few months before he was born, and his mother had been a drug addict, who hooked for her fixes, putting Rabbit in situations no child should ever be put in. He’d been removed from her home when he was six, and her parental rights had been terminated four years later. Word was she’d died a few years later.
Unfortunately, he’d never been adopted, living on the streets for a couple of years until Doom took him under his wing and the club became his family. Rabbit was only sixteen at the time.
“Raquel was here,” I countered.
“Not for long, baby. She left two days after the explosion. I asked her to.” He smiled. “I knew what I was doing when I pushed you away. I wasn’t gonna add insult to injury by letting some random woman fuss over me.”
“It was supposed to be me.”
“No,” he argued. “I wasn’t going to subject you to any of that, and we’re done with that subject, Parker, so you need to get off of it.”
“Out.”
“Park—”
“No.” I pointed to the door. “Get out. I’m not marrying you, Zane. Get out of my office…out of my life.”
He chuckled, continuing to anchor me to his lap. “Jesus, you’re gorgeous when your back is up.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
He smiled gently. “I never wanted you to see me weak.”
“You were hurt, Rabbit, not weak. I don’t know anyone, outside of superheroes, who could survive, let alone come out unscathed from a bomb blast.”
“I don’t ever want to be less than a superhero in your eyes. You know this,” he said, stroking my cheek.
I did know this. He was always the strong one for me, both physically and emotionally. I dropped my forehead to his and closed my eyes. “Why won’t you just let me hate you?”
“You couldn’t hate me if you tried.”
“Bet you I could,” I grumbled.
“I love you,” he whispered, and I met his eyes.
I covered his mouth with mine and kissed him gently. “I love you, too.”
He grinned. “I know.”
“We can’t do this unless you promise to follow the ‘for better or for worse’ edict. It has to work on both sides, Rabbit.”
“I get it.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you promise if you get hurt again, you won’t shut me out?” I pressed.
“I promise to do my best,” he hedged.
I rolled my eyes. “Who was on the video?”
He frowned. “A Spider. A very young Spider who no doubt is trying to earn his patch.”
The Spiders were a rival MC that weren’t on the up-and-up like the Dogs of Fire. They’d been making the club’s life a living hell for longer than I liked, and were behind the bomb that hurt Rabbit.
“I thought all of that was over,” I whispered.
“Not goin’ down this rabbit hole of a conversation, Pebbles, so let’s go ahead and change the subject.” He gave me a gentle squeeze. “What do you need me to help you with?”
I sighed. “I need to get these wedding arrangements ready.”
“You’re covered on that,” he informed me. “Willow’s watching the front with Dash, while Stevie works on the wedding shit.”
“I’ll check in with Willow, then help Stevie.” He finally let me slide off his lap and stood beside me. I smiled up at him. “Are you sticking around?”
“Yeah, baby, I’m stickin’ around, but you haven’t answered my question.”
“Which one?” I sassed.
“Are you stayin’ at the club, or am I comin’ to you?”
I gripped his cut and smiled up at him. “You can come to me, I guess.”
He grinned, leaning down to kiss me. “I like that answer, baby.”
“But… I need to go home for a bit. To my parents’,” I said. “Meet me at my place?”
Rabbit stroked my cheek. “One hour.”
“Two.”
He studied me for a few seconds, then nodded. We left my office and I found that Levi had stuck around and was currently helping Stevie move buckets of flowers around in the arranging room.
“Hi.”
“Hey, sissy,” he said, lifting a bucket onto the table.
“Thanks,” Stevie said to Levi, then smiled at me. “Want to see what I have so far?”
“Yes, please.” I walked over to the sorting table and Stevie and I went through our to-do list for the day.
* * *
By the time we closed the shop for the night, I was drained physically and emotionally, and just wanted to go home and soak in my tub. But I had a fluffy bunny who insisted on following me home, which meant I’d probably get no sleep, let alone soak time.
“Ready?” Rabbit asked as I locked the front door.
“Yep,” I said and followed