I was leading Poppy to the front part of the ballroom where Rowdy was smirking at me knowingly as Salem shook her head at her sister. Zeb’s sister seemed oblivious to what they were laughing at and didn’t bother to ask as she cuddled into her husband. Hyde was doing his best to avoid a very persistent Remy Archer, a plan that included trying to hide behind his cousin Joss. Joss sold him out to the adorable demon in pigtails because it was an unwritten rule that Remy got what Remy wanted. That’s what happened when you were the first kid.
A quiet murmur went through the room as Sayer and Zeb arrived at the back. They didn’t want to do a formal announcement, they just wanted to present themselves to all of their friends and family as husband and wife, so that’s what they did. The gigantic, bearded badass and his elegant, polished bride. They didn’t look like they belonged on the top of the same wedding cake, but there was no doubt when he put his hand on her lower back and she leaned into him that they belonged together. Hyde escaped Remy long enough to run to his dad and a collective sigh went up when the big man bent and picked the smaller version of himself up in one arm. They were a united front, and they always would be.
“She looks good in lilac.” I glanced over at the table closest to the one where Poppy and I were sitting and silently agreed with Quaid Jackson. He had his arm draped over the back of his girlfriend’s chair as they both watched the bride and groom make their way through the room. Quaid had tried to start something with Sayer a million years ago, and though it went nowhere because she loved the massive mountain of man on her arm now, the two of them had remained friends. They were both in the legal field and often referred clients to one another. Quaid’s girlfriend nodded her head in agreement, the lights from overhead catching in her smoky, silver-tinted hair. There was a significant age gap between the two of them, one that was obvious when you looked at them together, but there was also an understanding and acceptance there that no one questioned. Quaid had loosened up significantly since Avett moved into his million-dollar loft in LoDo and the free-spirited, wild child had settled down and really worked toward making something of herself. She was rocking an engagement ring that had a diamond the width of a quarter in the center of it, and if you asked her, she was getting married in Vegas by an Elvis impersonator, so she didn’t have to plan a wedding. It was probably a good idea considering how different her style and Quaid’s were. The two of them trying to combine their styles in order to say “I do” could be disastrous.
“I think my hair would look awesome that color, don’t you?” Avett whispered the question under her breath and Quaid just nodded and kissed her temple.
“Do it. It’ll look great.” The response came from Orlando Frederick, who was sandwiched between her and his boyfriend, Dominic Voss. I liked Lando a lot and not just because he was a fellow freckled ginger. He was gentle and kind in the same way Poppy was and there was a familiar shadow of loss that sometimes crossed his gaze that let me knew he was intimately familiar with how precious and precarious life could be. Fortunately, he had a boyfriend that came armed and dangerous. Dom worked as a police academy trainer and looked like he could stop all the crime in Denver single-handedly. They’d been together for a while, and though I knew through the grapevine that their respective families were pushing for them to make it legal, neither man was in any hurry to take that step. They were committed to one another, had a life together, and between the two of them had a plethora of younger siblings they were busy keeping in line and out of jail. Eventually, they wanted to have a family, so they made a pact that when the time was right for them to expand their brood, then and only then would they tie the knot.
I put my arm around Poppy’s shoulders and pulled her into my side. Her hand found its way under the lapel of my jacket and her cheek rested on my shoulder. “You ready to move the Hudson to my house yet?”
She gave a little laugh that made her shoulders shake and had her amber eyes shining up at me. “Maybe tomorrow.”
It was a conversation we had a least once a day. I wanted her under my roof so she was always there with me and Royce and Happy, but she insisted she wasn’t ready for reasons I understood but still hated. I assured her that having unfettered access to my cock was a good enough reason, but she would just shake her head and laugh at me. She insisted that she had to prove to herself that she could take care of herself because she never had before. She also told me time and time again that I needed this time with my son and I inevitably replied that he was much happier when she was there as well because he took after his old man. It was true. My kid loved her just as much as I did and I swore the nights she didn’t make it over, he cried extra hard and acted more fussy than normal. I admired her independence and strength, but the nights we spent away from one another were the worst, and I hardly slept.
“Tomorrow it is, then.”
She smiled at me and my heart tried to beat its way out of my chest so that it could put itself in her hands. “Tomorrow it is.”
One step at a time we moved toward each other and toward the next thing that waited for us. Tomorrow, I would wake up and make sure I took better care of her than I had the day before and she would do the same for me.
That’s what love looked like.