Craving Molly (The Aces' Sons 2)

Two weeks later, after the lockdown had ended and the families had been warned to keep their guards up, we buried my dad in a cemetery near his old house.

Without the ability to work, I had nothing to occupy my mind. I got bitchy, and weepy, and I lost myself in grief and frustration. Then it was Will’s turn to stick with it, and he did.

I think Asa was right about all of it. Maybe the commitment was the key. Not the marriage certificate that we eventually got, or the house near his parents that we bought together, or the adoption papers that Will signed when Rebel was six. It was the not giving up that mattered.

I nagged Will about the money he spent, and bitched when he rode his murdercycle without a helmet. In the years after my dad was murdered, while the club was fighting a battle that I hoped to God I’d never see, I became resentful of the time he spent away from us and the fear that seemed like my constant companion, and I begged him to stop, even though I knew he was trying to make us safe. I got into an argument with Trix and refused to go to the clubhouse for two months and once screamed at him in front of the entire club because some skank at a party had sat on his lap for two seconds before he pushed her off.

Will was no angel, either. The life I’d envisioned with him when we’d started dating didn’t exist. The man I’d seen through rose-colored glasses had been a figment of my imagination. He left me for days at a time to do business for the club. He occasionally got too drunk to drive home, and he’d pass out in his room at the club while I lay in our bed alone, wishing he were with me. He got arrested and couldn’t attend Rebel’s preschool graduation. He got into pissy moods and barely spoke to me for days, and sometimes, I looked at him, and just wanted to scream for no reason at all.

But, beyond all the bullshit and the hurt feelings and the fear and the frustration, I loved him so much that I ached with it, and Will proved every day that it was the same for him.

So, I didn’t give up and he didn’t either.

We argued and nagged and gave each other the silent treatment, but neither of us ever walked away again.