Page 78 of Cruz

“No.”

“But I understand it more now.” I glance at Cruz. “Don’t look too smug.”

“I would never.”

“You absolutely would. Internally.”

Cruz turns fully toward me. There’s something in his face that makes my laughter fade. My stomach flips again, and this time it has nothing to do with the bike.

“What?” I ask.

He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket.

For one wild second, my brain goes straight to ring. Which is ridiculous. Cruz and I have talked about a lot of things, but marriage hasn’t been one of them. Not seriously. Not yet. We’re still new and not new at all. We’re still learning the shape of each other’s lives.

He doesn’t pull out a ring. Instead, he pulls out a small, folded piece of paper. I remember that stupid list I gave him months ago. Has he written me a poem?

“Cruz.”

“I wrote it down,” he says, voice rough. “In case I couldn’t say it right.”

I press my lips together and nod because if I open my mouth, I might make some noise that embarrasses both of us.

He unfolds the paper but doesn’t look at it right away. His eyes stay on mine.

“I know you don’t need me,” he says. “I know that’s important. You built your life with your own hands. You raised Liam. You made a home out of a place that saved you, and then you turned around and made it a place that saves other people too, even if it’s just with coffee, books, and those awful sweaters that should probably be illegal in at least six states.”

A laugh breaks out of me at that. He’s always teasing me about them. His mouth curves for a second before he grows serious again.

“I don’t want to take over your life. I don’t want to stand in front of you. I want to stand beside you. Or behind you, if that’s where you need me. I want to be the person you can lean on when you’re tired. I want to be the one who knows how you take your coffee and when you’re pretending you’re not worried. I want lazy Sunday mornings and dinners with Liam. I want rides like this. I want the quiet, and the chaos, and all the weird shit in between.”

He glances down at the paper for the first time, then lets out a slow breath.

“I know being an old lady means something in the club. I know it’s not just words. It means you’re mine, but more than that, it means I’m yours. It means the club knows it. It means I claim you, but only if you claim me back. It means respect. It means family. It means protection, but not because you’re weak. Because you matter.”

My heart is not built for this.

Not at all.

It’s trying to climb right out of my chest and throw itself at him.

Cruz folds the paper carefully, like maybe his hands need the task. “We were already heading there. I know that. The guys know. Liam knows. Hell, Mrs. Jenkins probably knows, and she’d call me personally to tell me if she thought I was moving too slow.”

That gets another wet laugh out of me.

“But I wanted to do it properly,” he says. “Not because there’s one right way. Because you deserve to be asked. You deserve to have a choice. You deserve a moment that isn’t tangled up in broken windows, fear, or everyone else’s trouble.”

He takes my hand in his. His palm is warm and rough around mine.

“Sloane,” he says, my name turning into something sacred in his mouth. “Will you be my old lady?”

There it is.

A strange phrase, maybe, to anyone outside this life. One that could sound outdated, even ridiculous, if it didn’t hold so much weight here.

I think about the first time I heard it and how I internally bristled. But I understand now. It’s a declaration. A place beside him. A tie to the family Liam has chosen and the one I somehow found along the way. It’s Cruz asking me to let him belong to me in a way that everyone can see.

And me belonging to him in return.