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Chapter Thirty-One
Maven
“Damn, girl, are you some kind of hustler?” Lucky, a handsome young prospect smiles at me, impressed with my skills at the pool table.
“Hustler? I wish I were that cool. I spent some time at a pool bar with cheap pitchers of beer when I was younger.” Playing pool with Lucky and McKenna is the perfect distraction from all the shit going on.
The perfect distraction from my doomed relationship with Cyrus, what he’s done to my house, and what he will do next. I can almost forget that we’re all here together because we’re on lockdown because a biker war is brewing just outside the door.
“They’ve been in there for a while,” McKenna says. Her gaze keeps shifting nervously toward the hall where the Reckless Souls disappeared hours ago. “You think it’s happening tonight?”
Lucky shrugs. “Won’t know until they tell me, but lockdown is serious shit. I don’t think Ace would call it if it wasn’t necessary. Your shot,” he says to Kenna in an attempt to distract her.
She nods and chalks the cue stick, but her focus is on that room, or more likely if her man is going to put himself in danger tonight.
I’m starting to feel a little bit better about being here. Gia helped me put things in perspective, and I know I’ll be safe here. Besides that, most of the women have been more welcoming than I expected, mostly because I know so many of them fromFor Goodness Cakes.
Stella is one of my best customers, for instance. I had no idea she was a club girl or Trudy. She stops in to buy a Maven Cake once a week. They have all been nothing but kind, which is a relief since it looks like we’ll be stuck here together for a while.
“Sorry,” McKenna whispers when she scratches the next shot.
“No worries,” Lucky tells her with a smile and a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Your mind is somewhere else, Kenna. Go get yourself a drink while I kick my brother’s ass in a game. Diesel, get your big ass over here!”
I hand Diesel the pool stick and join McKenna at the bar. “I know it doesn’t help but stressing before you know there’s something to stress about won’t change anything except that nervous acid churning in your stomach. Be strong for Ace since he has to be strong for everyone else.”
She smiles. “Thanks, Maven.”
I smile back, remembering the spoiled bitch she used to be before hooking up with Ace. “You’re different,” I tell her.
“Two shots of anything brown,” she says to Trudy before turning back to me. “You mean I’m not a raging, stuck-up bitch anymore?” She lets out an amused laugh. “Yeah, life has a way of changing you. So does love.”
Willow sidles behind the bar and takes the whiskey from Trudy’s hands. “The guys need drinks, and Stella said you should take care of it. I’ve got this,” she says easily and fills the shot glasses. “Are you telling Kenna about you and Wilder?”
Kenna’s eyes widen in surprise. “You and Wilder? Wow.”
I hold my hands up defensively. “There is nome and Wilder,” I assure McKenna. “We’re slowly becoming friends after he kidnapped me.” I didn’t know if Wilder had other women in the room, and I didn’t want any trouble. And really, we weren’t anything except two people enjoying a convenient sexual relationship. One of us, anyway.
“Oh, come off it,” Willow, laughing, slides the shot glasses our way. “They’re like new lovers, totally all over each other and staring at each other with goo-goo eyes.”
I laugh at her description of Wilder and me. “Hardly. I’m not exactly the biker babe type.”
Gia drops down on the stool on the other side of me with a grunt.
“Nobody is the biker babe type until they become biker babes. Except maybe me.” She bumps my shoulder and flashes a smile at Willow. “A double shot of the strongest thing on the top shelf, please.”
McKenna laughs. “You do have an inherent biker babe quality about you, Gia.”
“Thanks.” She eyes me carefully. “Kenna and Kelsey definitely weren’t biker babes, and nothing about them screams it now, except their fierce love and loyalty for their biker men.”
“And that’s all it takes,” McKenna assures me. “Besides, I think you’d make a badass biker mama.”
“Because I’m so old?” I try to laugh it off, but it feels false to my own ears.
“No, because you have this air about you that you can be trusted to take care of people. Like you’re a natural mama bear,” McKenna answers.
That’s nice to hear, but I can’t let myself believe it, not when Wilder’s given me no reason to believe his feelings have changed. “Are you forgetting the whole kidnapping thing?”
“Nope. The Reckless Souls aren’t known for their subtlety when it comes to keeping people safe. Ace pulled a gun on me the first time I met him. Damn near shot me.”
