Gravel (MC Biker Romance) (27 page)

A day’s drive and stumbled upon the
sweetest little town, and we both knew. We were home.

“Welcome to the rest of your life,”
he said as he leaned over and kissed my forehead.

My once-rugged alpha male was
melting away into the person he was meant to become. When I looked at him, I
saw a broken little bird
who
was determined to live
his dreams. And when he looked at me, I saw nothing but hope in his eyes. I had
saved his life just as much as he had saved mine.

I was beginning to fall in love with
him. That much I knew. And I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of my life with
him in that boring little sleepy seaside town.

Raze and I rented a small,
two bedroom
house about a mile’s walk from the ocean. On
clear days, we could sit on our back porch and see the waves crash about the
shore. I received my CNA certification and worked at a local nursing home. It
didn’t pay much, but I was able to go to nursing school part-time. Just a few
more years and I’d be a Registered Nurse. I couldn’t wait. Money would be good
then.

Raze worked at a local mechanic’s
shop while we saved up for him to open a shop of his own someday. I told him it
was important to have goals, and I think he was staring to realize that.

Most days, we’d go to work and be
home in the evening. Raze would grill out or I’d bake us some sort of frozen
dinner. My cooking skills weren’t the greatest, but Raze never complained. We
bought a lot of our furniture secondhand and tried our best to make our little
rental place our home.

Things were definitely not as
exciting as they once were, but we were slowly adapting to a life less crazy.
It was a huge adjustment for Raze, but I was there to help him every step of
the way.

There were times when the electric
bill was late or the water bill was two months behind. I know Raze had
considered resorting to his old ways to make some extra cash, but I kept him on
track. I kept him honest and focused. I refused to let him slip back into that
old lifestyle. He wasn’t that guy. Not anymore. I wouldn’t allow it.

Every other week or so, we’d check
out the local animal shelters in search of
Raze’s
perfect dog. Our rental house had a nice fence around it, but Raze had a dog in
mind that he wanted, and we never seemed to find it. He was set on having this
specific dog. I found out later it was the same dog he had as a kid, before his
mom died. It made sense to me that he’d want to replicate that. I never judged
him or made him feel weird about it. I thought it was endearing actually. I
promised to keep looking for him, and I told him we’d look for as long as it
took.

The Black Ice seemed to leave us
alone. I think his dad knew that life wasn’t for him, and I think his dad loved
him just enough to leave him alone. He was a complicated man, but I know he did
love Raze.

I always wondered if maybe his dad
really knew where he was but was watching him from a far.

Raze rarely spoke about his dad
that first year. It wasn’t until he saw something once that reminded him of his
dad that he briefly brought him up. It was maybe a sentence or two about
something his dad did once when he was a kid.

After a few months, I encouraged
Raze to get back in touch with his grandparents. We ended up meeting up with
them, and they were the sweetest people I’d ever met. They were his mom’s
parents and they’d raised him most of his life. He apologized for being a
hellion, and his grandmother cried sweet tears of happiness when she wrapped
him in a loving embrace.

He showed me pictures of his mom,
and he was right. She was beautiful. She looked like a sweet person. Her
parents said she was a sweet girl who fell in love with the wrong man, but they
emphasized that Raze was a result of that, and they wouldn’t have traded that
for anything in the world.

A year after settling in that
sleep, Oceanside town, it was safe to say we were deeply in love. I couldn’t
imagine spending my life with anyone else but him, and he even told me he loved
me. He said he’d never said that to anyone before in his entire life. Not even
his dad.

He promised to buy me a beautiful
ring someday, when money was less tight, and he wanted to make things official.

I told him we were still young, we
still had plenty of time, and I wasn’t going anywhere.
 
We’d come too far to ever throw in the
towel. I’d worked too hard to snag him. I wasn’t going anywhere. Ever.