My arm wrapped around her back, holding her to me as her hands planted on my chest, her head angling up. "Guess you know when you're not wanted, huh?" I asked with a smile as her brother Mm-hmm'd from behind her. "Come on. Let me get you a drink."
A bit caught off-guard, she let me right her on her heels, not shrugging away my arm from her hips as I guided her through the crowd.
It wasn't lost on me - though she seemed blithely unaware - that every set of male eyes watched her progress across the room. Eye-fucked her. Sent envious or angry looks in my direction.
Sorry, guys. You gotta nut-up if you want to get the girl. Pansy-ass, insecure bastards need not apply.
That was one lesson I was certainly glad I learned young thanks to the environment I was raised in. The women being as come-and-go as they were in the biker world, you didn't learn to base your self-esteem on whether you got laid or shot down one night. Because there was always the next girl, the next night. If you stepped up to the plate often enough, you were all but guaranteed a home run here and there.
"Freddie, this is Cam. Cam, Freddie," I remembered my manners - something literally pounded into me at some points of my childhood - as we stood in front of my booth.
"Nice to meet you," came from Freddie, as knee-jerk as my own call to social niceties. I'd bet good money on there being a hardass woman figure in her life just like there had been in mine from time to time.
Cam gave her a chin jerk. "Cam doesn't speak," I explained as I pulled out a chair for her to slip into.
I felt out of my depths with Cam, with his condition, not quite knowing if I was being offensive by explaining or providing a relief to the stress that new interactions no doubt brought along. I meant to ask Liv or even Astrid when she happened around, but never seemed to remember.
I figured it was better to explain than have someone ask why he wasn't speaking.
"Oh, okay. I, ah, there must be a sort of comfort in that at times," she said, giving him a wobbly sort of smile. Something telling. Uncertain. Like she was struggling. Like she wished she had an excuse not to talk to people.
Not to talk to me.
I glanced back at her brother, figuring if she wanted out, I would give her an out. I didn't fuck around with trying to convince a woman to want me. You did or you didn't. Either way, I was good. But her brother was making his way to the door, his arm holding the tie of the man over his shoulder, leading him out the door like a puppy.
Freddie's gaze followed mine.
"Seriously?" she asked, shaking her head. "He was my ride," she added when my brow quirked up.
"Cab. Uber. Back of my bike. Plenty of ways to make it home. What are you drinking?"
"Oh, um. Just a soda is fine."
"You clean?" I asked, thinking of Laz, of Beth, again wondering if I was being too blunt.
"Clean? Oh, ah, no. I just... I've never been much of a drinker."
"Fair enough," I said, going to the bar, ordering us both soda. Fucking soda. I hadn't had soda since I was a teenager. But, well, if I wanted her to take me up on the offer to drive her home - and, let's face it, I did - then I needed to lay off the drinks too. I walked back holding two cups topped with fucking umbrellas - the bartender had jokes, it seemed, seeing he knew I was usually one for harder shit.
"Thanks. I really am just going to finish this and head out. I have some, ah, job hunting to do tomorrow."
Something about the word job rang false to me. But what was there to lie about there? What other kind of hunting was there to do?
"What do you do?" I asked, sensing this was a swing and miss, but not wanting to be rude.
"I, um, cook." Again, a false note. And, again, why lie?
"I make a mean bowl of cereal," I offered, getting rewarded with a surprised, charmed smile.
"Everyone in my family knows how to cook," she told me, giving me a true note. "It was how we first learned to show love, I guess. Thad is better than I am."
"Is he a cook?"
"No. He teaches a cardio dance workout class at the gym."
"Which gym?"
"Ah, the one that used to be a nightclub."
I wasn't originally from the area, so that didn't help me. But I figured it wasn't Lo and Janie's place since they'd probably burn it down before they held a cardio dance workout class. Shane Mallick's place then.