Fucking loved this bitch. Best thing that’d ever happened to me.

  Sipping on my Bud, I caught sight of a notepad on the side table. I picked it up and, as I scanned her perfect cursive writing, my fucking heart dropped.

  I did not know what life was until I found you. The boy who came into my life as a child. The boy with no voice who miraculously found words in my presence. The boy who kissed me on my lips, blessing me with the foreign, unreachable concept of hope.

  The boy I was always destined to love.

  The boy who held the sweetest music in his heart, who saved me, and showed me what it was to be home . . .

  I set down the notepad and ran my hand down my face.

  They were her vows. Her motherfucking wedding vows.

  Needing a smoke more than I needed my next breath, I walked through the kitchen and out the door. I slumped into a chair on the porch and lit up a smoke. I took a long drag and opened my mouth. Breathing deeply, I let the nicotine calm my boiling blood.

  “I . . . I . . . R-R-Riv . . . Riv . . . argh!” I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes, trying to calm the fuck down. I’d tried this every day for damn weeks. And every time I thought about standing up in front of my brothers and my old lady and actually speaking, my retarded throat closed, and the stutter that had never fucked off outta my life came back to cut me off.

  I took drag after drag of my smoke and waited for my throat to relax. It didn’t. Instead Mae’s notepad came to mind, and her words taunted me like a sick joke.

  The boy with no voice who miraculously found words in my presence. The boy who kissed me on my lips, blessing me with the foreign concept of hope . . .

  There was no miracle this time. Mae was finally becoming mine. Standing up in front of Hades, my club, and maybe even God, I wouldn’t be able to tell her what I wanted. That I fucking loved her, and the bitch had changed my worthless fucking life. That I was the luckiest motherfucker to ever walk the Earth. Because I had her. Because I fucking had her.

  She’d look at me, in her white dress, with those ice-blue eyes smiling, and I’d be a fucking mute. And Mae being Mae, she’d already told me she wanted me to sign our vows. That it was okay. That she understood I couldn’t speak in front of all those people.

  Shit, I could almost hear my old man laughing at me from the fires of Tartarus. “Fucking retard,” he’d be hissing, laughing at his pathetic mute son, who could kill a man with one lethal punch but couldn’t man the fuck up and utter a few fucking words out loud.

  “Shit, brother.” The voice caused me to sigh loudly in annoyance. “Mae refused you her pussy or her mouth on your cock or some shit? You look ready to top yourself.”

  I flicked my middle finger at Ky without looking at him, and he sat down beside me in the spare chair. When I opened my eyes, he was watching me with a smirk on his face. “Let me guess,” he taunted. He removed a beer from the six-pack in his hand and ripped off the cap with his teeth. Leaning forward, he continued. “Could you not get it up?” He shrugged like the fucking prick he was. “Heard it can happen to the best of us. Not me, of course, my dick is ready to rock at all times. The fucking Energizer bunny in my pants.”

  Too pissed to reply, I lit up another smoke. I snatched a beer from his pack, ripped off the top, and downed half the bottle; then I tipped my head back to stare at the night sky.

  This time, when I glanced at Ky, his eyebrows were pulled down. “What’s wrong?” There was no humor in his voice. His head tipped to the side, studying me. “Is it AK, has something gone down with the Klan?” Ky practically jumped to his feet.

  I grabbed his arm and forced his ass back down on his seat. He watched me, confused as fuck. I put down my bottle and signed, “Ain’t gonna be able to do this marriage shit.”

  Ky stared at me like I was a fucking alien or some shit. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  I downed the rest of the beer, threw the fucker across the garden, and watched as it smashed against a nearby tree.

  “What the fuck!” Ky exclaimed. I got to my feet and pushed my hands through my hair.

  Facing my best friend, I wrapped my hand around my throat—a choking gesture. I signed, “Can’t fucking speak. Mae is all jacked up about this marriage, this fucking ceremony, and I can’t get out a fucking word.” I shook my head. “Can’t even speak to you now. One of the only two people I can speak to in the world, because the thought of talking aloud in front of anyone else has fucking stolen all my motherfucking words.”

  “No one expects you to speak, dumb fuck. We all know you’ll sign.”

  I curled my fist and slammed it into the post holding up the porch. I stared out over the trees and worked on getting my breathing under control. Eventually I turned to see my VP sitting back, relaxed, in his seat. He was used to my outbursts. He’d seen me lose it over my defective voice a million times. Leaning against the porch rail, I signed, “I wanna speak. I . . .” I paused. “I wanna fucking speak on that day, Ky. Just for once, I wanna fucking speak right.”

  I ignored the flash of sympathy in Ky’s eyes. If I acknowledged it, it’d just fuck me off even more. Ky got to his feet and stood beside me at the rail. He offered me another beer. “Then we get you to fucking speak. Piece of piss.” He shrugged like it was nothing.

  When I raised my eyebrow and looked at him, the fucker was smirking. I shook my head, but I couldn’t help smirking back. I lost focus as I stared down at my new beer. The door opened and Mae stepped onto the deck, her long hair mussed by sleep. She yawned, hand cradling her swollen stomach, then smiled so fucking big when she saw me.

  “I thought I heard you out here.” She darted to me. She slipped her arms around my waist, her bump nudging my stomach. She laughed when she could no longer get as close as she once had.

  I kissed her head and she pulled back. Folding her arms and watching Ky and me suspiciously, she asked, “What has you two so lost in thought?”

  Ky shrugged. “Just needed a beer. I escaped Grace as she attempted to put fucking makeup on me. I mean, I know I’m fucking hot as all hell, and could pull off a deep mauve as much as the next guy, but fuck that shit. Left Lil’ Ash to take my place. That little fucker’s gonna look like a two-bit whore in no time. He’d brought Madds up to spend the night with Li and Grace. That was my fucking cue to leave and remind myself I actually got a pair of balls.”