"Brick has been eating my pie for six years and never once asked about it, which is how men are about most things, honestly." She says it without heat, just fact. "What are you fixing in the shop right now?"
"Sportster in bay four. Brake lines, then I want to look at the suspension. And there's a Fat Boy that came in yesterday with a primary chain that's been rattling. Owner doesn't want to hear it's been rattling because he doesn't want to pay for it, but it's been rattling."
"What happens if he doesn't pay for it?"
"It gets worse. Then it gets expensive." I drink my beer. "I told him. He smiled and nodded. In six months, he'll come back and act like we didn't have the conversation."
Cam shakes her head. "People and their bikes. They're worse than people and their bodies. I had a whole conversation with Pops last year about that knee of his. Same principle."
"Does he get better pastry or better filling?"
She laughs, quietly, under the music. It's a real laugh, not a bar-laugh, and it makes the room feel a little less big. I realize sitting here that Cam is the reason a lot of men end up at this bar even when they don't particularly want a drink. She gives you her full attention without making you feel like you're being examined. She talks to you like a person rather than a prospect or a problem, and at the end of a long week, that turns out to be worth a lot.
"You're going to be alright," she says, when the silence comes back.
"In the club?"
"In general." She refills my beer without being asked. "The club too, probably. But in general first."
I look at my glass. "Is it that obvious?"
"Only to people who are paying attention." She moves to the other end of the bar, where someone's waving for a drink. Over her shoulder she says, "Same time next Friday, I'll tell you who makes the better apple pie."
I watch her go and I sit with the noise of the room around me, and for the first time in three weeks the weight in my chest doesn't feel like it's going to be permanent.
Maybe. We'll see.
CHAPTER 3
Austin
Six Weeks Later
It's a Tuesday morning, and I'm in the workshop when Cam comes to find me.
I hear her before I see her, the particular sound of her boots on the concrete, and I look up from under the bike I've been working on since six. Six weeks into prospect life and I've learned a few things. Early mornings in the workshop are mine if I want them. My brothers don't start moving until eight at the earliest, and Brick has given me enough to keep my hands busy and my head quiet, which is kinda the point. My head needs to be quiet. The alternative is thinking about Savannah, and I can't afford to do that and function.
Cam stops at the workshop door. She's Brick's woman, has been around the club longer than most, and she has the look on her face she gets when she knows something the room doesn't.
"Austin, you got a minute?"
I put the wrench down and wipe my hands. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," she says it in a way that means something is wrong. "I need to talk to Prez, and I think you should be there. It involves you."
I follow her out of the workshop without asking more. Whatever it is, I'll find out when Cam decides to tell me and not before.
Prezis in the main room with two of the brothers when we walk in. He looks at Cam and then at me, and something in his expression sharpens.
"Private?" he asks her.
"Private," she says.
He nods at the brothers, and they clear out without being asked. That's how it works in here. You read the room, and you move when Prez needs you to. I'm still learning all of it, but I'm learning fast.
The three of us go into his office, and he closes the door. I stand with my back to the wall because sitting down doesn't feel right, and I don't know yet what I'm sitting with.
Cam doesn't drag it out. That's one of the things I like about her. She says what she came to say.
