapter of the Beasts and the Feds. The one that could’ve made Waco and Ruby Ridge look like the stuff of after-school specials, by comparison.
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