“You’re right. There’s so much wasted space. These buildings could be integrated, or at least the offices and your meeting room could be in the same building. Lodgings as far back as possible makes sense, but then this storage shed is in a really weird spot. It should be more defensible, right? Like behind the others or hidden at the back somewhere, as long as there’s easy access for taking supplies to it.”
I fucking loved how quickly she was getting on board, and seeing things just the way I saw them.
As we stepped inside the office building, she cast her eyes around, turning to frown at me.
“This is newer than the others. It’s a recent build?” I nodded, pointing down the hallway.
“That’s Micro’s office right down the bottom of the hall, and that there is Grease’s office, and then this is the lounge, but yeah, it was rebuilt after the original building burned down at Halloween.”
She turned to me with wide eyes. “What happened at Halloween? It must have been serious if you lost a building.”
Micro’s door opened, and we both paused, because he was on the ride, I fucking saw him. A blonde lady poked her head out, and I relaxed. It was Cammy, old lady to Stitch, the original chapter’s VP.
“Hey, Cammy. Shit, did we wake the baby?”
She smiled, shaking her head and checking behind her. “She’s out for the count, but I fed her a little while ago, so just like a man, she’s sleeping it off.”
Caroline giggled beside me, and I led her closer to Cammy.
“Caroline, this is Cammy. She’s the wife and old lady of Stitch. He’s the VP of the original chapter of Phoenix MC, and somewhere behind her in that room is their adorable little girl.”
Caroline shyly stepped forward to shake her hand, as I carried out the second part of the introduction, the more important part, at least to me.
“This is Caroline, hopefully my old lady.” Cammy’s eyes widened as she released Caroline’s hand and the ladies stepped apart. Caroline seemed to cope with a quick handshake, but she didn’t linger after it was done.
“Wow, welcome to the family, I hope.”
“Thank you. You really have a baby in there?”
Cammy widened the gap in the door to show us the baby’s stroller, and fast asleep in it, with her little fists clenched above the blanket was the next Phoenix MC generation.
“I’ll introduce you later when she wakes up,” she offered in a hushed voice, and we both smiled, starting to back up quietly, almost in perfect sync with each other.
“You need anything before we head off to see the rest of the place?” I asked her, and she shook her head, waving at us to carry on.
“I’m all good here, go do your thing.”
As soon as we stepped outside, Caroline, like a dog with a bone, went right back to our conversation from before.
“So, about this Halloween party fire thing…”
I sighed, leading her back outside, so we could roam the rest of the plot of land.
“Couple of disgruntled former members decided to mess with us at our patchover party, but they’re gone now.”
She froze on the spot, waiting until I stopped and turned to her.
“Gone as in…?”
“Yeah, they didn’t survive the night, babe, but they were literally trying to kill people.” She was blinking really fast, her face paler than normal.
“Did… did they hurt you?”
I shook my head, reaching out to stroke her hair back. “No, babe. I was uh… in my own little world. Look, it’s all over now, okay? That’s not going to happen again.”
“And these bad guys burned the building down?”
“Yeah, they were trying to take out Micro and the VP of our flagship club at the same time. And Grease. Apparently he was in there too, with a few of the old ladies.”
