Page 22 of Viper's Desire
“Then it’s winning.”
“You haven’t asked about the kitchen. Or the square footage. Or the price.”
“You want the porch, you get the porch.” He says it as if that settles the question.
I guess it does.
Mesquite smoke drifts across the yard. Saber mans the grill, and a woman comes off the porch wiping her hands on her jeans before my boots hit the gravel.
Viper kisses the top of my head and leaves me to go introduce myself to the other women.
The woman hugs me before I’ve decided whether we’re huggers.
“I’m Shelby,” she says. “Saber’s Old Lady. And you’re the girl who sewed Viper shut on a county road. I’ve been dying to meet you.”
She’s warm, and kind, and welcoming. My nerves dissipate.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I respond.
On the porch, a soft-faced woman rises, holding a little boy’s hand.
“I’m Violet. Duke’s mine.” She picks up the boy, who looks to be around three years old. “And this is Leo.”
“Do you like dinosaurs?” Leo asks.
“Of course,” I answer with a smile. “Everybody likes dinosaurs.”
Leo claps. I’m in his good graces.
The third woman lifts a margarita off the railing in greeting. Red hair, sunglasses pushed up. “I’m Bree. Scar’s Old Lady.”
I haven’t met Scar yet, but I already like Bree. She’s as friendly as the other two.
I sit, and Violet settles into the chair beside me with her son in her lap. “Joker owes me twenty dollars, you know. He swore Viper would die alone and mean. I told him the quiet ones don’t do halfway. They hold out forever, and then they go all at once.” She looks at me over Leo’s head. “I knew he’d find someone. I’m glad it’s someone who values what she has.”
Across the yard, Viper sits in a lawn chair built for a smaller man, a water bottle balanced on his knee, and his eyes are already on me when I look for him. They’ve been on me since we parked. Every time I check, he’s there ahead of me, like my looking is a thing he can predict.
I make myself turn to the women. “Can I ask what’s actually happening? With the club. I know Viper got hurt by men from another MC, but he doesn’t want me to worry. So he hasn’t said much more.”
Shelby and Violet trade a glance. It’s Shelby who sets her glass down.
“Crimson Warriors. A club out of a town two hours north. They’ve been encroaching on Kings’ territory for a year. Started small. It keeps getting bigger.” Her eyes drop to my hands, then come up. “Last month, it was three of them and a knife.”
The road. The blood drying on my forearms. “Viper.”
“Yep, Viper.”
“It keeps getting worse,” Violet says. “But our guys keep us safe. When it gets bad enough, the club locks down. Everybody inside the walls—Old Ladies, kids, all of us—until it’s handled.”
“The club is mostly boring,” Bree offers, generously. “Until it isn’t.”
The afternoon loosens up after that. Shelby keeps my lemonade full and walks me through the club’s whole vocabulary—who’s who, what the patches mean, which words I’d neverrepeat at my father’s table. Bree supplies the parts Shelby is too polite to say.
Soon enough, I’ve had a crash course in a world I already live in.
My phone goes off against my thigh. I read the text.
It’s my mom checking in again. I let her know I’m good and I’m safe.
