by Jadyn Chase
“Yeah, but….” I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “They say this is a house-warming party.”
“Of course it is,” he countered. “We’ve been working for five weeks straight to get this house finished. What did you think was going to happen when we got it done?”
I rounded on him. “You knew about this?”
He clapped me on the shoulder and cracked that wicked grin of his. “I planned it.”
He pushed past me and vanished into the bathroom. I could only stand and stare. He planned this? He organized the whole club to rebuild my house and now they were all here filling it with carpet and food and dishes and Christ only knew what else.
Another van pulled up and all the doors flew open at once. Isabel climbed out of the passenger seat laughing to someone behind her. She faced the side door and bundled a huge feather duvet into her arms.
Her cheeks radiated color and charm to the whole world. She never stopped smiling nowadays. Since her face healed up, she was always laughing and joking at everything.
I hardly recognized her. When I thought back to that first night when I found her in the street, my mind tried to rewrite history. I had to struggle to remember the battered fugitive who jumped every time I tried to touch her.
Now the sunshine radiated down on her with a heavenly light. She shone happiness and love to everyone, no matter who they were. Sometimes I even suspected she loved La Muerta—maybe not Diego, but the rest of them for sure. She always got a nostalgic, compassionate smile on her face whenever anyone mentioned them.
She hustled up to me, planted a kiss on my stunned lips, and manhandled the duvet inside. “Isn’t this wonderful? We’ll be spending the night here tonight instead of camping out in Roman’s guest room.”
She lugged her burden to the bedroom. Through the open door, I spotted Logan and setting up the bed. More people carried in the furniture. Before I knew it, so many people packed the house that I couldn’t see the furnishings anymore.
A bunch of my friends filled the living room. Martín and Kane laughed and socialized along with them, so I guess they finished installing the carpet.
This was my house. After working so hard to get it built, I couldn’t fathom it being a real house that Isabel and I would live in from now on. It seemed too startlingly real all of a sudden.
Just then, someone switched on some music. Sultry dance beats floated through the door and everyone in the living room started to sway in time. Food and drink flowed freely. This was turning into a real party.
Tina gyrated out of the crowd and grabbed my hand. “Come on. Come dance with me.”
I moseyed up to her. She draped her arms around my neck and shouted into my ear over the noise. “I’m so glad you’re happy. You deserve it. I was worried about you.”
“Me!” I yelled back. “What did you have to worry about me for?”
“I thought you were lonely,” she replied. “You never had a steady girl. Your relationship with Christina was just a flash in the pan even though it lasted three years. I wasn’t sure you would ever settle down.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that,” I called back.
“No.” She beamed at me in delight. “I don’t.”
That made me think about Isabel. I shouldn’t be dancing with another woman, not even with my own sister. I danced around in a circle searching the crowd for that one face that meant more than any other.
I didn’t see her. Where was she? I broke away and searched the house. I didn’t find her in the kitchen. I didn’t find her in the bedroom. I didn’t find her in the bathroom. Where could she be? I saw her arrive so I knew she was here somewhere.
People filled every room in the house. They talked and made out in corners. They shared food and drinks, but none of that satisfied me anymore. I couldn’t be my usual happy self, not without that one missing piece of my heart.
The longer I searched, the more desperate I became. She wouldn’t leave without telling me. What if something happened to her? A thousand nightmares flashed through my mind. Did someone come after her? Did her past catch up with her?
I darted through the kitchen. I gave each person only a fleeting glance, just enough to satisfy myself they weren’t her. I snatched open the garage door.
I halted in my tracks when I saw her standing next to my new hog talking to Rosa, Jackson’s new girl. When she gestured, the two tattoos on her forearms showed up plain as day—the oblong of solid blue on her right arm and the wheel of Los Diablos on her left. Those tats bore mute testimony to her story writ large for all the world to see.
She looked and smiled at me. Then her eyes widened when she saw my face. “Are you okay?”
I rocked on my heels trying to get my heart to quiet down. “I’m fine. I didn’t know where you were.”
A smile tugged the corners of her lips. “You didn’t think I would leave without telling you, did you?”
I shook that thought out of my head. I knew she wouldn’t, but I couldn’t be so sure about the rest of the world. I got protective of her in the last few weeks. I came to depend on her being there to the point that I couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to her.
I dove into the garage and grabbed her hand. “Come here.”
I towed her to the living room, into the gyrating, swaying bodies of the dancers. The music blocked out my ears until my head rang.
Isabel started dancing, too. She swiveled her hips and shimmied her torso. She grinned at her friends on both sides—right up until the moment I switched the music off.
Silence descended. People started catcalling. “Hey! Turn that back on.”
I held up my hands. “Sorry, everybody. You can go back to dancing just as soon as I make an announcement.”
Grumbles answered me. “Turn it on now,” someone demanded.
I waved both hands. “I want to thank you for coming by to celebrate us finishing the house. I’m humbled and grateful for all your generosity fitting us out with everything we need. That’s all I wanted to say. Now you can all go back to enjoying my engagement party.”
A few people turned away before my words fully sunk into everyone’s minds. Someone gasped. “Your what?”
“Quit fooling around, Cisco,” Tina chided. “We’re here for your house-warming, not your….” She stopped mid-sentence and stared up at me with huge eyes.
I turned to Isabel. She was too busy laughing and kidding around with her friends to comprehend what I just said.
I put my hand in my pocket and took out a small velvet box. I dropped on one knee and cracked it open. I held it out to her.
The next time she turned around, she almost passed out when she saw me down on one knee. Her mouth fell open.
“I’ve been hiding this ring for three weeks,” I told her. “I never worked up the courage to ask you before, but I suppose I’m never going to find a better time than now.”
Her hands flew to her mouth and tears welled up in her eyes.
“You’ve made me the happiest man alive,” I told her. “You make me complete. You made this house a home the very first time you set foot in it. I can’t imagine living here or anywhere without you by my side. Marry me, Isabel. Be my wife. Never leave me.”
I choked on the last words. I never let myself imagine how I would propose to her, but now that I got that off my chest, I realized how true it was. I couldn’t live without her. I was always so happy before that I never realized something was missing.
I couldn’t go back to that. I couldn’t go back to the man I was before I met her. That would be worse than death.
She nodded fast and tears streaked down her cheeks. Her lips said, Yes. Then they she burst into tears.
The whole crowd exploded in cheers. I tore the ring out of the box and slipped it onto her finger. My chest hurt from holding all that tension back. I didn’t have to worry anymore. She was all mine.
I launched to my feet and scooped her up in my arms. I swung her around kissing the
tears off her cheeks. God, I loved her so much I couldn’t stand it.
Someone turned the music back on, but I didn’t see anything but her. Her presence blocked out everything else. Nothing could ever taste sweeter than those tears of joy, those tears of resurrection, of completion. Nothing could ever feel as blissful as her lips collapsing against mine in utter union.
Friends and family crushed us in a whirlwind of sound and hands touching us. The smell of food came from the kitchen. We would never be alone again. Roman insisted on rebuilding the house with plenty of extra rooms, “for your kids,” he said. He designed the whole thing for lots of kids.
In a few hours, all these people would leave. They would leave Isabel and me alone in this house—our house. We would go get in that bed and bury ourselves in the bedding these people gave us. We would turn off the lights, but we would never be truly alone again.
Their love and care would continue to surround us. It would support us and guide us through the years. It would insulate us from the hard knocks of life. The rest of the world might turn against us. We would always have to fight for our right to occupy space in this world, but our friends and family would make it beautiful and wonderful regardless.
I could live with that. I could hold her like this and kiss her in full sight of everyone we knew. I could wait forever for the immaculate softness of her touch, the feeling of her fingers in my hair and her aching cries ringing in my ears.
Those pleasures and a thousand more were all mine for the taking. They were mine even before they happened. All of her was mine—her past, her present, and her future.
The End.
More books from Jadyn
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