Page 77 of A Love So Hard

“That’s true,” I added before kissing his kutte, right over his heart and pulling away enough to sit up and look into his eyes again. “I don’t want us to be apart anymore, CJ.”

“I knew that back in the clubhouse babe.”

“Oh yeah? How’d you know that?”

“Besides the face you made when you thought I was there with a date?” He joked and I narrowed my eyes on him. “You called me CJ again tonight,” he reminded me. I didn’t know that he’d realize the importance of that. The day of our son’s funeral all I could see when I looked at him was the club, and so I made him the club again. To do that, in order to be angry with him and push him away from me, he became Double-D.

“Never hate my road name so much as the past few months when you used it,” he admitted. “Wouldn’t let anyone there call me anything by D.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized and I meant it. I never set out to make his road name a dirty word, and that’s just what I’d managed.

“No, we aren’t apologizing for anything, sweetheart. We’re just moving forward, and chalking the past six months up to grief for the best man either of us has ever known.”

“CJ,” I managed to choke out around the emotion that welled up beyond containment with his words. We sat like that a few more moments before he leaned in and placed a sweet little kiss on my nose.

“Missed this nose,” he told me and I just looked at him like he was weird for saying that, because that’s what I was thinking. “Your cute little nose was the first thing that caught my attention. Couldn’t be helped with all the engine grease you swiped on it.” I laughed then. “Uh-uh. I’m not done. You see, what you did that day, was marked yourself as mine and you didn’t even realize.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Of course I remember the day we met,” I argued.

“No, I don’t think you do. See I walked in that day to find this cute as shit girl working on my bike. My fuckin’ bike.” He shook his head back and forth as if still in disbelief over that. “Then, I saw you actually knew what you were doing there, and you got so nervous talking to me, even though you did such a fine job of playing like that wasn’t happening. You started rubbing your fingers down that nose of yours, and the only thing I could think was that you would be mine, and you just sealed that deal because there you were, standing in that garage looking cute as fuck and you had my bike all over you.”

“Knew then, even when ol’ Jack was doing his level best to warn me away I knew you’d be mine one day. I also knew you’d be worth the wait it would take to get you. I knew that too the day you told me to get out of here. You needed time to heal and process, but baby, you have always been marked as mine. It will always come back to you and me needing to be together to be whole.”

I stood then and held my hand out for him to take. He did so and followed behind me all the way up to our room where we could work on become whole together again. The funny thing about being apart from your love for six months is that when you finally get back together, it’s like putting two teenagers in a room for the first time. We were wild, crazy, and a bit of a mess. Some clothing got torn and probably wouldn’t be salvageable when we were able to check out the aftermath.

Not one care was given though. I had my man in my arms, in my body, and in my heart. We were right where we belonged again. Finally.

We stood there for a few minutes just looking down at the headstones, holding hands, and taking it all in. Then I leaned down and placed the little toy motorcycle on the smaller of the two and the orange and black Harley Davidson wreath on the larger of the two. I allowed my hand to rest there for a moment, taking in the chill of the stone in the early morning. It was still a little wet with the dew that had collected there. The moment I pulled my hand free CJ tucked me against him, my back to his front and he clasps his arms around my waist.

“I love you,” he whispered into my hair. Then he spoke out loud to our son. “We got our shit together now, T. Got your momma back, again,” he chuckled as he added that last and I knew it was because that would have been what Toby said as he teased his dad about losing me yet again. It was something he would have done, for sure. He went on talking to our son as if he was here and was listening to every word. “You can thank your sister for that shit too. She went and hooked a brother,” I could feel CJ rolling his eyes. “The one of you I thought wouldn’t have a thing to do with the biker world when you guys all grew up. My little dreamer,” he added.

That made me smile, because it’s what he used to always call her when she lost in her own worlds she was creating. His little dreamer. It made me ache for the fact that she was grown up already and about to have her own baby now.

“She went and got herself knocked up too, T. Wish you were here to help kick his ass, and hand her out some big brother wisdom. I think she’s going to need it, because she went and paved herself a hard road to travel with the start those two have had.” I sank in deeper to CJ’s embrace while he continued talking and I just took in everything he had to tell our son. I had been coming here weekly and doing the same thing, so I felt like this was his turn. It occurred to me then that this was the same day and time I normally came to talk to CJ and I turned a little to look up at him. He was smiling down at me.

“Seems your momma finally figured out I’ve been here too, listening to her talking to you. She didn’t know I was here, but I wasn’t about to leave her to this alone. Even if she didn’t want me at the time.” Oh God! I didn’t know if my heart was breaking or filling with that revelation. I just knew it felt as though it might burst open at any moment.

“Thing is, it was losing family that put some cracks in our foundation, but now we’re gaining family and trying to repair that damage. I know you understand that, T. So,” he leaned over and touched the smaller of the stones. “You take care of our grandbaby up there and we’ll make sure this one grows up right down here. Some day, we’ll all meet in the middle and compare notes, yeah?”

That was the moment my heart burst wide open.

Chapter 32

(Lucy – age 47, Double-D – age 50)

I opened the little hidden compartment in the wall that I had specially built into the garage after I bought the house, and touched each of the three wooden boxes that I had stowed inside reverently. Each one was a bit different from the last, the second one being the largest of the three, marking the times in life when they were needed. Only one other person, aside from the attorney who drew up my Last Will and Testament, knew it was here and what it contained. I didn’t bother taking the other boxes out or opening them up. I knew what each one contained. Instead, I added a fourth, much smaller box to the mix after I put the letters inside that were just a touch different from all the others.

“Thought that was something you only did when you two were apart? It’s been three years since you last needed a notebook. Something I should know about, considering?” Merc glanced down at the clothes he was wearing and I had to laugh. Yeah, that wouldn’t make much sense to him.

“Nah, man. Just added something I forgot a while back.”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

I huffed out a sigh, sealed the boxes back inside the wall, and then I turned to look at my lifelong best friend. “There are 2,572 letters in there, and aside from the three more I added today for Lucy and the girls just in case anything ever happens to me I don’t plan to have to add any more.”

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