With a small kiss to the forehead, I pulled away from Ayda and jerked my head in the direction of the exit. She didn’t have to say a word. The blush of her cheeks and the excitement in her smile told me everything I needed to know. She couldn’t wait for us to be alone either.
I led the way, pulling her along as I walked backward and she followed. We’d almost made it to the exit when I turned around and slammed straight into the chest of my father. He was there, as always, blocking the way, his arms behind his back and his legs parted like he was a doorman or some kind of security. Standing right beside him was Sutton, and that familiar smirk of his made me step back and raise a brow as I pulled Ayda into my side.
“What’s going on?” I asked, eyeing them both.
Sutton shrugged, enjoying every second of whatever this was.
“Sorry, son. We can’t let you leave yet,” Eric said smoothly, pulling an envelope out from behind his back and holding it in front of me.
“Why not?”
“We’re under orders ourselves,” Sutton said, his southern drawl dragging the words out longer than they needed to be.
“There’s someone important here who wanted to say something before the night was through,” Eric added.
I stared into my father’s eyes for far too long, taking the envelope from him with a slightly shaky hand before glancing at Ayda for reassurance. With reluctance, I peeled myself away from her and opened the envelope, pulling out a one-page letter with a script I recognized in an instant.
Looking up at Eric, I wanted to tell him I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t read the words in front of me, but my father lookedlike a father then, and his encouragement forced my chin down, for the words of my other father to drift into my heart.
Well, look at that.
You’re reading this damn letter, written by my beat-up old hands.
I wouldn’t blame you if you needed a minute.
Would understand if you needed to put this aside and come back to it another day—a day less important than this. I don’t want to make this about me.
But you know I needed to be there in some way, right, son?
The kid I’d given grief to his whole life.
You think you’d get away with that on your wedding day? Did Ayda think she’d get away with that? Not a chance. I told you both before: I’ll never die.
My body may have given up, but this soul of mine lives on in splattered ink and wrinkled paper.
So…
Looks like you both made it.
The white wedding, the tears of joy, and the promises of forever.
It’s gone down that way, yeah? God, I hope so. As I sit here writing this with a lump in my throat, all I hope is that you got what you both deserved.
I’ve never seen two people look at each other the way you looked at each other. The minute she walked into The Hut, ready and willing to bend so you could break her, Drew, I knew she was the one.
Do you believe in magic? I did. All my life. I believed in magic, fate, and all that other bullshit most men scoff at when someone mentions it.
Seeing you two together was some kind of magic.
Oh, boy, oh, boy. Never lose that. I hope, even after I’m long gone, bored up in Heaven (because I’m too pure for Hell… and Hell isjust a lie created to scare those of us who want to live fast and die young) that you two understand what you’ve got in each other.
You’re gonna face hard times.
You’ll face good times, too.
You’ll have babies, argue, fight, want to run away, want to go back to the beginning, and you’ll struggle. No one is immune to that. Not even you.
But none of that matters because even when at your weakest, the two of you are stronger than an army of beasts. An army of Hounds. A motorcycle club filled with old men and young dreams.