Page 37 of Reckless

I laugh, the genuine one, the one I forget I haven’t been doing enough of lately. ‘You’ve seen Las Vegas before.’

‘I’ve flown over Las Vegas. That is completely different.’ She tips her head toward the exit, already walking. ‘Also, I’ve heard about this clubhouse, and I need to assess whether these people deserve you.’

‘They’re going to love you,’ I tell her.

She makes a production of thinking it over. ‘Of course, they are. That’s not the question.’

I shake my head and follow, and the ache in my chest from the past several weeks lifts enough that I can breathe around it.

The drive back takes the better part of forty minutes thanks to Vegas traffic. Piper has the window down before we’re even out of the airport, sunglasses shoved onto her face, one arm resting on the door while she soaks everything in.

I’d forgotten she does that.

Every new place gets her full attention. She watches the Strip roll past, the mountains sitting out in the distance, the sun baking everything the same dusty shade until even the casinos start looking like they belong here.

She keeps me talking the whole drive. Over the years, I have learned to drive and sign at the same time. Difficult, but not impossible if you time it right. We talk about the club, baby Marcus and whether he’s really as loud as I made him sound, Marley and Nitro’s wedding, then about Victoria and whether motherhood has changed her.

But she carefully avoids Ghost.

Which would almost be convincing if I hadn’t spent twenty-six years being related to her.

I know that look.

She’s loading the magazine before she pulls the goddamn trigger.

We pull up to the clubhouse mid-afternoon, the lot half full with bikes gleaming in the Vegas heat. Piper gets out of the car, grabs her bags, and stands for a moment, just taking it in—the building, the lot, the bones of the place, and something in her expression goes quietly impressed, though she wouldn’t say it in those words.

‘It’s bigger than I thought,’ she says, and signs it simultaneously without thinking.

‘It’s always bigger than people think.’

She nods, satisfied, and follows me inside.

The clubhouse is exactly what you’d expect to find on a Sunday afternoon.

Koa is behind the bar arguing with Deek over whether reheated soup somehow tastes better the second day around. Deek insists it does. Koa insists Deek’s taste buds are broken. Bear is halfway through his beer, letting Deek and Koa argue over yesterday’s soup without offering an opinion. He knows better.

Marley is at the table with a coffee in one hand and a file open in front of her, looking like she’s been trying to read the same page for the last ten minutes without much success. Ro calls something from the back that earns a muffled reply from Koa, and the whole place smells like whatever Koa put in that soup he’s been trying to convince everyone was award-winning since yesterday.

The conversation rolls on right up until Piper and I walk through the door.

Then every head turns.

Deek straightens immediately because Deek can’t help himself. Koa is already smiling. Marley pushes back from the table, opening her arms, and Piper, who has never met Marley in her life but has heard enough about her to have opinions, walks straight into the hug like she’s known her for years.

The room reorganizes itself around Piper almost immediately. It always does when someone new walks through the clubhouse doors.

Koa is the first one over, and Deek is only half a step behind him, already talking before he’s even close enough for Piper to read a word of it.

“H… e… l… l… o… o,” he says, slowing every syllable down to the point it barely resembles English anymore. “I… am… Deeeeeek!”

Piper blinks at him. Then looks at me. “Sage?”

“Yeah?”

“Is he okay?”

I sigh. “He’s always like this.”