Could she?
The following Monday, her grandmother took her to a teahouse that’d recently opened in a narrow Victorian building in an older part of the North Shore. It’d most recently been a lawyer’s office, but someone had turned it into a charming tearoom.
Her grandmother was in a lavender dress she’d probably owned back when Reagan was president, and Tuesday was in a wrap dress, wearing her pearl necklace and matching earrings. They both wore ridiculous hats and white gloves, and they weren’t the only ones doing so.
They ordered the full afternoon tea service and ate their way through the tiers with the focused pleasure of two women who took food seriously, and talked about family, the upcoming solstice gathering, and whether August’s girlfriend was going to survive the next family dinner without ketchup, because June was making a nice meal and was going to get rid of every bottle she owned for the event.
And then, over the second pot of Earl Grey, June set her cup down and looked at Tuesday a good ten seconds, her eyes doing that thing where they seeeverything, and she asked, “Would Knife be the same man without his club?”
Tuesday looked at her grandmother, alarmed she’d brought him into the conversation, but also not sure why she’d asked the question.
“If he wasn’t a biker,” her grandmother continued after taking another sip of tea. “If he’d never found his brothers, never built his life around that unique community…” She set her cup down and lifted a tiny cucumber sandwich. “Would he be the man you fell in love with?”
Tuesday opened her mouth.
“And,” her grandmother added, before Tuesday could answer, “would you be the same woman without your pack? The Tuesday who knows herself, who knows what she is and where she belongs — is that woman the one he fell in love with?”
She took a bite of the sandwich, swallowed and changed the subject. “Now, tell me what you left out about your hike with Willow.”
The questions abouthe-who-shouldn’t-be-namedhad been rhetorical, for Tuesday to answer to herself, so she gladly accepted the change in conversation.
“I’ve told you everything I intend to tell you about Willow. The most interesting thing I gleaned is that Kenny’s rules and schedules make everything work, but she didn’t tell me any details about those rules or schedules. I have a feeling you know way more than me, and you haven’t shared.”
“She takes him his lunch most every day. Also, she’s almost always in a dress or skirt.”
“She wore jeans for our hike,” Tuesday noted, “but yeah, around the house, I can’t remember ever seeingher in pants.”
Her grandmother lifted an eyebrow, clearly intimating that might be one of Kenny’s many rules, and Tuesday smiled. “I think Willow is a very lucky woman.”
“I’d say fortunate, but yes, I agree.”
They had a marvelous day, walking around the North Shore and shopping. They even rode the carousel, at her grandmother’s insistence, and enjoyed the little ice cream shop just before Tuesday drove her grandmother home.
She was on her way back to her apartment when her grandmother’s questions landed like a damned wrecking ball.
Because Knife wouldn’t be the man she fell in love with if he wasn’t a biker. If he wasn’t part of the club. Didn’t have his brothers.
She’d known it while watching him move through the party at Homewood with his brothers. She’d known it while staring at him across the food table.
She’d known it when she rode on the back of his bike on the way to and from Monteagle Mountain.
And she’d known it every Tuesday morning when she’d driven away from him.
The club wasn’t something he had. It was something he was — and she desperately loved who and what he was.
She pulled into her apartment complex and sat in the SUV for a long time, not bothering to wipe the tears streaming down her face.
She didn’t want him to be different. She wanted him exactly as he was — the butcher, the biker, the man who made trail mix with smoked almonds and raisins and drovethree hours on a Monday because it was pretty and he wanted to see her.
She didn’t want to change him into someone else, and that’s what would happen if he left his club to be with her.
She wanted him exactly as he is.
Which meant the only question left was whether she was willing to turn herself into someone else to be with him.
Lone wolf.The very idea sounded terrifying, but legally, that’s what he was. His club filled in the difference. Could he make up the difference for her?
She sat in her car until she grew hungry, and then she went inside and cooked herself a hand-cut beef tartare, focusing on the rapid-cured egg yolk process, the precise knife work to get identical sized cubes of meat, and then the quick-pickled mustard seeds, the emulsification process, the flavor balancing, and finally, the assembling.
