“What are you talking about?” Hatch asked. “We live in Portland. There’s great beer everywhere.”
“Not like this,” I said, with a satisfied purr. For whatever reason, I felt more at home at that moment than I had since we’d arrived in England.
“Heather thanks you,” Patty said.
“Well, if she ever makes it as far out west as Portland, Oregon you be sure to tell her she’s always welcome in our home,” I said.
“Oregon? That’s out near Texas isn’t it?” Patty asked.
“Close enough,” I said with a smile, so clearly remembering a time when America was little more than a vague notion of cowboys and skyscrapers. Sometimes it still felt like dreamland that was created by Hollywood, but every day that I’m with my family, America feels more familiar, and increasingly like my home.
“Let’s go see the lads, then,” Chippie said.
Hatch wrapped his arm around me again and I slid my hand into the back pocket of his jeans as we greeted the bikers, some known, some new to us. It was both familiar, yet somewhat disorienting to hear a room full of loud voices speaking in my mother tongue. I hadn’t realized how tuned my ear had become to the American accent.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” a familiar voice rang out and I turned to see Lizzy, Chippie’s old lady tapping on his shoulder. “If you lot are through with this one, us ladies would like a go at her for a while.”
“Lizzy!” I shouted and threw my arms around her. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Me and the girls are in the back. We’ve got our own place set up away from these horrible men,” she said.
“I was just about to tell her,” Chippie said.
“You’re a lying sack of shit, Chippie, but you’ve got a right big willie, and a lot of money so I tolerate you,” Lizzy said dryly. “Hatch, it’s always nice to see you love,” she said kissing him on the cheek.
“Nice to see you’re still busting Chippie’s balls,” Hatch said with a grin.
“Bust them? These days, they hang so low, I damn near trip over them,” she replied, and the room got noticeably quieter. Chippie and Lizzy were wicked in love, and famous for taking the piss out of one another.
“I thought you were leaving,” Chippie said.
“If I had any sense at all, I’d leave and never come back,” she replied to laughs around the room.
“Try it, woman, and I’ll block the door with that big willie you were talking about.”
“Then, I’ll leave out the back door. Cause your willie’s never getting near that.”
“Is that what you ladies do in thebackroom?”
“Look, Chippie. You don’t ask what I do in the back room and I won’t ask what you do with that box full of David Beckham pictures you keep underneath our bed.”
Even if Chippie had delivered a solid comeback it would have been devoured underneath the wave of laughter that rolled through the room.
Chippie threw his hands up in the air in surrender before giving Lizzy a passionate kiss to applause all around.
“Come on love, let’s get away from all...this,” Lizzy said guiding me to the back.
* * *
Hatch
“Lizzy looks good,”I said.
“That woman is the apple of my eye and a pain in my arse,” Chippie replied.
“I’m pretty sure they call that true love.”
“Now that we’ve got love figured out then, how’s the war going?” Chippie asked, changing the subject.
