Maggie accepted his shake; Ava recognized the pleased twist to her mother’s smile. “Did she warn you what you were walking into tonight?”
Ronnie half-smiled and tipped his head. “A retirement party of some sort, right?”
Nell laughed and another balloon began to fill with ahissof released gas as she fitted it to the nozzle. “That’s close enough, I guess,” she said. “But I promise you, honey, you ain’t never seen a retirement party quite like this.”
To punctuate the statement, a clatter of wheels behind them heralded a hangaround pushing a wheeled trolley of beer cases in from the back hall. He had two friends behind him with similar trollies, stacked to the top with Budweiser, Miller, and Michelob. All domestic, no imports.
“We’re expecting almost two-hundred,” Jackie said. She pulled a strip of tape from between her teeth and secured her half of the banner. She hopped down from the stool and shook out her short cap of straight red hair. “We’ve got guys from as far as New Hampshire, and some of NOLA’s here.”
She glanced up the moment the last words left her lips, gaze coming to Ava. “Oh, by the way…”
“Aidan told me,” Ava said with a sigh. “It’s fine.”
Jackie winced, the freckles across her nose scrunching. “Sorry.”
“There’ll be too many people here for it to matter,” Mina said. Little pixie Mina with her hip-length dark hair and soft doe eyes. Always helpful, always sweet.
Nell knotted a ribbon around her latest balloon and sent it careening through the air toward a cluster of its friends with a bump from the heel of her hand. She pulled a bored face and swatted at the air. “No one remembers all that and no one cares about it. Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.”
“Right.” Ava nodded. “I’m not worried.”
When she met her mother’s gaze, Maggie was giving her the pained look that always accompanied this topic of conversation, that wealth of maternal sympathy and sadness.
“I’m not,” Ava insisted, and knew Maggie didn’t buy it for a second. She didn’t buy it herself, if she was honest.
Bonita turned to Maggie. “Are you sending her home?” Then to Ava. “Could you bring back yourmadre’s silverware – what do you call it–?”
“Caddy,” Maggie said.
“Yes, caddy. Could you bring it?”
“Sent home?” Ava asked.
“I thought you could unload your bags,” Maggie said, “and I need you to bring me a change of clothes. Is that alright?”
Ava nodded. Ditching her bags at the house was a good idea. “Sure.”
“Oh, wait,” Jackie said. “Would you mind stopping at the convenience store? I need another of those little Bic lighter sticks.”
“Okay.”
By the time she headed back to the truck, Ronnie in tow, she had a list of things she needed to buy and find. That was the thing about being the youngest, and not being an old lady, but a daughter: she was the go-fer.
“So if it’s not a retirement, then what is it?” Ronnie asked as they emerged into the sunlight of the parking lot.
“It is a retirement.” Ava checked her list with a little face. She’d be lucky if they got back before dark. “James is getting up there in age and his hip replacement didn’t go so well. So he can’t ride anymore, which means he needs to step down as president. My dad’s VP, so he’ll take his seat. James is retiring, yeah – and he’s also giving up his seat at the table, his right to vote on club issues, and all his power as president.” She glanced at Ronnie, trying to gauge the questions in his eyes. “That’s a big deal for him,” she said. “For the whole club.”
Ronnie sighed and it was a tired sound.
She felt a sharp twinge of guilt. He didn’t understand this world – didn’t want to, most like – and she wasn’t sure she possessed the objectivity or grace to help lead him into it slowly. Girls like her, she guessed, who came from shady families, married rich boys and pretended their relatives had never existed. They didn’t glory in their pasts the way she did, like pathetic children with unhealthy fetishes.
God, she disgusted herself sometimes. What would her professors think – the smiling dean who’d congratulated her over the phone for getting into the UT grad program – if they could see her in leather and denim, moving amongst a crowd of outlaws, while debauchery reigned and smoke rolled thick? What would Ronnie’s reaction be if he ever clapped eyes on the man who –
She stumbled to a halt. She might have grabbed at Ronnie’s arm for balance; she wasn’t sure. Her breath left her lungs in a sudden rush; her pulse became a hummingbird, beating in the tiny vessels of her ears.
In the parking lot, still lingering in front of her truck, Aidan and Tango had been joined by three of their brothers. Two of them were of average height and build, nondescript, but possessing of the usual amount of MC aura. The third, though…the sight of the third made her veins scream inside her skin; every nerve felt shredded.
Six-five, his build a blend between Marvel superhero and fleet track athlete, his hair a shining, silken jet that gleamed blue in certain lights, his features prominent, sharp, unforgiving, his skin like warm smooth cappuccino with his summer suntan, Felix Lécuyer towered over his fellow Dogs, his shadow a long black monument against the asphalt. He wore a white undershirt beneath his cut, his arms bare, the dog tattoo on his left bicep leaping as he raised one heavy arm and scratched at the back of his neck. Ava remembered the way those muscles felt when they shifted and bunched like that. She remembered exactly how strong he was, how heavy he was when he was on top of her and bearing her down into the mattress.
