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Her words, her tone, were as gentle as the touch of a feather, but the memories they carried weighed on me like a stone.
“You did that, even if it meant putting a bullet wound in your own happily ever after. Without a second of hesitation.”
Lizzie’s hands squeezed mine, and I blinked away the grim reaper that beckoned me as a comrade. A friend.
I focused on her midnight-blue eyes as they crossed the party once more, meeting Ranger’s as he wrestled with a toddler to try and clean ice cream off his face.
“Little help, babe,” he bellowed across the party.
Lizzie grinned. “You’re a big bad biker. I think you can handle it,” she teased.
“I’ll handle you,” he growled, eyes glowing with erotic promise.
Lizzie’s cheeks reddened as she giggled like a schoolgirl, even almost a decade into her marriage. She was still madly in love with her husband. Like a teenager. And even though he was wrestling a toddler much like a man might wrangle with an alligator, his gaze never left her for long, as if he was afraid if he didn’t glance at her enough, she might slip away. The way a man might look at the stars to make sure he didn’t get lost forever in dark and lonely woods.
“You rescued a marriage that had lost its way,” she said, almost too low to hear. “You did something that made sure two people weren’t walking around bleeding without a half of themselves for the rest of their lives. You made sure I still had this wonderful life that I let others pollute and taint.”
I blinked away the tears at the corner of my eyes. Not many people knew about the darkest days of Lizzie’s and Ranger’s lives. They were two of the cornerstones of this club. Never in the spotlight, but always there. Throughout all the drama and death, they remained constant support. Like Steg and Evie, or Goldie and Kurt, they were the couple that made you not give up on the magic.
For a moment, the magic gave up on them. They had to fight harder for anyone else in this club for a love that blew Romeo and Juliet out of the water.
No one knew.
Because that wasn’t my story to tell.
“You’ve fought for us all. And each and every one of us knows you’d fight to the bitter, or hopefully happy, end,” Lizzie continued. “But you need to start fighting for yourself. The one person you’ve neglected all these years. You have been God knows where doing God knows what. I don’t want to know because I’m not like you. I’m not strong enough to handle what one of the most precious people in my life has struggled through. I don’t need to know because it’s written all over your face. It’s changed you. And I know you went through that because you were helping someone. Know you would’ve plunged into horror that would even make Gage blush if it meant you were helping someone. Fighting for someone. But you’re home now. You’ve done it. Saved everyone who needed saving. Now it’s time to do it for yourself. Save yourself, babe.”
I looked at her, my eyes blurry once more, barely able to hold in the emotion she’d roused within me. “I can’t do that,” I choked, hating the weakness in my voice. “Admitting I need saving is admitting I’m….”
“Human?” Lizzie finished for me. “I’ll tell you a secret. We all are. Even these idiotic macho men who think they can crush cars during bicep curls,” she joked, eyes moving to her macho-man husband for a second. “It’s okay to be human, you know. It’s painful, immensely so, but the rewards are worth it. But it’s not easy. Not like the movies. True love doesn’t fall into place. It isn’t as easy as breathing. It’s a struggle. Takes work. Every day. You’ve got to fight for it, but it’s only the most beautiful of things that are worth fighting for.”
I sucked in a ragged breath, my eyes finding Luke. His had been on me for what looked like a long time.
“Fuck yeah it is,” I whispered.
Lizzie was hauled away by her husband not long after her heart-to-heart. But not before he kissed my cheek and smiled at me, his wrinkled eyes sparkling. “Happy for you, girl. You deserve this.”
Then he left. No long speeches, no drama, just saying what he meant in as few words as possible.
That was Ranger.
The space beside me wasn’t empty for long. My eyes were focused on Luke chatting with Brock in what actually looked like a pleasant conversation, so I hadn’t realized Evie had sat down until she spoke.
“Sure know how to shake things up, babe,” she commented, her eyes following mine.
I grinned. “Don’t I always?”
She lit a smoke. “True, but you shake things up in what people think are some of the most dangerous ways, but until now, they were the safest.”
