Something about Heidi casually referring to me as anyone’s Aunt Lilly sends a warm feeling sliding through my chest. “It’s true.” I reach over the table for Grace. “Can I hold her for a minute?”

“Sure.”

“Ah, you’re getting so big, Grace.”

She waves her fist in the air and grabs on to my finger.

Now that Grace is awake, Chance tip toes over to us. Alexa follows and they both want to say hello.

“I should probably change her.” Hope stands and takes her daughter. Rock ends up following her down the hall.

Heidi reaches over and zips up her bag before picking Alexa up and setting her in her lap. “Did you and Chance have fun? Did you share?”

“Yeth.”

Chance gives me this raised eyebrow she’s-full-of-shit face that looks so much like Z’s, I can’t help laughing. I don’t think he’s mastered sarcasm yet, but it’s still funny.

Heidi pulls a couple of folders out and starts flipping through cut out pictures of flowers, cakes, and other assorted wedding stuff. She lays it all out on the table in front of us and studies it for a few minutes before rearranging.

Alexa grabs for one of the photos and Heidi lets her play with it.

“You should almost be done with everything, right?”

“Eh.” Heidi shrugs. “I haven’t had a lot of time. I don’t want to go nuts, but I want everything to be pretty. Casual, but fun. Elegant but a little bit country.”

“Uh, okay.” I chuckle and peer over at her pictures of centerpieces. My eyes immediately glaze over. Maybe I’m not marriage material. The thought of doing all this stuff makes me want to grab Heidi’s silver calligraphy pen and stab myself in the eye.

And the idea of inviting my parents? Even my brother who’s gotten a little better around Z. How would he behave at a wedding with all of Z’s biker brothers around? Good god, they’d probably end up burying him in the backyard somewhere.

Is there a way I can skip straight to the wife part?

Chapter Forty-One

Z

At first, I tried not to make too many changes to downstate. I was here to get them through a difficult time, not rearrange the clubhouse. But the longer I’m down here, the less tolerance I have for living in filth.

“Enough of this bullshit of depending on the girls to clean up for us. Hire a damn cleaning crew,” I bark at Hustler during our next meeting.

“Bro, we don’t like strangers in the clubhouse.”

“Yeah, unless they’re here to suck your dick and make you a sandwich,” I growl. “Grow the fuck up. Find someone who’s bonded, have ‘em sign an NDA, and watch ‘em like a fuckin’ hawk while they’re here, but this is ridiculous.”