Rome decided to shut the Bar down for a few days so that it could get set back to rights and so that I could have a few days to get my head back on right. I needed the time more to handle Royal walking away for good than I did to process having a gun shoved in my face for the second time while working at the Bar. I didn’t tell Rome that, though; instead I asked him if I could come over one night. While Cora made dinner and RJ ran around banging pots and pans in the kitchen, I wrote him a check for a hundred grand and told him I wanted to be his business partner.

There was a moment of silence and I could see him debating if he wanted the check or not when Cora leaned out of the kitchen and hollered, “Take the money, Rome.”

That shook Rome loose of whatever he was turning over in his head and he took the check and shook my hand. For the first time in my entire adult life I had endless, legitimate opportunities laid out in front of me and I almost didn’t know what to do with all that good fortune. The feeling of being satisfied and situated only lasted as long as it took me to go home to an empty apartment and a silent phone.

Weeks passed with no word or no sight of Royal. I went back to work. I asked Wheeler to work on the Nova, and I even started looking for a new place to live. I looked at a few condos and town houses but none of it felt right. It took me a minute to realize I didn’t want to move into something temporary. I wanted a home, but I didn’t want to live there alone. The more time that passed, the more it solidified the fact that sometimes love really wasn’t enough.

Ayden called me once a week to check up on me. It was nice that our calls no longer consisted of her being panicked and worried about what kind of trouble I was going to get myself into. Now she just wanted to make sure I was still moving forward, even with a broken heart. She told me to just cave and tell Royal the truth, to which I answered repeatedly that the only person that benefited from being honest was me. Yeah, I could get my girl back if I spilled the beans about all the ways her mom was fucked up, but I would alienate a mother from her daughter and I refused to put Royal through that kind of turmoil. She didn’t need to be up close and personal with the kind of heartache that would follow if she realized just how far off the deep end her mother had gone. Plus I was intimately familiar with the fact that a truly screwed-up person could do really good things with a second chance, if they took it. Maybe Roslyn would be one of them. For Royal’s sake I really hoped her mother would take the opportunity she had been given and do something with it. She was another one that my sister would say just needed to let herself be loved and stop purposely sabotaging her own happiness.

Eventually Ayden let it drop and decided to focus on all the good things I had going on instead. When I told her I wanted to look at buying a house in the Baker neighborhood, where the Bar was located, it almost brought her to tears.

“I wasn’t going to question anything you decided to do with all that money, Asa. But I have to tell you that it makes me ridiculously happy that you’re planting some roots with it.”

The idea of roots, of something permanent here in Colorado, was so strange. It felt right and it was a way to show her, to prove to anyone that questioned it, that I was officially awake and making every moment I had right now count.

“I’ll make sure I find a place big enough for you and Jet to stay when you come visit.”

She snorted at me. “Me, Jet, and this baby we just found out we’re having.”

I almost dropped the phone because she said it so nonchalantly. “You’re pregnant?”

Ayden laughed a little bit and I could almost see her pacing back and forth chewing on her lip as she confirmed the fact. “Yeah. It’s still really early on, probably too early to tell anyone, but I can’t keep it to myself, ya know?” She was giving me her secret just like I had given her mine.

“I thought you wanted to wait.” I couldn’t help the pure joy that threaded through my voice. Ayden was going to make a great mom. Both she and Jet deserved to have a happy family and home life after the nightmare of both of their upbringings.

“What can I say? I married a very persuasive man and there is just something about those tight pants that makes it impossible to say no to him.” She sighed happily. “And there was something different after I got back from Kentucky. It was like all the bad stuff from there was gone. There were no more cobwebs, no more resentment or what-ifs. It was just all gone. I want to have a family with the man that loved me enough that I had no choice but to love every part of myself, warts and all.”

“I know exactly what you mean.” I laughed out loud and told her, “You’re going to be pregnant at Cora and Rome’s wedding.”