Page 166 of Frisco

“You said pop, and then you said soda.”

“It’s on the card!”

“Those are the words you can’t say.”

“Oh! Well, why isn’t that in the rules? Should be in the rules.”

“It’s in the rules. I’ve told you seven times.”

“Hey.”

An arm circled my waist later, when I was watching my dad and his dance crew on the dance floor. I was pulled back into the shadows. I knew whose arm that was, and I was already smiling, turning around to meet him. I reached up on my toes, pressing my mouth to his. “Hi.”

Shane smiled down at me. “Hi back.”

It’d been a year since I pulled that trigger.

Since then, he picked me up. Literally.

He carried me at times when I couldn’t walk.

He was there when we went back.

When we met Aly. When Brandon hadn’t been such a fan of Shane then.

When I called my father, told him what all happened, he had so severely not been happy. He refused to meet Shane until months later. Shane was with me at every step of the way back, and the way back was a long trip. But we were here, and I was feeling we’d finally arrived once more.

I killed Estrada, or I thought I had, and his club swarmed me. They covered me, but there’s been no investigation. Nothing. The most I saw was when I woke one morning and two cops were talking to Shane, Boise, and Machete in the driveway. They left and none of the guys ever said a word to me what that’d been about.

We came back.

We lived.

I got the call about my brother. I told Claudia about the call about our brother, and well, life went on.

It was a weird event.

We went to Texas for a while.

We went back to Indiana. When Aly called and asked if I could help make plans for sending her grandmother to California, I really got it. Aly was staying in Cali, and since she was there, and since I was kinda a nomad, that’s where Harper said he was going to settle down. Justin had family from California so it worked for them, but we helped get Aly’s grandma transferred out there.

And Shane asked me one night in bed, his arms around me, “Where do you want to be?”

I paused, my legs had been wound around his hips. “What?”

“Max is asking me. I still got stuff to handle in Cali, but if you don’t want to settle there, then we won’t. Where do you want to go?”

I told him instantly, no hesitation. California.

So here we were.

I called Rena when we arrived, knowing we’d be staying and I had a job at Fallen Crest not long after that. I didn’t know the specifics, but Shane was taking over the Frisco charter. But changes were happening. On my request, he was making a move to help rebuild the town. They moved their charter’s headquarters so it was more out of town, and put money into building whatever needed to be done.

The latest I heard was that the plans were approved to start rebuilding a school. A new development recently started too. The Red Demons had an investment into it, but it was happening. There were talks about setting up a small clinic too. Three other bars had popped up in and near town.

It was all good.

But we’d built our own house, a renovated horse barn. It was always my dream, and Shane had a whole shed for his bikes too on our land. Plus, that shed was added onto it so he was housing half of his new charter too.

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