Rose – The door creaked open. And the world shattered. Jace was on top of Sassy. Inside her. His hands on her waist. Her legs wrapped around him. Soft laughter. Breathless moans. “Jace,” I whispered. He turned. Horror flooded his face. “Rosie—wait—screw it, I thought—” Sassy sat up, rolling her eyes. “God, you’re pathetic. You act like she didn’t know. We’ve been messing around for months.” The room tilted. Months. My lungs stopped working. My knees buckled. He scrambled off her, reaching for me. “Rosie, I swear, I didn’t—please—just listen—” But I was already running. Down the stairs. Through the crowd. Past the laughter that suddenly felt like it was all for me.
The cut weighed more than Jace thought it would. It rested across his shoulders like responsibility and fire, stitched with legacy and expectation. The moment Savage handed it to him, Jace felt something in his chest clench tight. He wasn’t a kid anymore. He wasn’t just Ripper’s son or Rosie’s shadow. He was a prospect of the Devil’s Saints. The clubhouse swelled with noise: cheers, claps, someone banging a beer bottle against the bar like a makeshift drum. But none of it mattered. Not really. Because the second Rosie looked at him with her eyes shining and lips parted in a smile that wrecked him more than any initiation beating, everything else disappeared. “You look good in it,” she said. He smiled, tugging at the collar like it was still foreign. “Feels weird.” “It’s supposed to,” she whispered.
She reached for his hand, lacing their fingers together. “I’m proud of you.” Those four words landed like gravity. He didn’t realize how much he needed to hear them until they were already echoing in his ribcage. Later, he stole a bottle of vodka and dragged her upstairs to her room, the bigger one, the one that used to make the other kids jealous. Rosie had decorated it with little pieces of him over the years. A photo of them at the lake. A concert poster from that one show he snuck her into. A bandana he gave her when she was twelve that still smelled vaguely of grease and cologne. They took shots from mismatched mugs, wincing and laughing until the world blurred just a little at the edges. Then came the quiet.
They pecked like they were falling into something. Slow, soft, the kind of pecking that trembled at the edges with unsaid things. His hands cupped her jaw like she was made of something rare. Her fingers slid under the hem of his shirt, not to undress, but to anchor. When they finally broke apart, breathless and flushed, he stared at her like she held the whole sky. “Be my girl,” he whispered. “I mean it. Official. Mine.” Rosie didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” The word tasted like forever. And for a moment, it felt like nothing could touch them. Not duty. Not distance. Not even time. ….. “Jace!” Her voice rang through the celebratory chaos of the clubhouse, cutting through laughter, music, and the clink of beer bottles with the clarity of something pure and unshakeable.
He turned immediately, instinct overriding sound, and there she was: Rosie, radiant in her blood-red and black polka dot blouse the plunged down to reveal her modest cleavage. Her short skirt clung to her toned and shapely legs, the black sequins fluttering and glittering in the clubhouse light. She crossed the room quickly, dodging rowdy brothers and half-drunk girls, until she was in his arms. He grounded himself in the feeling of her there, exactly where she belonged. He caught her against his chest and inhaled deeply, trying to memorize the way she felt pressed up against him. Her hair smelled like strawberries and summer, a scent he’d known since childhood. It calmed him down whenever things got too bad. “You did it,” she said softly, her fingers brushing his jaw like he might disappear. “Fully patched in.” Emotion swelled inside him, sharp and beautiful and so much bigger than the wild party or the roaring bikes or the chaos surrounding them.
He didn’t think, just leaned in and pecked her temple. Everything was perfect. “Wouldn’t have made it without you,” he told her as he gazed into her beautiful eyes. “You kept me steady, Rosie. You believed in me even when I didn’t.” She pulled back from him, and he immediately missed her warmth, but her smile buzzed through him. “I have a surprise,” she said, her voice almost trembling with the effort of holding it back. “Wait here, okay? I’ll be right back.” She pecked his cheek and disappeared toward her father’s office. And he watched her go, his heart too full and too alive. A few brothers brought him shot after shot until his entire body sang.
His life was about to change, and he was ready for it. He should have noticed the way the tension in the air shifted. Should have heard the voices whispering around the edges. But he didn’t. Not when Sassy slinked up beside him and smirked. She was one of the older club girls and only went for the older brothers. “Hey Loverboy,” she said, calling him by his new road name.