I cut into the eggs and took a bite. They were ridiculous. Fluffy, buttery, with peppers from her garden and cheese she probably bought from some woman named Moonbeam at a farmer’s market. The bacon was thick-cut, the kind she got from a rancher two towns over because grocery store bacon “tasted like salt and sadness.”
Food like this was the reason nobody complained when she made us build a chicken coop behind the clubhouse. Or when she sent three patched members on a run to pick up a roosterthat now woke us every morning like a tiny feathered dictator. She had tomatoes, peppers, herbs, a greenhouse, and plans for fruit trees. If Regan had her way, the Royal Bastards would have horses next and probably a damn goat named Earl.
I swallowed another bite. “Heading into town.”
Her eyes narrowed. “For?”
“Found a place.”
Edge looked up from his coffee. “A house?”
“Small place.”
Regan’s face lit up like I’d announced a pregnancy. “About damn time.”
I pointed my fork at her. “Don’t start.”
“I’m starting. Clubhouse is good until it ain’t.”
She wasn’t wrong, which irritated me. The clubhouse kept a man close to the pulse of things. Club business. Brothers. Protection. Noise. Always noise. Doors opening, boots on floors, bikes rolling in at all hours, somebody yelling, somebody laughing, somebody bleeding on a towel because pride wouldn’t let him go to urgent care. It had been enough when I needed to be surrounded by motion.
Now I wanted walls.
Quiet.
My own damn coffee pot.
A porch where nobody asked me why I was awake at three in the morning. A kitchen where I could burn toast in peace. A bed that didn’t share a wall with Bullet’s entertainment choices.
“It’s outside town,” I said. “Affordable. Close enough if the club needs me.”
Regan smiled wider. “Good. I’ll come help.”
“No.”
Her mouth dropped. “What do you mean no?”
“No plants.”
“I wasn’t going to bring plants.”
Edge snorted into his coffee. “Bullshit.”
Regan threw a towel at him. “A tomato plant never hurt anybody.”
“She says,” I muttered, “after weaponizing zucchini all summer.”
“You ate the bread.”
“Under protest.”
“You ate three slices.”
“I’m a hostage to carbs.”
Emily smirked. “You need plants. And curtains. And maybe furniture that wasn’t purchased from a man named Rusty behind a storage unit.”
I looked at her. “Good thing you ain’t moving in.”
