“You will be.”
“Bossy.”
“My job is to take care of you, lover.”She rolls her eyes and takes the bite anyway.A minute later he does it again.
Lucy watches the whole exchange like she’s trying to solve a puzzle.Then Riot slides Kelly an extra hush puppy because she stole two bites off his plate and apparently that means he now considers feeding her his personal duty.Kelly smiles without looking at him and keeps talking to Alaina like this is all background habit.
Lucy looks back at me slowly.“You’re all intense, it seems.”
I bark a laugh.“That a complaint?”
She shakes her head, watching Chux cut another bite for Alaina.
“No.”Her voice goes softer.“I think bikers are intense because they care.”
The words hit harder than they should.Maybe because I know what she expected from us before she really saw us.Maybe because she’s looking at my world and finding something decent in it.Mostly, I think what is settling in my belly deep, she actually is really trying to embrace my world.She gets it.
I lean back slightly, studying her.“That what you’re seeing?”
She nods once.“Chux keeps feeding Alaina because she says she isn’t hungry, but he knows she needs to eat.Riot doesn’t stop touching Kelly, like he’s always checking she’s there.Looney keeps handing Lindsey water every twenty minutes because she forgot sunscreen and he thinks dehydration is somehow going to happen out of nowhere.”She smiles a little.“It’s all very caveman.”
“That a complaint?”I wonder feeling slightly insecure but being man enough to know it’s because of my past.
“Not exactly,” she repeats, and this time she’s smiling enough that I know she means it.
I take that in and hold onto it.Because she gets it.Not all of it, maybe.Not yet.But the heart of it.The club looks hard because it is.That loyalty here is feral and loud and sometimes messy.But it’s also real.No one eats alone if they matter.No one fights alone either.We take care of the people we love.
After lunch, we walk the vendor rows by the lake, browse chrome parts none of the women care about, then circle back for music and drinks while the sun hangs high and hot over the water.
Lucy sticks close at first.
Then she doesn’t have to.Kelly loops her into a conversation about bakery disasters.Alaina insists she try peach hand pies from a booth run by one of the Birmingham chapter’s old ladies.Lindsey drags her into line for lemonade while Looney complains nobody appreciates the tactical value of hydration.
At one point I lose sight of her for all of three minutes and find her sitting on the tailgate of a brother from the other chapter’s truck between Kelly and Alaina, laughing at some story Lindsey’s telling with her whole body.
And for one stupid second, my chest gets tight enough it’s almost painful.
Because she fits.I’ll be damned, she fits.
Like she was built for exactly this kind of rough-edged family all along and just never had the chance to know it.
Chux comes up beside me and follows my line of sight.“Told you.”
“About what?”
He smirks.“Gone for her.”
I don’t bother answering.No point.The man’s not wrong.By late afternoon, the heat softens and the whole gathering relaxes into that easy stretch after food and sun where everybody’s a little loose and the sharpest edge is gone from the day.
Lucy ends up next to me on a bench near the water while the others bullshit nearby.She slips her hand into mine like it belongs there.
No hesitation.No nerves.Just easy contact.It shouldn’t mean that much.
It means everything.
“You okay?”I ask.
She leans her shoulder into my arm.“Yeah.”
