Thrash (33 page)

48

“Well if you wanted to go back to bed all you had to do was ask,” he called, laughing.

“Not that, you goof.” I grinned and turned, opening the door to the spare bedroom. “In here.”

I felt shy and giddy and pleased as I watched his eyes widen.

I’d been using the spare room as a studio, and my work was all over. There were still some half-painted pieces, but most of them were finished.

There were a few landscapes, a couple of the city and others of the parks and playgrounds.

I had one that showed our bare knees as we looked up at the tree at the playground that night a few weeks back. I had painted the sky in the crisp hues of early morning, in part because I preferred the lighting and also because I had been able to emphasize the details better with that pallet. I had caught each shadow on the blades of grass and the stalks of weeds. I had paid careful attention to the elasticity of our skin, the precise shade of his and the pasty cream of mine.

I liked the contrast. I liked us both. Together.

And I had missed that moment, curled up together, the rest of the world be damned. The painting seemed to imply that we had spent the night together and would have to part.

I had titled it
Our Aubade
. Our dawn song.

Other pieces were of him. I had a thousand sketches of him, scratchy penciling of his delicious ripples and the roiling lines of his body. But there were so many of him because the body hadn’t been enough. I had wanted to capture
him
: who he was, what he meant to me.

For weeks, I had scratched and scribbled, filling my time with that task until we could be together again. It had kept me sane, steady. I could face anything so long as I could figure it out. I just happened to be the sort of person who figured things out with pencils and paint.

At the end of it all, I had been able to turn out two paintings of him. One was titled
Thrash
, the other
DeMarcus
.

His mouth hung open as he stood there and looked at all of the paintings, one by one until he turned to me. “You did all of this?”

I nodded.

There was a real wonder in his eyes.

“You get me,” he said as he looked a picture that was just his back. It was an unfinished piece, a rough spread of him and the other members of Fire and Steel. I had started it while I was learning about the club for the mural and I hadn’t gotten back to it. In it, the men were listening to Rage, who was the focal point of the piece.

It fascinated him.

“You get all the guys.”

I blushed. “I was hoping to show these at the gallery. I took one in, but they asked me to leave.”

“Fuck them. I’ll open a gallery for you,” Thrash screwed up his face. “I don’t want you to involve yourself with anyone that doesn’t want you. You deserve a space to show your work. You are amazing.”

He looked around again. There were more of the club. They were mostly sketches, but there were a few other roughs and a final piece that I wasn’t sure what to do with. Within them was the side of Fire and Steel that I had been trying to capture. The duality and the purpose. People. Helping at the charity carnival. Talking to one another. Working under cars.

Those bits of paper and canvases loaded with paint showed who the men and women of Fire and Steel actually were, not the stereotype people whispered about them.

I had sought to understand them and I had rendered them as best I could, and with respect.

That meant the world to DeMarcus.

“Thank you,” he said as he turned and looked at me.

“For what?”

“For being you.”

I glowed.

49

I sat at the bar next to Layla and Emma and looked around. The guys should be done with work any moment now. I’d been waiting all day to see Thrash. He wanted to go and look at a property a few blocks away, for a gallery. He said it was the perfect place.

I looked at the door and then back down to my drink.

“You look nervous,” Layla observed.

“Yeah, and you look uncomfortable,” Emma countered. She was right. Layla was two weeks past her due date and looking incredibly irritable.

“Shut up and get me another virgin pineapple drink-thingy,” Layla said, her tone only half-playing. She had been mainlining pineapple for the past couple of days. It was one of the few things that made her pleasant.

“I am nervous,” I admitted. “A studio and gallery. It’s a lot to take on. … What if no one likes my work?”

“People already love your work. We already love your work -” Emma started.

Just then, the doors opened behind us and distracted us all from that worry.

“Oh, look who finally decided to show up,” she called, as all three men walk in.

They weren’t in their work uniforms. They’d all cleaned up.

“You three going on a date or something?” she asked, mischief in her eyes.

Thrash grinned. “Something like that.” He had worn jeans and a button down and he looked relaxed and crisp at once. It was like he was wearing a costume or something.

I eyed the jeans and chewed my lip. I enjoyed being able to hang on that leather vest, but he wore this clean cut look well. Well enough that I watched as he came towards me and giggled at all the naughty thoughts that ran through my head.

Wrath reached over and grabbed Emma’s hand. “You wanna go for a ride?” he asked, teasing her with some private joke.

She nodded.

Layla looked up at Rage, “And what about you, you going to take me for a ride on your bike?” She batted her eyelashes.

“I was thinking of taking you for a drive in the car, actually.” He kissed her neck, and she turned a deep shade of pink – all the way down to her collar. No control over her flushing at this point.

It was adorable.

“Niiiice,” Rage teased her.

She smacked his arm then she smiled, completely content.

I looked at them, my eyebrow cocked up.

“What?” Thrash asked.

“They get to go on dates, but we have to do business.” My pout was more playful than pitiful. I was excited and nervous.

“That can be fun too,” he suggested pulling me up firmly and twirling me around slowly. He took my breath away.

Wrath snorted and Rage catcalled, but the women were smirking.

“Think you’re hot shit, huh, Thrash?”

Layla muttered, “That sounds familiar.”

When hints still didn’t shut Wrath up, Emma elbowed him in the ribs.

“You can tease when you start dancing with me like that.”

My brows had shot high, my mouth open in an “O” of surprise. I wasn’t the only one who looked shocked. Wrath was either going to kiss her or wrestle her. Probably both.

Layla looked a little jealous of their barbed humor. Something told me arguments weren’t so fun when you had a baby on the way. Everything got a lot more serious then.

Thrash scooped me closer and murmured, “Come on, we don’t want to be late.”

I followed him outside and into the car. “Is the realtor meeting us there?” I asked, still a little breathless.

“No.” He shook his head, helping me in. “We get to look through it ourselves. I have the code for the lock.”

When he climbed in and started up the truck, I cuddled up to him, content to watch the road. The last few months had been absolute heaven.

Except for the whole listening to a pregnant lady complain thing. It didn’t matter that there were eight months to adjust to all the physical changes of pregnancy. The “carrying a mini-anvil in my belly” thing apparently was not as glowing and cuddly as the books implied.

Her joints had started to get soft, which was apparently a perfectly normal thing in pregnancy. But I had not known that. It was causing Layla a lot of problems, in part because she was used to being strong and the suddenly goopy joints thing was making getting around hard. Layla did not like being held back by anything.

The other problem was the fact that her baby was very big. Desiree had gotten a fundal measurement and suggested that Layla’s baby could be as heavy as 9 lbs.

That was a lot of baby to be carrying around inside her short, curvy little body.

She was cranky and anxious and incredibly uncomfortable, and we were all trying really hard to be supportive. But that wasn’t easy, either.

Still, I liked Layla. I just wished there was something I could do to help. So she would shut up, yes, but also because there was only so long I could watch her be miserable before I started feeling both sad and frustrated and a little scared.

If I had a baby, I was really hoping it wouldn’t be so unpleasant. Emma and I had searched all over town for deals on baby toys, and an old woman Emma knew had knitted baby blankets. Greens and blues and reds, all soft and snuggly.

We had wrapped them carefully and hidden them till the baby shower. The guys had found a great crib somewhere. And Desiree had sworn that changing tables just weren’t necessary.

Layla was going to try not using the changing table first. The club wasn’t rolling in money, and what its members did bring in had to go into investments. Clubhouse repairs, local businesses, gear for the repair shop. Thrash’s apartment set-up brought in a little money, too, on good months. And now, perhaps, the gallery.

I was kind of excited. I had loved the idea of a gallery, but I didn’t want it to be all about me. Thrash suggested that we feature other artists, but the only way he would agree to it was if I would vet them, too.

“You would have to run the place,” he told me. He had patrols and work and responsibilities to the club had to juggle, too. He said that he would be more an assistant, the financier of this project.

It would be my own business. I had so many ideas…

We couldn’t have been driving for more than five minutes when Thrash pulled into a lot and parked.

“We’re here.” Thrash looked over at property, and I sucked in a breath.

It was beautiful. Well, it could be. It was a large two-story building with a gorgeous storefront window and great lighting. The windows still had edging with little curlicues at the corners. I didn’t know what it was called, but that edging soothed my childish OCD desire to contain things.

It also made each window glimmer and shine like square-cut gems in the light of the sinking sun.

I didn’t tend to enjoy wearing extravagant jewelry, but I was as guilty as the next girl of enjoying looking at it. The best part was, I knew those windows would make other people think of bright, shiny things, too, and that was good for business. Especially for an artistic venue that leaned towards vintage styles.

The building looked like it had been well-loved but ill-cared for, as though it had been owned by an older couple or a group that no longer had the money for repairs. Those amazing windows had gotten dingy. The trim needed a paint job and the brick-face needed to be sprayed down. But we could fix that, no problem.

“What’s the price on it?” I asked as we stepped out of the car, suppressing the urge to skip and bounce like a child.

“I’ll tell you that part at the end,” he grinned. He unlocked the door and held it open for me. “In you go, my lady.”

I walked in to find a space already suited to be a gallery. It was open and bright. The air flow was pleasant, too. The flooring needed to be replaced… Or maybe we could have it waxed and call it rustic. It might be fun, at least for a start-up. If I could figure out how to get it down right…

“What was this?” I asked, curious, the wheels in my head whirring.

He shrugged.

“I heard it was a jewelry store,” he said. “But they took all the counters out.”

I nodded, that made sense. I could see where the counters had been and scowled. We would have to either put something there, or replace the entire floor.

Ideas, ideas…

“Are you sure you want this?” he asked me, suddenly very serious.

It was a lot of money.

I nodded, steady, sure, and utterly glowing. “It’s perfect. If we can afford it?”

He beamed down at me and nodded. “Upstairs would be your studio. Do you want to see?”

He was already walking around the back and up the stairs. I raced to catch up with him but when I got to the top of the stairs, I sucked in a breath. The whole studio was already clean, candles everywhere.

“What is this?” I asked as I walked to the center. A part of me already knew. A part of me had known all along.

After that day in the apartment, he didn’t mention marriage again. He didn’t make a big deal out of the preparation.

No, he just waited. Let it fall away, be forgotten.

Because he wanted me to be speechless when I finally saw him there, on one knee, looking up at me.

He squirmed a little. “I bought this place already, Nora,” he told me. “For you. For us.” He seemed like he had a speech in his head, and it just wasn’t coming out. But I could feel it, and I loved that he was nervous. I loved that this mattered to him.

He pulled a small box out of his pocket and held it up for me.

Inside lay a little ring, petite and beautiful, with three small stones lined all in a row at the center. It was perfect.

“I know it is not as big as you deserve –” DeMarcus started, but I cut him off.

“It’s exactly what I wanted,” I told him shyly. “Perfectly balanced. Not flashy. Just… perfect.” I was glowing.

He nodded, steadied himself slightly, then looked up again over my hand. He was nervous. He’d done all of this, but he was still nervous.

“Please, marry me?” he asked quietly.

My lips parted. Everyone knew those words, but hearing him say them to me made me dizzy. I mouthed for a moment, then I knelt in front of him. I withdrew my hand from his and laid both on either side of his face, looking up into those beautiful dark eyes.

“Yes,” I breathed. I kissed him, sweetly at first, then melting as I curled into his arms, grateful for his warm, wandering hands and his willingness to watch me at my most wanton.

We made love again, right there on the floor, and it was… great, but old wood floor had its drawbacks. It was so scuffed and beaten that it was something of a hazard for skin.

By the time we had relearned how to breathe, we started to realize that we had made a serious mistake. It was funny and very uncomfortable.

With my new ring and tingling body, I checked over DeMarcus’ skin, picking splinters out of his knees and side by candlelight, before switching places.

He was picking them out of my back and using it as an excuse to massage and explore the curve of my ass. With commentary.

I giggled into my arms and taunted him with looks, but we were both tired and enjoying the afterglow. It was all a great excuse to just luxuriate in one another’s touch.

“This is nice,” I murmured, curled up in his arms. “I’m not sure what to say when we get back though…”

“What?”

I looked up at him and explained. “Well… Layla…” I didn’t have to say another word.

I expected him to scowl or shrug or evade the issue. Instead, he smiled. “Well actually, when I told the guys I was going to propose to you they confessed their plan also to propose to their girls. Said it was time, or in Cullen’s case ‘past time’. No one wanted to steal anyone else’s day, so we decided to do it all at once.”

He looked like he was sure I was going to either laugh or get upset.

I felt like doing neither. “What, do you expect us all to get married at the same time, too?” I asked, tilting my head to the side, putting him on the spot.

“No, but that would make it a lot easier.”

He was joking, it made me smile..

This was the man I was going to marry. And I was very, very happy about that.