I didn’t know who her boys were. “Look, here’s my problem. I only understand about half of what you say. Who are your boys? What are retirees? And what the hell are sheep?”
MJ belted out a laugh that made her cough and pound the red Formica-topped table. “Girl, ain’t met one as green as you before. Can’t believe Jericho hired you. Must be good with the paperwork.”
I was damn good at my job, and what did the biker’s secret language have to do with managing the shop?
“Easy, girl.” MJ studied me. “Didn’t mean to piss you off. So many girls live to join the lifestyle and here you are not knowing a damn thing.”
I bit my lip. “Dare said we’d talk tonight and he’d answer my questions.”
Jen set the Denver omelet in front me, a fluffy perfection that I couldn’t make for the life of me, so I dug in and left MJ to talk.
She ate a piece of bacon and assessed me.
Should I worry about passing? Hard to care while I ate fluffy eggs with ham.
“Can’t think of a time Dare brought someone to the club, not even a sheep.” She held up a finger. “They’re girls who love the life and like to party—basically club property. Any of the guys, whose women won’t cut off their dicks for cheatin’, can have a go. Sometimes one of the boys will take a shine to one for a bit, but mostly they’re partiers who have no sense.” MJ grunted. “You’d never be a sheep.”
“Damn straight.” I frowned at her. “Not, um, anything wrong with it, but not my style.”
“We agree.” MJ ate more bacon. “Women have defined roles in the club, but they can’t be members. You can be a sheep, bottom of the barrel. Then you can be a girl, a girlfriend who hasn’t been claimed yet.”
I wished I was Dare’s girl. Asking me to the party, did it make me his girl? Or a sheep?
No, no one treats me like that. I’d come too far to go backward. I’d long ago turned in my wool.
“Sometimes a girl will switch between bikers until she finds the one who she’ll settle down with.”
“Really? It feels wrong to me, moving among friends like that.” I winced.
MJ shook her head. “The boys aren’t always right headed about women, and so if a biker ain’t the settling kind, the girl moves on. Because being a biker’s girl is like walking a tightrope. It ain’t easy.
“When a biker commits to a girl, she’s patched in as his property and becomes part of the club. We call her an old lady. The biker is her old man.” MJ smiled at me. “My old man patched me in after a year together, but it’s rare. Rarer now that the club’s established. It’s been hella thirty years helping my old man build the Brotherhood. Wild times, that ain’t no lie.”
The club sounded political to me, and the women more so than the men. It didn’t sound anything like a family, more like a harem. Old lady life didn’t sound normal either, but then my life never had been normal.
“Dare doesn’t strike me as the commitment type.” I feared I would fall in love with him and he’d walk away.
“Maybe, but maybe not.” She pointed her triangle of toast at me. “You have the only shot I’ve seen in the ten years I’ve known him. If it doesn’t work out between you, there’s lots of my boys who need a good woman.” She flashed me a brittle smile. “A woman who’s nice and can cook. Yeah, I can find you a man, if it comes to it.”
I hoped this was a dream. This friendly old woman propositioned me to be an old-lady-in-training or maybe an old-lady-in-waiting. I swallowed the laugh those words brought.
I put a ten on the table and stood. “Busy week at the shop. Thanks for the education. Can I ask you if I have more questions?”
She smirked at me. “You can ask.”
But whether she’d answer was another thing.
Dare worried about me, bragged about me—no way could I say no now. I bet MJ knew that before I did. I respected her, even if I didn’t trust her, but then, I rarely trusted myself.
The day passed in a blur, with the shop filled with bikers hanging out and others getting work done. I ran nonstop until closing time and hauled my ass upstairs for a quiet minute before Dare arrived at nine. I walked into my apartment and froze. A dark green couch rested back against the windows. Across from it, a TV stood on a stand. Where had all this come from? Who had decided I couldn’t take care of myself?
Sure, I’d waited, been hesitant even, to commit to the furniture I needed, but part of that was because I’d wanted to put my stamp on every item I brought in here. Nobody telling me how to decorate, when to do it, and least of all doing it for me, especially without as much as a word to me.