“Does the club know about me?” she asks instead, glancing over at my face. “I mean, about us. This.”
“Some of them,” I say, thinking of Dober and Smoky and Glacier. They were waiting outside my bedroom door yesterday while I professed my … bloody hell, what do I call it, love? Is it love? Oh, who the hell cares? “I haven't made it official, but I will.”
I flick my cigarette into the grass as Lyric heaves a deep breath, like she's getting ready to run a marathon.
“You know,” she adds softly, the wind teasing her hair around her face as she turns back and opens the sliding glass door again. “There's still a pile of pesto, pasta and broken glass on the floor in here. I don't know how things work with the other ladies in the club, but I don't scrub up other people's messes.”
Lyric smiles tightly at me as I turn towards her, slinging my thumbs under the waistband of my sweats.
“You're gonna be a real handful, aren't you?”
“You have no idea,” Lyric says as she slips inside and pauses with a palm on the glass. “I hope you're ready for this.”
“When's your pretty little photo shoot with the mayor?” Dober asks as he lifts a beer to his lips and pretends he doesn't notice me fidgeting with my phone. I'm waiting for a call from Glacier. A fucking important call.
That guy, the asshole that stole my truck and my woman, he's hanging out with the MC's enforcer right now, probably in a world of pain, wishing he were dead.
I almost feel sorry for the bloody bastard.
“Stop fidgeting around and have a fucking beer, for Christ's sake. You're making me nervous.”
I slam the phone down on the bar top and look my new vice president over, from his thick brown beard to the black dragon tattoo on his left arm. He's not happy with me, not at all. The unspoken words in the air between us are filled with Lyric's name. Wasting club time and resources on the mayor's uppity little daughter isn't going to sit well with anyone. He knows it; I know it.
“Photo shoot's on Friday,” I say as I tap my fingers against the bar and try to decide which of these assholes looks the least threatening. We need Trinidad to see us as an asset, an indispensable part of the local economy. It wasn't even a decade ago that the city was picketing outside the compound, turning customers away from the garage and the showroom. It was impossible to maneuver with the cops breathing down our necks and the FBI threatening RICO charges against the previous president. Thankfully, we're past all that, but I'm from a new generation and I do things bloody differently.
Like dating the mayor's daughter.
I curl my fingers around my beer and lift it to my lips, my eyes scanning the room, taking in the few lone figures sprawled on couches and chairs, drinks in hand, watching the TV in the corner or playing pool on the black surface of the table to my right.
“I want Mug and Jack with me, and whoever's the most popular with the women in the garage. Nobody's afraid of fucking gingers, and Jack has that unthreatening old grandpa vibe.” I set my beer down and slide a pack of fags from my pocket. “If I could get away with it, I'd slap Glacier on there, too, just for shits and giggles. You think his psychopathic tendencies would translate digitally?”
“Hell if I know,” Dober chuckles as he shakes his head. “He's pretty to look at, I guess. The ladies seem to like him, but putting him in a photo for the world to see … I don't think I'd take the risk on that one, Pres.”
I give him a tight-lipped grin and light up, flipping my phone around in the opposite hand. I spent last night nailing Lyric into my mattress, tucking her sweaty body up against mine, breathing in the scent of her hair. Even as I'm standing here embroiled in club business, she's not far from my mind. Now that I've let myself think it for even a second, considered having her as my own, I can't stop. Because why not, right? Why the fuck not? Dober's wife, Janae, runs a fucking Sunday school class for Christ's sake.
“We'll be taking over the cleanup for Redwood Highway starting this week. Get some hang-arounds on that, and let's figure out a security detail for Lyric Rentz. I want eyes on her twenty-four seven.”
Dober scoffs and I pause, giving him the look that got me this job in the first place, the one that says absolutely do not fucking fuck with me. I've already told him about Lyric and me, but I think he's still praying I'll change my mind.
“This isn't going to go over well, you know that, right? Particularly with the other women.”
“You think I give a shit about that?” I snap, dropping my cigarette to the floor and crushing it out with my boot. “They'll get over it.”
“You can't bring someone into the club who's tied up in politics, Royal.”