“Are you new here?” Shelly said, mock offended. “Cops love to shoot first, ask questions never.”
Maggie tapped her ashes. “You want to hear the worst? I was here when the old Prez got hit. Rival club rolled up with automatic rifles, took out half the room. Thought my old man was dead until I found him under a pile of bodies. Never washed the blood out of these jeans.” She gave a lazy, cigarette-stained smile. “That’s the life, Carly. Still wanna play?”
Carly stared at the three of them. Each looked ready to gut her, but also hungry for something she couldn’t name. Maybe a witness. Maybe someone to tell their stories. Maybe just a fourth for canasta.
Shelly asked it first. “So what’s your story with Damron? You don’t look like his usual type. You look like you’d call the cops before you called your ex.”
Carly let the silence work. She wanted to lie, but found herself too tired. “I work at the bar. Going to law school,” she said, blunt. “Someday I’m going to be a senator.”
Tess whistled. “Big swing.”
Maggie just shook her head, a kind of knowing pity in her smile. “Honey, no one just stops being Damron’s. Not really.”
Shelly snickered. “So are you gonna run for president next, or you just here for the makeup sex?”
Carly gave her a look. “I’m here because I trust him. That’s all.”
Tess shot her a thumbs-up. “Respect. But don’t get too cozy. Most women who come in here leave in handcuffs or a coffin.”
Maggie ground her cigarette out and stood up, stretching. “Drinks?” She poured shots from a bottle that looked older than any of them, sloshed the cheap whiskey into plastic cups, and handed one to Carly with a wink.
“Here’s to old scars,” Maggie said. They all drank, even Carly. It tasted like gasoline and regret, but she finished it.
“Your turn,” Tess said, pushing the bottle back her way. “You got a story, tell it.”
Carly took a moment, then launched into the one about the protester with a bag of dog shit and the homemade flamethrower, and for the first time, the other women actually laughed. By the time the bottle was half-empty, Carly felt the invisible line between worlds blur, if only for a second.
###
Damron shut the church room door behind him and took a moment to let the noise of patched egos and old grudges fade. He’d made it through the agenda with only one near-fistfight and a minor coup attempt from the Arizona charter, which counted as a win. But the real work was waiting in the back, behind another door and a bottle of whiskey he’d been saving for an occasion just like this.
He walked into the rec room, expecting to find Carly glassy-eyed with boredom or in the middle of a standoff with Tess. Instead, he saw her holding court. The women clustered around her, laughing too loud at some war story she was spinning. Shelly had her arm slung over Carly’s shoulder, and even Maggie, whose resting face looked like she’d just buried a husband, was grinning. Carly saw him and excused herself.“See you soon, ladies,” she said, and Maggie howled as if they’d just discovered a new curse word.
Damron waited for the women to filter out before speaking. “You fit right in.”
“I learn fast,” she said, following him down the hall. “Your friends have great stories. I’m going to steal some for my memoirs.”
He snorted. “If they tell you the truth, you’re already more trusted than most.”
They reached his office. He unlocked the door, flicked the light, and waved her in. The room was all hard surfaces and hard memories—map of the southwest pinned to one wall, arsenal racked on the other. Three different ledgers sat open on his desk: one legit, one half-legit, and one that didn’t exist if the ATF came knocking.
He closed the door and locked it. “Sit. Drink?”
She nodded, settling on the edge of a battered armchair. The room shrank around her, but she didn’t seem to mind. If anything, she looked more at home here than in the halls of Congress. He poured two fingers of whiskey each. Handed her a glass. Their fingers touched, a jolt of old voltage running between them.
“Learn anything interesting?” he asked.
She eyed him over the rim. “That you’ve fucked half the women in this building.”
He grinned, didn’t deny it. “None of them had your stamina.”
Her jaw flexed. “Or maybe you just had a thing for broken things.”
He took a seat behind the desk, let the banter sit for a minute. The way she watched him was all business, but her foot jiggled a restless rhythm against the carpet. She sipped, then said, “The women think I’m back here to fuck you. They’re probably right.”
He leaned back, studied her. “Is that why you’re here?”
She set her glass on the desk. “No. But I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about it every goddamn day since that night out back.”
