Duke (The Henchmen MC 5)

We had never moved out of the compound. It had become comfortable for us, a new kind of normal. But with a family on the way, it was time to get more serious about our lives.

"Breaker might have the right idea with the house on the hill," Renny said. "But then again, Reign's place is pretty solid too. And Shane Mallick with his warehouse. Lots of options."

Renny and I would never be best friends. Really, he just rubbed me the wrong way. But we slowly but surely learned to put that past shit behind us. With our ranks decimated and a need to handle business when it went down, we had learned to trust each other.

And Penny liked him.

So that, in a way, recommended him.

"She likes round-cut rings, by the way," he told me, nodding toward the cell in my hand where I had an engagement ring site open. Then he stood and walked away.

And, for once, I actually really appreciated his observation skills because I had been looking at those square-cut ones.Duke- 11 monthsMy stomach was in knots.

I wasn't exactly the kind of man who got nervous often. My life had been wild enough that very little got to me.

But as I parked in the lot of the tall, white, sparkling-windowed building, I was fucking anxious.

The name of the place was New Horizons Retirement Home. Which, well, I told Penny when she showed me the website that I thought that was pretty fucked up. 'New Horizons' made it sound like a none-too-subtle reminder that everyone inside the building would in the pretty near future be going into the horizon.

Way to remind all the old people that they are going to die.

But when the doctors told Patty that she could move along at any time, that her hip was all better, well, it took everything we had to keep her there for another week while we got her set up at New Horizons, the only place in the county that didn't have a waiting list.

All in all, it was a decent place. Everyone got their own small apartments with one to two bedrooms, depending on whether they had live-in help or not.

Patty didn't.

When Penny even tried to suggest it, Patty snorted and informed her that she planned on finding herself a nice gentleman and that she didn't want some woman looking at her sideways for enjoying her old age.

Penny had been so mortified by the idea of her grandmother getting it on that she never mentioned help again.

And while it was a retirement home where tenants could 'enjoy the benefits of an independent life while in a community of like-minded individuals', there was still a desk in the lobby where I had to sign in. Apparently it was some sort of security measure to keep out people who meant to fuck the old people over with bogus sales or some shit like that.

I took the elevator up to the fifth floor and walked down the generic white-walled, gray-carpeted hallway where I was actually fucking catcalled by two blue-haired ladies, one in a motorized scooter, the other with a walker, before I stopped outside Patty's door and knocked twice before I could talk myself out of it.

"Duke!" she said, giving me a warm smile, leaning only slightly on her cane, something she only ever did in the privacy of her apartment. She was too proud to use it in front of anyone else. "What a nice surprise. To what do I owe the honor?" she asked as she moved in and let me pass, both of us going to the small dining table near the French doors to the balcony.

I reached into my pocket, pulling out the small, dark blue jewelry box and flipping it open.

"Oh, my," Patty said, putting a hand to her heart. "Well, I wish I could say I was surprised, but you have always been so smitten with me."

I chuckled at that, liking the old firecracker.

"I know it's traditional for me to ask her father," I said, shrugging. "But she has never been close with her parents." This was proven by the fact that we had dated for a year and I had never met them. Actually, if I wasn't mistaken, she had only ever spoken to them once in that time too, on their anniversary.

When I asked Penny about her past, she never spoke of them unless I specifically asked. From her stories, they seemed more career-driven than parental. It was something she accepted without any apparent resentment. But I knew that was only because Patty filled the voids her parents left. In fact, she didn't just fill them, she overflowed then.

Patty made Penny the woman she was.

So when it came to asking permission to marry that woman, I knew where I needed to go.

Patty's saucy smile was replaced with a sweet one, her eyes a little misty and it was the first time I saw the woman show so much emotion.