Page 77 of The Vows We Keep
She glances around my entrance hallway. “For this. For earlier. For listening.”
“I feel like I talked too much. I have a tendency to do that.”
“What you said made sense. Feeling lost is a weak position. It’s like the problem’s out of your control. But needing to make difficult decisions feels tangible. Like I could do them. And I’d love to meet Rae. Maybe grab a coffee with her or something. Not least because I want to meet the woman who agreed to be the old lady of the president of a motorcycle club. That takes balls.”
“I’ll set it up.”
Catalina presses her palms into my thighs and pushes herself to stand up, then offers me her hands to pull me to my feet. I don’t need her help, but I take them anyway and let her, just because it feels like a sweet moment.
Now I’m so much taller than her, and she has to tilt her neck to look up at me. “Niro,” she says, finally placing her hand over my heart.
“Yeah?”
“You don’t talk too much. I like listening to you. I like the way you unapologetically think out loud. I like the way you frame things. You gave me some good advice tonight, and I appreciate it.”
The words I want to say in response are momentarily stuck in my throat. So I scoop a handful of her hair at the base of her neck and kiss her soundly. I let her lips soothe mine, the pressure of them a slam against things that always feel frazzled. I just did something good. Intentionally. And she saw it.
More importantly, she saw me.
And I think that’s possibly the first time someone has.
“And for now,” she says, “I’m going to stay.”
25
CATALINA
“Is he going to be like this the whole time?” I ask Rae as King sits at the bar of the Iron Outlaws clubhouse two days later. It’s late afternoon, and he’s been glaring at us since the moment Niro introduced us and got a prospect to make us coffee.
I arrived here on the back of Niro’s bike, a place I vowed I would never be. But he’s trying in all the different ways he can to be what I need. Which makes me equally determined to really question why I have some of my beliefs.
And I’ve always believed the back of a bike is a subservient place to be.
Yet Niro has never treated me as subservient. In fact, he leans into us being equals more than any other man I’ve met. He’s clearly more secure in his masculinity than most. But there’s also a chance he just hasn’t given a thought to what others might say about him.
Rae smiles and then sips her coffee. “Let me go deal with him,” she says, placing her coffee cup back down on the table. “Or we’ll never get any privacy.”
I watch as she walks over to King. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something quite sweet in the way his glare melts as he slips his hands around Rae’s waist before settling firmly on her ass. They are a contrast. Rae’s more of the pale complexion, versus King’s weathered tan. Her hair is in loose waves; his dark hair hangs over his eyes. She smiles; he scowls. And yet she’s wearing a leather cut with a rocker that proudly shouts she’s the property of King.
“If you don’t have any work to do here, you could go and start removing the fence panels to make way for the new ones,” she says, her words clear in the empty clubhouse.
King looks to the window, where flurries swirl outside. “It’s snowing, Duchess.”
“Then go back home and strip that ugly paper off the downstairs bathroom. Or go over to Saint’s house and help him and Rose sand and stain the floor in their kitchen. Or go work with Vex in his closet on whatever scheme you’re cooking up. I don’t care. Just leave me to talk with Catalina. Alone.”
King glances my way, and I know he still doesn’t trust me as far as he can throw me. “She’s a member of a rival club, I’m not leaving you alone with her.”
“I’m not armed,” I shout helpfully.
“Once upon a time, you would have said the same thing about Iris, but it was lovely having her and Spark over for dinner last night,” Rae says, stroking his biceps.
King looks back at Rae. “We know a hell of a lot more about Iris now. She’s Spark’s property and knows the score. And we aren’t at war with her uncle. I’m not leaving you alone.”
Rae simply stands her ground. “I understand that this is all because you love me and want to protect me, but I don’t need your permission for a private conversation, sweetheart.”
I like the way she doesn’t capitulate. I’ve seen too many old ladies fold at the first sign of conflict. Rae doesn’t know it, but she’s modelling what I believe to be possible. That an old lady isn’t meant to be overruled; she’s meant to be respected and listened to.
Or perhaps the reason I haven’t seen this before is just because of the way Perrito ran his club, with all the staid machismo of an out-of-touch man.
