As everyone filed out of the room, I called Griff aside. “I want you to be my best man.”
He listened to my request, his expression not changing. However, his breathing picked up, and then he replied, “Means a lot to me, Scott. After everything we’ve been through over the past few months, it means a fucking lot.”
“I didn’t handle shit very well when you told me about your family, and I’m sorry, brother. You need to know that you are more family to me than some of my own blood family. I’d be honoured to have you by my side when I marry Harlow.” There wasn’t much I regretted in my life, but I wasn’t proud of the way I’d reacted when Griff shared his past with me.
He straightened and pushed his shoulders back as he said, “I’d be honoured to be your best man.”
I grinned. A load had been lifted off my shoulders now that we’d had that conversation. Slapping him on the back, I made a suggestion. “We need a beer.”
He returned my grin and nodded his agreement. “Or two.”
Some people didn’t understand the brotherhood of Storm. It was, however, what I believed in the most in my life. To trust and believe in something so much that you would lay down your life for it – that was what the brotherhood was to me.
It was family.
“Harlow tells me that you’re the one planning the wedding. So weird,” Cassie said to me that afternoon. I’d picked Harlow up from the hairdresser and planned a long afternoon in bed with her, but her best friend had arrived just as Harlow had run her tongue along my cock.
Worst fucking timing.
“Why is that weird?” I asked while grabbing a beer from the fridge.
“Well, firstly it’s just strange for the man to do the planning, but add to that fact you’re a biker…never saw that one coming, dude.”
Harlow laughed the nervous laugh she’d adopted when she was around Cassie and me. Her friend never hesitated to challenge me, and Harlow seemed hesitant about that. She needn’t have been. While I may not have always agreed with everything Cassie said, I respected the hell out of her honesty.
I took a swig of beer and sat at the table on the back deck with them. “So bikers can’t organise shit for their women?”
Cassie drank some of the wine I’d just poured her. “You’ve gotta admit it’s strange. When I think of bikers, I think of men who do manly things while their women run around after them.”
I raised my brows. “When the fuck do you see Harlow running around after me?”
Cassie laughed and nodded. “True. She doesn’t. The fact remains, though, that I think it’s weird for a club president to be taking charge of a wedding.”
I drank some more beer as I contemplated what she’d said. “I’ll concede that it’s not the norm, but I’m not about the norm. From the very beginning, I knew I’d make Harlow my wife. Watching her go through what she has over the last few months, has been hard, but as dark as some of those days were, they only reinforced to me how much I loved her. She gives me so much, the least I can do is give her a wedding she’ll always remember.”
Cassie stared at me like I had two heads. She then turned to Harlow and said, “Jeez, I need me a Scott Cole. You are one lucky bitch.”
Harlow’s eyes had misted over, but she smiled as she said, “I know. And I can help you find your Mr Perfect. I have lots of ideas of where we could look.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “Please, I’ve searched high and low, there aren’t any good men out there who aren’t already taken.”
Harlow shook her head. “I don’t believe that. I’ll find you one.”
“Okay, girl, you find me a man while I find you an art gallery to show your paintings. Where are you at with those paintings I saw in your art room?”
“They’re finished,” Harlow replied, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t hear any fear in her voice. Her standard response when it came to her art over the last six months had been a reluctance to even consider pursuing an art exhibition.
Excitement flared on Cassie’s face. “Awesome! And you still want to do this?”
Harlow took a deep breath and then nodded. “Yes. I’m scared, but if it doesn’t make you sweat, it’s not worth doing, right?”
Cassie burst into laughter. “Well, fuck me, you do listen to me!” Cassie had been saying those exact words to Harlow for a long time now, and Harlow had done her best to ignore her. I was fucking ecstatic to hear her change of heart.
Harlow grinned. “Sign me up before I change my mind.”
“Oh no, girl, you never get to change your mind now. This is happening!”
“Harlow!” Scarlett’s voice sounded from the front door.
“Shit,” Harlow muttered as she stood. “She’s probably been knocking on the door and we couldn’t hear her.”
I groaned as she left us. Scarlett had a way of irritating the fuck out of me, and I thought we had tied up all our loose ends with her, and sent her on her way.
“What’s wrong?” Cassie asked. “Don’t you like her?”
“I don’t dislike her, but she has the ability to frustrate me in a matter of seconds.”
Cassie scoffed. “Doesn’t everyone have that ability with you?”
“I’ll admit I have a temper, but I’ve been working on it. Scarlett messes with my concentration where that’s concerned.”