While we sat and drank and played with the boys, we talkedabout Joker’s builds (he was young, younger than me, but he’d becometheguy at Ride who designed and built their custom bikes and cars), Carissa’splans to become a hair stylist, and going through properties on Snap’s phonethat he was considering adding to his real estate empire.
It was then I learned that he didn’t just buy them.Hebought them, fixed them up like the one we were in, then rented themundoubtedly at high rates in order to attract a certain tenant that wouldn’tgive him shit or leave his places trashed and probably lined his world withcash.
He wasn’t trying to be a real estate mogul.
But as I listened to him talk casually to Joker about how hehandled six properties, his work at Ride, and his work with the Club, like itwas nothing, not to mention looking to add to his modest but growing dynasty,he just simply was.
A biker becoming a mogul.
It was impressive.
It was attractive.
And it was surprising, but listening to him, I realized itwas another side of what was all justSnap.
The older men kicked back on my furniture surrounding thewomen who were on their asses or their knees around my coffee table as theyproceeded to loudly and hilariously get smashed playing a game only collegestudents were unwise enough to play.
In that time, listening to the talk, enjoying the laughter,I did this assessing my surroundings.
And I decided on a smaller dining room table so I could haveanother seating area on that side of the house, definitely a reading nook sothat chair could be dragged in when I had company, and a portable crib that Icould keep in the garage (this last I added when Travis passed out on Joker’schest, and to my utter agony and profound delight, Nash did the same on Snap).
The women got shitfaced and loud, all but Carissa, who wassurprisingly crazy-good at quarters.
Eventually their men peeled them off the floor as theydeclared undying love for each other, gave shit to their men for spoiling thefun, and made plans to get shitfaced again, and soon, all the while their menguided them into their coats, out the door, and then poured them in theirtrucks.
Except Joker and Carissa, who stayed, hanging with Mom,Snap, and me, them cuddled on one side of my couch, curled around each otherproviding a human crib for Travis, Mom in my armchair, and me and Snap cuddledinto the other side of my couch.
Yes, I said cuddled.
I wasn’t being stupid, stupid Rosalie.
I was being stupid, dreamer, happy Rosalie.
And stupid, dreamer, happy Rosalie was the “dreamer” and“happy” part of that because I saw that the night had just made my mom the“happy” part.
There was also, of course, the important addition of Snapperbeing a crazy-good cuddler.
Like we’d done it a million times before, with skills innateto males and females passed down from generation to generation, even if we wereall together, the men talked and the women talked, holding entirely differentconversations in the same space.
Mom and I learned Joker wasn’t Travis’s dad.He was Travis’sreally awesome stepdad.They lived together, had Travis every other week,Carissa worked atLeLane’s, and they’d gone to highschool together, been in love with each other then, but it wasn’t untilrelatively recently they hooked up.
She gave us more and Carissa learned a lot about Mom and me.
Through this, sipping Corona, I watched her with Joker, theease they had with each other and with Travis, and I wondered if she knew aboutthe shit storm that was swirling around the Chaos MC.
If she did, it didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest.
She had her man.She had her son.Her man loved her son andher son worshiped her man.
In the bubble of Carissa’s world, all was good and happyeven if the bigger bubble of the Chaos world was in danger of exploding.
Along with this I came to realize that I really likedCarissa and Joker.I liked them all.I liked that there was food and booze andfun and loudness and laughter.I liked that no one pushed Snap and Joker and meto join in, they let us be quiet in the corner with the kids.I liked thattherewerekids and they were part of what was happening in a naturalway.I liked that once some folks left, we got something different, mellow andcomfortable and relaxed.I liked that Snap fit into all of this like he wasborn to it.And I liked that Snapper fit me (and Mom) into it like we’d beenthere for years.
Liking all of this, lulled by all of this, eventually Ipassed out on Snapper’s chest, still in the throes of nodding to try to stayawake as Mom and Carissa chatted.
The next thing I knew, Snap was lifting me from the couch.
“I can walk,” I’d mumbled.
