My head snapped up in surprise at his tone, and in my peripheral vision I saw Callie’s had as well. My stomach burned, resentment building as I looked up to meet Callie’s apologetic eyes. It killed me that he had the right to warn Will away from me as if I were a passing acquaintance. I turned my head slowly toward Grease, and it took everything I had not to tell him to fuck right off as Will silently let go of my legs.
“You’re okay, Wilfred,” I said calmly, placing one of my hands on his head. “I can wash these pants, buddy.” My eyes never left Grease’s, the sunglasses not shielding any of my feelings as we stared each other down. The yard was silent until he nodded and turned away, and I knew I’d made my point.
“Nice to meet you, Farrah,” Trish said. She was nervous, her fingers fiddling with her hair as she pushed it behind her ear, and I instantly liked her.
“You too,” I replied.
Cody’s hand squeezed my waist before he pulled away, and I watched him walk toward the men, patting backs and giving weird handshakes as he reached the group. The women around me were speaking, but I ignored them. I was uncomfortable as hell, and wished I were anywhere but there when I heard my name.
“Are you here long, Farrah?” Trish asked.
“Actually, I just moved up here.”
“Oh, to be with Casper?” Brenna interjected.
I couldn’t decipher the emotion in her voice, but something in it rubbed me the wrong way. What the hell was her problem?
“No, actually to be with Callie,” I joked back, my smug smile in place. I wasn’t going to let her get to me, even if she was studying me like a bug under a microscope.
“Farrah and I shared an apartment before we moved here,” Callie informed them as we walked back toward their chairs. “I begged her to move with us. Will and I would be lost without her here.”
I smiled at my best friend, grateful that she’d jumped into the conversation. She was the yin to my yang, the calm to my storm. Sometimes I forgot for a while, taking her friendship for granted, but it was times like these that I remembered why we fit so well.
Grease came up and took the forgotten potato salad from my arms as we sat down. His face was blank, no emotion in sight, but I knew why he was there.
“We cool?” he asked softly.
“This isn’t the place,” I answered. The conversation was flowing around me, but I knew that everyone was listening. I wasn’t about to give them a show, especially since I knew it was stupid to be pissed at him.
“Still . . . sorry about that, Farrah.” He turned and walked away, giving a chin lift at the guys as they came to sit with us.
The men sat in front of their women on the ground, all of us facing the kids as they played in the water. Pretty soon we were listening to Tommy tell a story—who was kind of a dumbass but actually super nice—when the little girl who’d been running in the sprinkler ran up and plopped down on Dragon’s lap. The resemblance between the girl and the fierce biker was uncanny.
“Let’s sing our song, Papa,” she said.
He ignored her for a moment, still caught up in Tommy’s story, but eventually had to pay attention when she wrapped her hands in his beard and pulled his face down to hers.
“Let’s sing our song, Papa!” she repeated.
“Not now, Trix,” he snapped, untangling her fingers from his beard. It sounded harsh, but I couldn’t really blame him for snapping. Those little fingers in his beard must have hurt like hell.
The child’s lower lip trembled, but she didn’t make a noise as she nodded and leaned her head on his shoulder. He rubbed her back as she sat there, quiet as a mouse. She didn’t look chastised or afraid; she looked embarrassed as she glanced around at the adults surrounding her.
“Dragon,” Brenna said curtly as she flicked the back of his head.
“The fuck?”
“Look at your daughter.”
His chin dropped down to glance at Trix, and his gaze softened as he met her eyes. He looked up at us, obviously uncomfortable as hell, but he still whispered something to her, making her whole face light up. She leaned back on his knees, grabbing his leather cut in both hands as she started to sing.
“All my life has been a series of doors in my face, and then suddenly I bump into you!” she belted out, startling most of us.
I had to bite my lips to keep the laughter at bay when she started swaying to the song, but what happened next wasn’t funny. With an extremely embarrassed but bravado-filled glance at the adults, Dragon began quietly singing back to her.
I didn’t know what the song was, but it was pretty clear that they’d sung it before, because Dragon knew exactly when to cut in for his part of the duet. We couldn’t really hear Dragon, his voice was too low, but the picture they painted was enough. Dragon and Trix watched each other as they sang, and Brenna sat behind them, a smile on her face and a hand resting on the small swell of her belly.
As we took in the scene, Cody leaned his head back into my lap and I ran my fingers over his shaved head, relaxing us both. It occurred to me that if the way she looked at her family was any measure of Brenna, maybe I’d judged her wrong.
A while after Trix had scrambled off and the men decided that the burgers were done, my original opinion of Brenna was proved right as she got up from her chair and stopped in front of me.
“Hey, Farrah? Can you help me get the rest of the food out of the fridge?” she asked.
I barely knew her, even less than the other women in the group, but she’d still asked me to help her. Shit. I was seriously rethinking my decision that she was halfway decent.