“I realized I forgot to show you where the umbrellas were. So I wanted to drop them off. That’s all,” she said, shrugging.
“You mean to tell me that there is all of this,” I said, waving down at myself as I jumped in front of her, walking backward as she kept advancing, “and that’s all you wanted here tonight?”
“Your humility, it is truly a wonder to behold,” she said, tone dry, but her lips twitched ever so slightly. And she stopped walking away.
“I might not be humble, but I can back up all the cockiness,” I told her. “Come on, you look like you need a party,” I reasoned.
“Are you saying I’m—“
“Prickly,” I cut her off. “Luckily for you, I’m into that sort of thing.”
“Luckily for—“ she started, but was cut off from what she was about to say when a car flew into the lot with the recklessness that could only mean one person was driving.
The birthday girl herself.
“Oh, God. You’re here already. Is there any of my birthday cake left?” she asked, smirking as she climbed out of the car.
“Happy Birthday, Vi. Go save Gracie from making herself sick about all the details, will you?”
“I’m going. Are you coming?” she asked, looking at Theo.
“I, ah, yeah, I guess,” Theo said.
Was it a resounding yes?
Not quite.
But I figured there were at least a dozen ways I could have her screaming yes by the end of the night.
CHAPTER FIVE
Theo
I had no friggin idea why I was driving across town toward the clubhouse I’d scoped out the day before on my way to work.
With freaking drink umbrellas on my passenger seat.
I tried to tell myself that I was just doing a good deed. For whatever girl was expecting drink umbrellas. I knew from years behind a bar, that sometimes the stupid little details made all the difference.
It had absolutely nothing to do with the way I’d been tossing and turning in bed thinking about a certain biker with both a puppy and rabid dog energy.
“This is so profoundly fucking stupid,” I mumbled to myself as I parked in the crowded lot out front of the clubhouse.
There wasn’t a whole lot to write home about. In my personal experience, biker clubhouses were either old homes or old shuttered businesses. And the Henchmen one looked like it had maybe been a car repair shop at one point. Long and low with some weird-ass glass room on the roof that, I guess, was good for looking for threats coming, as well as some large, more recent-looking addition off the back.
Things must have been in a period of peace because I didn’t see any guards stationed around to question me about my presence there.
I should have just dropped the umbrellas off by the door and left.
But I found myself moving inside.
It was very much what I expected.
There was a full bar to the right, a pool table, darts, a living room area with a giant TV and a ton of gaming consoles.
But the whole thing was decorated in silver, gold, and deep purple. Which had a sort of edgy, feminine vibe.
The crowd inside was partially bikers and the rest women who seemed very comfortable there. But not as scantily clad as you would typically find clubwhores.
Princesses, maybe?
Princesses or old ladies.
One definitely had kids, since she was sitting on the couch with a breast pump going to work on her.
But something about all that familiarity between everyone gathered, and my complete lack of it with any of them, had me turning and retreating almost as quickly as I had walked in.
Normally, I didn’t mind being an outsider. Hell, I even preferred it.
The thing was, I found myself, just for a second, picturing myself in that clubhouse, in that world.
And that was the absolute last thing I needed in my life right then.
Or ever.
But Dezi, damn him, was charming. And the birthday woman invited me in again.
I don’t know.
It was all just a blur.
By the time we got back in, music was playing, liquor was flowing, and it felt more like a party and less like a family get-together.
“Come sit,” the woman on the couch who had just tucked her breast pump away invited, pointing across from her to the empty chair as Dezi went to grab us drinks. “I’m Billie,” she said.
“Theo.”
“The sexual tension between you and Dezi is suffocating.”
“What? No. I mean… no. We just bumped into each other at the grocery store,” I insisted.
“I’ve always gotten the vibe that Dezi is a very generous lover,” she declared, and I could feel my eyes bulging out at her comfort in talking about that to a complete stranger. “I bet his two sides clash beautifully in bed. The crazy, unhinged, uncontrolled side of him for some good, rough fun. But that sweet, puppy dog side of him for more intimate and emotional lovemaking.”