Page 89 of Biker's Baby

EPILOGUE – THREE MONTHS LATER

Iris

“Drinks all around,” I said as I offered beers to the three men sitting around the fire pit.

It was amazing to me that we had a fire pit in our own backyard. Our very own pit to have our very own good times. It was surreal.

I was elated with the new house.

While Abe had been happy renting the other house, I felt that we needed more space. Not to mention I didn’t want to live in a house where someone had been shot right outside the front door. I also argued that Tristan would need a yard for his puppy.

“What puppy?” Abe asked with a laugh.

“The one I’m getting him when we get a house with a yard,” I said.

“But we don’t have that house yet,” he argued.

“Then you better find one,” I smirked. “Every boy needs a dog to grow up with, you know this.”

And he did. I knew Abe wanted to give our son the world, and we hadn’t even lived in our new place a full week before Abe came home with a little puppy he’d gotten at the shelter. We didn’t know what kind of dog it was, but we didn’t care, either.

Tristan promptly named him Nacho, and he fit into the family immediately.

I loved the little dog from the moment Abe brought him home, and I could tell even though Abe tried to act like he hadn’t wanted a dog in the family, he was happy, too.

But a new puppy wasn’t the only crazy thing that had changed in our lives the past few months. It seemed that every day had become a blur, and I could hardly keep up with all the changes that were taking place. The more I tried to sit down and enjoy the time passing, the faster it seemed to go.

I was sure Abe was going to wind up having to look for a new job after he kept calling off from the warehouse. He had to keep missing work for interviews with the FBI, and though I told him we needed him to work for the money, he insisted that it was more important to talk to the feds about what had been going on with the club.

I knew he was going to get that inheritance he had been dreaming of since I’d met him, but I had no idea how long that was going to take, and he didn’t seem to know, either.

Yet, somehow, despite all the work that he had missed, Abe still wound up with a promotion.

“I guess all you have to do is something heroic and save the town and change the way you are able to walk home at night, and all of the sudden you are given a job that appreciates you,” Abe said with a shrug the night he told me about the promotion.

“Does this mean you’re going to be working more?” I asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “It means that I’m going to work during the day so I get to be home with you and Tristan in the evening and in the mornings. I’m going to be able to see more of you this way, which is the biggest win of all.”

And he was right.

I was happier than ever when he was able to be home for breakfast and dinner, and while he was gone during the day, I had been able to find a sitter through one of the neighbors.

The entire community was family-friendly, and this young girl was willing to come over and watch Tristan for me while I went to work at a deli for a few hours a day during the week. I wasn’t working full time, just enough for me to feel like I was out feeding people and doing the thing that I loved most.

Plus, it gave me a break from being home and taking care of Tristan all the time. While being a mother was my calling in life, I did enjoy having the time to myself by going to work each day, and I loved having the things to talk about with Abe when I came back home in the afternoon.

Our evenings were the best time of the day as far as I was concerned.

He was off work, and I was home for the rest of the day, too. Our sitter had gone home to her own family, and we could either spend the time enjoying our own company, or we could invite people over to have dinner with us, or even just to have a fire with us around our very own fire pit.

I made friends easily at work, but it was Glenn and Trey who came over most often.

They were easily our closest friends, and I didn’t mind that they came over almost every day of the week. They would hang out with me and Abe and have a beer in the backyard while Tristan played with Nacho in the grass.

I would invite some of the women I worked with at the deli over every now and then, and I was sure Trey and a girl named Rose had hit it off. I told Abe I thought the day would come when the two of them started dating, and while he told me he didn’t see it happening, I made sure to invite her over as much as I could when I knew Trey would be around. I could see a spark in people, and I was sure that there was one between the two of them.

As for the club, well, Abe wasn’t sure what was going to happen there.

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