Page 25 of Brazen Being It

“You could’ve picked anyone. Some club girl. Someone who knows how to play house in this world.”

“I don’t need a woman. I don’t know, Cambria. I can’t explain it. I’ve always been the wild one. I go with my gut no matter what. I don’t want just anyone,” he says simply. “I want real. You, baby, are real. No thought to even try to play games or use someone.”

I blink. “I’m not even sure I know what that means.”

“You’re not trying to be something you’re not. You just are. That matters.”

I lay there for a moment, letting the quiet fill the room.

No one’s ever said something like that to me before.

Later, we eat dinner on the back steps. Just peanut butter sandwiches and beer for him, water for me, watching the sun dip behind the trees. He tells me about the club—how it started, what it stands for, the brothers he trusts and the ones he doesn’t. I listen, memorizing names, trying to file every detail away so I don’t embarrass him.

When it gets dark, he builds a small fire in a rusted barrel and we sit beside it, passing a stick with marshmallows between us as he builds me smores until I feel like I might puke.

“I know it’s just pretend,” I say, staring into the flames, “but thank you for bringing me here.”

He passes me the bottle. “You’re welcome. But it’s your pace. You don’t want pretend, we see where this goes. It doesn’t have to be pretend. I am for real. You wanna get married to have security, we can go to the courthouse tomorrow.”

I look at him, heart pounding. “It doesn’t have to be pretend?” I ask feeling overwhelmed. This is crazy.

He shakes his head. “Nah. I think it stopped being pretend the second you climbed on the back of my bike.”

We don’t kiss now nor before. How can he be so sure?

“You’re impulsive.”

“You have said that and,” he smiles, “I’ve been told that more than once before.”

“We haven’t even kissed, Drew. How can you want to make me your wife?”

“Not yet, we haven’t. It isn’t time. As for making you my wife. I trust my gut. Always follow it. I fuck up, it’s on me and I’ll eat the crow for it. But this feels right.”

Not yet. He said we haven’t kissed yet. He wants to kiss me. He wants this to be real. He wants to let me into his world. It’s so much to understand.

I fall asleep next to him that night feeling more wanted than I ever have in my entire life. And when I wake the next morning, I don’t panic.

I just breathe.

Because for the first time, this life might actually belong to me.

The next few days pass in a blur.

Little Foot doesn’t leave me alone—not in a suffocating way, but protective. Like he knows this place could swallow me whole if he’s not watching. He brings me to meals at the clubhouse, keeps me close during runs into town, walks me around the edge of the property like he’s drawing out the map of my new life.

Some of the women start to take notice.

They’re not club girls—not in the way I expected, hang around hoes is what Drew calls them. They keep their distance. A few are old ladies like I’m supposed to be, they embrace me.

“You’re Little Foot’s?” a woman named Yesnia asks.

I nod, trying to keep my chin up.

“It’s a lot to take in.” She smirks. “You’re not what I expected.”

I shrug. “You either.” I say it softly because she’s not being bitchy and I don’t want to come off wrong. “I don’t know what to expect though, so you have one up on me to have an expectation.”

She laughs at that and tosses me a towel. “Good. You’ll need a backbone in this place. Clean dishes or someone’s gonna bitch. Welcome to the family.”

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