Starting Over by Mia Malone

Epilogue

Tony

They were back in Rogan.

There was a party.

And he was horny.

“Christ,” Tony mumbled to himself.

He hadn’t been lonely or looking to meet someone. He’d had sex when he felt like it and would overall have labeled his life fucking fantastic if anyone had asked.

And there he was. Fifty-fucking-seven years old and horny like a twenty-something, feeling more alive than ever before, and at the same time, there was a stillness and ease in his mind.

Part of it was everything that had happened with his dad. Emma was struggling, and he worried about her, but he had found peace with how things had been.

Part of it was how everything around the club seemed to go his way, with cash pouring in and not a single member in jail for anything.

Most of it was about her.

Rosalind Watts.

If he’d been a pussified type of man, he would have said that she was the love of his life.

She glanced at him across the room and raised her brows but looked back at Black’s woman Cas, who had said something, and laughed. Gee pointed at Cas, and they laughed again, loudly and happily.

“Right there,” Roddy suddenly rumbled. “I hope you know what you have right there, son.”

“I know, Roddy.”

“Don’t fuck it up.”

“Why does everyone keep telling me that?” Tony asked with a sigh.

“What you have is a once in a lifetime thing. Not everyone finds that, so I guess you’ve got good people around you who care and are happy for you.” Roddy grinned and added, “That, and they don’t trust a fifty-something bachelor to know what he’s doing.”

“I know what the fuck I’m doing,” Tony said firmly, but Roddy didn’t seem to believe him.

“Addie liked getting married, but she actually couldn’t have cared less. Cas and Reena don’t care either. They love my boys, but the marriage part is optional. Rosie, she’s –”

“Roddy,” Tony said. “I’ve got it covered.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Tony grinned and leaned in closer to tell him.

***

Rosie

Familiar heat rushed through me when I saw how Tony’s eyes darkened and wondered if it would fade or if we’d always be like this?

Perhaps it was different when you met someone when you weren’t twenty or thirty years old anymore?

We had less to prove and fewer demands from others around us. Or perhaps we’d just lived life long enough to know that we had to take care of both ourselves and who we were together?

None of that mattered as I stood there, though, laughing with a group of fantastic women, different from my group of friends in Hark Falls, but similar in the sense of togetherness and appetite for life.

What mattered to me was the tall man who smiled in a way that went straight to my belly and south, making me wonder if we perhaps could sneak outside for just a little while without anyone noticing.

“Listen up, everyone,” Black said into the microphone, and I cheered with the others.

The Hagen family seemed to be full of astonishingly good musicians, and Black had a voice unlike anything I’d ever heard before, so I hoped he would sing for us.

“One of the best men I know is the worst singer on the face of this planet,” Black started, waited until laugher and loud suggestions had died down, and went on, “So I promised I’d sing on his behalf. It apparently has to be this song, so we’ll see how it goes because it isn’t something I normally do.” He suddenly looked straight at me and grinned. “It’s way too pussified for my taste.”

Tony wrapped his arms around me from behind and leaned down to kiss my hair.

“Hey, baby,” he murmured. “Surprise.”

Black started strumming his guitar, and my throat suddenly felt a little too tight. My eyes burned, and I turned halfway around to look up at Tony in surprise.

“Well, the road rolls out like a welcome mat,”Black began, and people cheered loudly.

It might not be his kind of song, and I knew it wasn’t Tony’s, but it was mine.

People cheered, and Black’s fantastic voice seemed to be all around us, but all I could see was the man holding me.

“It don’t matter to me, wherever we are is where I wanna be…”

Tony moved some of my hair away, put his mouth by my ear, and murmured, “I love you so much, Rosie.”

“I can be your lucky penny, you can be my four-leaf clover... starting over.”

“I love you too,” I said.

He turned me around and wrapped his arms around me as we listened to Black’s fantastic Chris Stapleton cover. When the last chorus started, Tony leaned down, swept my hair away again, and put his mouth by my ear. His beard tickled a little, so I giggled softly.

“Will you marry me?”

I froze, my startled gaze locked on Black, and his mouth widened in a grin, but he kept singing, repeating the chorus one extra time.

Then I turned in Tony’s arms, looked up at him, and smiled.

“Yes,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “I have a ring in my pocket. Perhaps we should go outside and see if your hands are nimble enough to pull it out?” He held my hips and moved his hard crotch against me in a slow, seductive movement. His mouth brushed mine and murmured, “And then we’ll see what happens...”

I started laughing, and he held me tighter.

“Yes,” I repeated. “I think we should do just that.”