Page 131 of Cross To Bear

“I choose them every time.” Bjorn scanned the crowd, meeting the eyes of every person there. “Every time. And anyone who wants to create shit for any member of my sleuth, but especially my mate, will have to come through me. If I’m prepared to toss my family on the fire to keep Maddie safe, you can imagine what I’ll do with anyone else who crosses her.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Let’s go home, love. I don’t think this is the place for us.”

He let go of my hand to take hers, to tug Maddie out of the crowd’s suffocating embrace, then beyond that. To an open field, to a sky that was a perfect blue above us. Sun on our skin, wind on her face and our motorcycles waiting to take us away. Bjorn slid her on the back of his bike and then kicked the motor over, the roar of a Harley engine making clear just how little we fit in here. No New Balance sneakers in our future, it appeared, but motorcycle boots? Yeah, there’d be plenty of them.

Razor grinned at me then Crash, straddling his own bike, then kick starting it.

“To the bar? I think it’s beer o’clock.”

“I need a drink after that, because damn…” Crash shook his head.

“The bar.” I agreed.

I never felt like I belonged here, but as we walked in the door, the usual cacophony dialled down to a low roar this early in the day, I waited for the feeling of alienation to come, but it didn’t. Crash brought over everyone a beer, Roxy appearing with a bottle of tequila and shot glasses.

“So what’re we drinking to?” she asked.

“Family.” Razor raised his glass and so did all of us and for the first time I felt a part of something. “Not the kind born of circumstances or blood, but from brotherhood.” He nodded to Bjorn, then me and Crash. “And love.” His gaze softened as he stared at Maddie. “Real fucking love.”

“To real fucking love,” we all said, clinking glasses and then drinking them down.

The alcohol burned all the way down, but I’d come to appreciate that. Everything worthwhile did a bit it seemed, but the sweet that came afterwards, of watching Maddie hold Bjorn close, of pulling away later and kissing me. Yeah, that was worth it. Totally worth it.

Epilogue

Five years later.

Baby Bastian (road name Bash) started crying again, so I moved fast, picking him up from his cot and started rocking him in my arms. The nurses at the hospital had taught me this weird little jiggle that seemed completely unhinged in my sleep deprived state, but had turned out to be a lifesaver now. I moved and moved, trying to replicate the movements that Bastian would’ve been used to in utero, to see if I could settle him before his twin sister woke up.

As Melissa’s (road name Messy) little face scrunched up and her arms started to push against her gro bag, my heart went to my throat. Hawk’s head jerked up off the pillow and he was out of bed before he was even fully awake, blinking wildly, then going to our other child’s cot. He put his big hand on her chest, and she smacked her lips then seemed to settle.

Daddy’s girl already, we’d all decided.

But of course, right as the kids began to settle, the door was shoved open.

“Are the babies all right?” Mum was in a flap, standing there as I soothed Bastian and Hawk was in all his naked glory. She took this in with a face like a slapped arse. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m going to feed my son,” I told her in a low voice, cooing to Bastian. “And you’re going to get the hell out of our bedroom. Mum, we talked about this.”

She wanted to say more, I just knew it, but one look from me had her zipping her lips. The fact I was carrying Bastian out of the room helped with that. My mother watched him move like he was the next heir to the British throne. No, more precious than that. Her eyes softened. Her whole face did, as she gazed down at her grandchild.

Mum reached out some time after I had settled at the guy’s house. Dad had been furious about it, demanding she make a choice between me and my outlandish lifestyle, and imagine my surprise when she chose me. We still had our ups and downs and rushing in every time the babies even squeaked was one of them, but still. She’d offered to help around the house after the babies were born, something that ruffled Hawk’s feathers until the actuality of having two demanding little babies gave him a reality check. Mum was overly fussy, but she cooked, cleaned and had this house looking immaculate, taking a lot of the burden off our shoulders. Then she was like this.

“You’re such a good mum.” Her compliments always took me by surprise, and I just stared at her. “What? You’re doing a much better job than me. Your dad’s mother, she had to show me how to do everything. Here I was, all of nineteen years old and I didn’t have a clue. She showed me how to feed you and bathe you… Everything. But you…” She gazed up at me and smiled. “You just seem to know.”

“I don’t.” I would’ve loved to go along with Mum’s idealised view of me, but let’s be real. “I guess the nurses are a little more forthcoming with advice than they were in your day. When they saw who the fathers were, they seemed to think it very important to show me how to do everything. Anyway…” I smiled over at her as I settled down in a lounge chair and then moved my baby so he could feed. “I’m not sure you did such an awful job. I’m here, aren’t I?”

Having a baby just seemed to soften you somehow. Mum barging in to take over would’ve had me raging before, but now I was too sleep deprived to have that fight. As Bastian latched on, letting out contented little noises as he fed, everyone else kind of faded in the background. Right now there was only him.

Which meant Messy wasn’t far behind.

“Miss Melissa is not going back to sleep any time soon.” Bjorn emerged, thankfully in a pair of sleep shorts, with our daughter cradled in his arms. “If Bash is out here—”

“She needs to be too.” I smiled and then took her with my free arm, not even caring that my mother was here as I pulled my shirt up. Modesty be damned. When you had blood clots the size of your hand coming out of your vag and you had to ask someone to hand you three pads to stick to your underwear, you got over any idea of modesty. “Hey, baby…”

Did she look like me? It was hard to tell right now. She had a shock of dark hair, in contrast to Bastian’s much lighter locks. Sun and moon babies, Crash had decided. I had a feeling my little girl wouldn’t grow up hanging behind her brother. With a tribe of protective fathers and adoptive uncles and cousins, nothing would ever touch her, but right now she latched on with gusto to fill her belly.

It was times like this that everything seemed right in the world. It wouldn’t last, but that’s what made this so precious. Bjorn slid down to watch, his hand on my knee, rubbing back and forth, as Mum appeared with a couple of steaming mugs.

“Coffee for you, Bjorn.”

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