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“But she only sees her once in a blue moon too. My point is… she’s not used to socializing. So while she did agree to come here eventually, I think she’s going to struggle a bit at the beginning.”
“You’ve got your own room,” Slash said, shrugging. “It’s too much, you can hang there. Everyone will just think you’re fucking.”
With that, he made his way back toward the living area, grabbing the remote, and flipping on the TV.
Well.
Yeah.
I mean, I didn’t know what I’d been expecting when I told Slash the whole story, but I guess I figured there would have been some sort of reaction. He’d had none. Well, aside from the bit about Nyx, for whatever reason.
I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. If there was ever a president who was going to take shit with a grain of salt, it was Slash. I guess because his early life had been kind of fucked up too, and then he’d needed to be scrappy all through his early adulthood, it was hard to faze him.
I went upstairs, taking a shower with some actual water pressure and normal soap. Morgaine had to use all specific shit because of ‘gray water,’ whatever that meant. Then I did some laundry and spent some time straightening up my room, figuring the next time I would be in it, I’d likely be bringing Morgaine back with me.
Then when I heard Coach pull up, I decided to go down and give him a hand.
“The fuck is this?” Slash asked as all three of us stood behind the SUV, expecting groceries that we could help bring in, but finding wood stacked inside instead.
“Oh, that?” Coach asked, smile a little wicked. “That’s some reclaimed wood,” he explained. “To build myself some bookshelves.”
“Reclaimed from where?” Slash asked. “That’s brand-fucking-new wood.”
“Yeah, well, I claimed it from the front yard of a particularly dickheaded C.O. from my time inside. Turns out he’s adding on a room with all the kickbacks he got from some of the Neo-Nazi shitheads inside. He’s gonna have to lean on them a little harder to replace all this.”
“Stealing from an asshole while simultaneously fucking with a skinhead,” Slash said, nodding. “I’m impressed. But I can advance you some more cash to redo your room if you need,” he added. “There wasn’t much in there.”
Hell, I was pretty sure there’d only been one horribly uncomfortable cot from back in our days of sleeping on them when we were working on finishing the place.
“Well, I got me my nails,” he said, holding up a couple boxes. “And, this damn drill just leaped into my car or some shit,” he added, smile big, proud of his score. “But there didn’t happen to be any stain lying around.”
Slash, smirking because he was clearly happy with the decision to invite Coach into the crew, nodded. “I’ll advance you another couple grand to hold you over. Better get that shit inside before the owner of it starts driving around looking for it.”
“On it, boss,” Coach said, still smiling.
Yeah, Morgaine was going to like my crew.
And they were going to like her too. Especially if or when she eventually told them about who she was, about what she did.
I didn’t want to push her, but I did want her to see that some people—good, carefully chosen people—were good, were safe. To be around, to build connections with.
Not for nothing, but I was really fucking hoping I could get her to agree to, eventually, get a legal chunk of land.
I didn’t like her being out there by herself for any length of time. Even if, yeah, I knew she’d been managing by herself for years. I mean, being so close to the mountains, there were a lot of predators lurking around. Hell, even just the fucking rattlesnakes were reason enough for her not to be alone out there. Especially because her ass didn’t always have her phone on her or charged to call someone in case of emergencies.
She wasn’t a stupid or reckless person, so I figured that, to an extent, not having her phone to call for help wasn’t just a mistake. It was more likely that she figured if something bad happened, she was on her own. Because if she called anyone, she would be found out. And life as she knew it would be abruptly over.
She wasn’t suicidal, but she maybe thought there was no life for her outside her little bubble.
It was now my job to teach her otherwise.
She could have so much more while still being able to live that slower, nature-based life she liked so much. Life was better with a little balance.
I was excited to ease her into that new balance.
I was going to head back over there and talk her into spending the next night at the clubhouse. Nothing crazy. Just dinner with the guys, then maybe just hanging out for a bit, then going up to bed.
