“I want that kitchen gutted by dinner.We’re not running a diner, but I don’t want salmonella every time we make coffee.”
“Yes, sir,” Plug mumbled.
I grabbed a rag and wiped down the end of the bar, pretending to care about the dust, but my mind wasn’t really on the clubhouse.
It was three doors down on the corner of State Street and our street.
Tempi.
She’d gotten under my skin faster than I liked.Fire in her voice.Steel in her spine.And eyes that looked straight through bullshit without blinking.I hadn’t expected her.Hell, I hadn’t expectedanyof this.I thought we’d roll in, claim the city, and plant the flag.
Tempi?Didn’t expect her at all.
She was a wild card.
I didn’t trust wild cards.
Still… the way she’d leaned on the bar, calm and unshaken while calling me out without flinching?I’d replayed it more than once.Which was bullshit because I had more important things to think about than a bar owner with a sharp tongue and legs that made it hard to focus.
“Boss?”Rev’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“Wanna come check the upstairs?We’re gonna start patching the north side and sealing off the back staircase.”
“Be right there.”
Upstairs, the seven rooms were mostly intact—dusty, old, with cracked paint and warped doors—but livable.Each one had a small closet, a window, and just enough space for a bed, dresser, and maybe a chair.Better than most crash pads we’d seen.
Wheels and Hodge were prying off closet doors with crowbars and yelling at each other about hinges.
“I saidliftit, notripit!”
“Same damn result!”
Gramps sat on an overturned bucket in the hallway with a clipboard in hand.
“You assigning rooms or writing a manifesto?”I asked.
He held up a floor plan.“You’re in the back room, Swift gets the one above the office, Hodge and Wheels take the east wall.Rest are first-come, first-claimed.Prospects get the closet.”
“There’s no closet,” I pointed out.
“Exactly.”
I chuckled and kept walking to check every room with a quick glance.
This place would shape up.It had the bones.
We just had to break a few first.
By sundown, the noise had tapered off, and the air stank of sweat, wood glue, and victory.
I sat on a barstool with a beer and looked around at the chaos.
Dust everywhere.Tools piled up.Nails scattered.But it wasours.
“Someone say dinner?”Nugget called out and stretched his back.
