Ronnie shook his head, sipped his beer, and watched Collier and RJ fawn over a New Orleans member’s brand new Fat Boy.
Ava didn’t tell him that if he thoughtthiswas crazy, he should see the inside of the clubhouse. Ava knew the dancing girls would be doing their thing. Groupie girls would be doingtheirthing. There would be clouds of pot smoke. Someone would have busted out a little recreational coke, despite Ghost’s strict no-narcotics policy within the club.
Mercy must be inside, she thought, before she could clamp down on her self-control, and she kicked herself for taking note of his absence. He wasn’t her problem. He’d made that perfectly clear five years ago.
I’m not succumbing, she thought.Just experiencing a little setback.
An arm draped across her shoulder from the left, and she glanced over, already knowing it was her dad. She smiled automatically; she’d been smiling out of reflex since she’d reunited with him that afternoon, wanting him to see her as happy, so he wouldn’t give Ronnie such a hard time.
The meeting between the two had been a stilted affair, Ghost shaking Ronnie’s hand so hard that Ronnie winced; Ronnie stuttering and refusing to make eye contact. Ghost didn’t approve – that he’d made clear with a glance – but Ava wasn’t sure anyone would meet with his approval. He’d hated every boy who’d ever glanced at her in high school. He’d threatened to have Mercy publicly castrated. Though that threat had been made in private – bros before hos in the MC world. He would never strip a brother of his colors simply for an indiscretion committed with a female. The club was too important for that. The club…
She had to halt this train of thought before it went too far. She sure as hell didn’t fit into the rest of the world, she didn’t need to go hunting for things to dislike about her biker family.
“You doing alright?” Ghost asked, giving her shoulders a squeeze.
“It’s a big party,” she answered, after thinking it over. “James must be so excited to have such great turnout.”
He smiled. “That’s not what I asked.”
She smiled back, fleetingly. “I know.”
One last squeeze, and he stepped away, leaning in low a moment to whisper in her ear, “Don’t let your little boyfriend go inside; he couldn’t handle it.”
Ava rolled her eyes as he laughed and walked toward Maggie, who stood talking with Bonita. This wasn’t just a special night for the boys, Ava reminded herself, but for her mother too. Maggie was becoming queen tonight, a title long-awaited and well-earned.
As if clairvoyant, Maggie glanced over, smiled, and waved for Ava and Ronnie to join them. Ava started to comply…and then froze up on the inside, unable to step that direction. It was petty, childish, selfish, even, but she just couldn’t. Coming home was slowly eroding her maturity, maybe even her sanity. She’d thought plunging back into the circle of Lean Dogs women would feel like stepping into her favorite pair of boots. Turned out, those boots had shrunk a little bit over the years, and the fit wasn’t so comfortable anymore.
She drained her last swallow of beer. “I’m going to get a refill,” she told Ronnie. “You want anything?”
“Nah. But I can come with–”
“No, it’s fine.” She walked away before he could argue further, slipping between Collier and RJ, throwing herself into the shielding crowd so it would be hard for Ronnie to follow her.
God, what a bitch she was.
Inside the clubhouse, there was nothing visible of the floor. The impenetrable crush of bodies swayed from corner to corner to corner, in time to the trilling electric riffs of “Voo Doo Child.” The stink of all those sweating, shouting humans mingled with dangerous potency with the pot smoke; the haze was thick and choking, but not too dense to keep her from seeing the two topless girls working the pole. One blonde and one brunette, they’d paused their show so they could kiss and grope one another, to the screaming delight of the men around them. Ava spotted Aidan and Tango in the throng surrounding them, and turned her head away. She’d seen enough tits to last her a lifetime.
Plenty of the guys were simply drinking and shooting the shit, playing pool. But Andre looked high as a fucking kite, dancing by himself with a beer bottle pressed to his lips. Jace was sitting on one end of a crowded sofa, a girl straddling his lap, his hands shoved up under her halter top; given the way the girl writhed, the way her skirt was hiked up around her waist, it was clear his fly was undone and they were fucking right there in the open while he sat beside his brothers.
Ava put her head down and kept walking, forcing her slow way through the press of bikers and groupies, the blend of music and voices deafening. She passed flannel-shirted hangarounds who absorbed every blistering detail with rapt fascination, passion blazing in their faces. It was heady, it was arousing, this blatant display of sex and drink and revelry. The wannabes couldn’t contain their excitement. They were stupid enough to think that the life was all parties and titties and semi-public fucking. Stupid, so stupid, all of them, thinking they knew what it would be like to join this club.
When she reached one corner of the bar, a hand snaked out of the crowd, closed over her wrist, and pulled her through the open panel and into the safety of the horseshoe shaped bar. She caught her bearings, head reeling from the smoke and noise, and saw that it was Walsh who’d saved her.
Her smile was automatic. His was shot at her sideways, subdued and rather humorless, as always.
“What the fuck, huh?” he asked, his English accent making the words somehow elegant. “Guy can’t even breathe in here.”
That was Kingston Walsh for you: recluse, hermit, general grumpy-pants at all times, he liked his tiny house, his dog, the sound of passing trains, and he loathed parties of all kinds. He rarely attended Maggie or Bonita’s big club Sunday dinners. He was here, Ava didn’t doubt, only because he absolutely had to be.
Ava turned so they stood side-by-side, and mimicked his position leaned back against the liquor shelf. At five-seven, he was a scant two inches taller than she was. Blonde, perpetually stubbly in the chin department, he had narrow, eerie light eyes and a habit of seeming disinterested in everything and everyone. He had a brilliant head for numbers, though, and that had made him a living legend within the club.
“You’re not enjoying the show?” Ava asked, tipping her head in the direction of the strippers. They were grinding against one another now, lascivious, low-lidded smiles blooming for the men who cheered them.
Walsh glanced at them like he was inspecting a carpet stain, lip curling a fraction. “I’ve seen better.” No one had any idea of his sex practices; he never brought that sort of thing around the club. Hermits were private that way.
He took a sip of his Newcastle and glanced back at her. “Are you back for good? Or is this a visit?”
“Back for good.” She had to lean close to be heard. “I’m doing grad school at UT.”
