"About damn time, kid." He pulls back and grins. "Sorry. Not kid anymore."
Ounce's handshake nearly crushes my fingers.
Coin nods once—a single movement that carries more weight than any speech.
Maddox wraps me in a bear hug that lifts my boots off the floor.
Bracken. Decorum. Daemon. Wraith.
Satyr. Krypton last. One by one.
Handshakes and back-claps and nods and gruff, masculine affection these men would die before calling by its real name.
Krypton is last. He doesn't hug. He doesn't shake. He points at me with his coffee mug.
"You still owe me for the solder I wasted teaching you hardware." His lips twitch. "Brother."
I laugh. The sound surprises me. Full and real and coming from somewhere I didn't know was open.
I look down at the cut on my chest. The bottom rocker. MORGANTOWN.
Three years. Eighteen years old with plaster dust in my hair and Kinsey's betrayal on my shoulders and a table full of men who looked at me and saw a liability.
Now they see a brother, an equal.
* * *
I stand in my room at the compound and look at the cut hanging on the back of my door.
The bottom rocker catches the light from the window. MORGANTOWN.
I've stared at that word on other men's backs for three years, memorized the font, the curve of the letters, the way it sits above the hem. Now it's mine.
I pull the cut on. It fits different. Not physically—the leather is the same, the weight is the same.
But the way it sits on my shoulders has changed, and when I catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror, the man looking back isn't the kid who walked into this compound with plaster dust in his hair.
The party fills Backroads by eight.
Ellie opened the bar for the club only tonight. Doors locked, blinds drawn, the jukebox playing loud enough to shake the bottles on the shelf.
Every patched member, every ol' lady, every woman connected to this club is inside these walls.
The compound's energy followed us here.
Men who were stoic at the table are loose now, laughing, the tension of Church replaced by the release of celebration.
Bloodhound has a whiskey in his grip and Vanna under his arm—she found a sitter for Waylon and showed up in a dress that made Bloodhound blink twice.
Ellie is behind the bar running drinks like a woman half her age.
She poured me the first beer herself, set it on the counter, and looked at me over her reading glasses with an expression that said more than any toast.
"About time, Prospect." She caught herself. "Sorry. About time, Brother."
Saylor is beside Ellie, working the bar. She's been watching me since I walked in wearing the full patch, and the look on her face is something I want to photograph and carry in my wallet for the rest of my life.
Pride. Not the polite, obligatory pride of someone who's supposed to be happy for you.