Page 26 of Handful

Dutch stood. The table went still — not gradually, not the slow taper of conversation fading. All at once. Like someone had pressed a button. Even the kids stopped, Luca and Knox freezing mid-argument. Maya banged her hand on the high chair tray once, then went quiet too, as if she’d received the memo.

Dutch looked around the table. He looked like what he was — the man who ran this family, all of it, the club and the people around the club and the ground they stood on.

“To the ones at this table,” he said quietly. “And the ones who aren’t.”

The table answered. All of them. Brothers, old ladies. One voice, different registers. To Danny.

I’d heard the story already. Handful had told me at Fir & Salt. I’d thought I understood it. But being told was nothing like being in the room when it happened. Every voice said the name at once, no one looking at anyone, no one needing the cue. Colt came in a half-second early, the way you do on a song you’ve sung a hundred times. Holden’s voice didn’t shake, though Handful had told me Danny died in his arms.

I put my hand on Handful’s thigh. He didn’t move. But his fingers found mine under the table.

Dutch sat back down. The table resumed. Luca and Knox grabbed bread rolls. Maya threw a piece of pasta at Colt, who caught it and kept eating.

I thought of Handful telling me, once, that Dutch had given him something to work toward — something he couldn’t tell me the shape of. Watching Dutch now, the way the whole table had followed his voice into silence and come back out of it on his signal, I understood a little better what earning that meant.

❧

After dinner, the tables stayed full but the formation loosened. People moved — inside for drinks, onto the porch, into the kitchen for seconds. The kids scattered. Gunner repositioned himself under the table where the most crumbs were, which was a strategic decision I respected.

I was on the porch with Indira when two women appeared from inside — one brunette, one blonde, both in the tight jeans and low-cut tops. They saw Handful and brightened, crossing to him without a second’s hesitation — easy with him, familiar.

“Handful!” The brunette reached for his arm.

Handful stepped back. Not dramatically, not rudely. Just a half-step that put space between them before the contact landed. Smooth enough that it could have been accidental, except it wasn’t.

“Hey, Tanya. You met Austen? My girlfriend.” He turned toward me, his hand opening in my direction. “Austen, this is Tanya and Sarah. They’ve been around the clubhouse a while.”

“Hi,” I said.

Tanya looked at me. Her smile held, but something behind it did the math — she’d just been introduced to the girlfriend of a man she was used to getting attention from. “So you’re Austen.”

I’d run a bar for years. I’d been sized up by drunks, by regulars, by women who could do more damage with one look than Tanya could manage with both hands, and I had never once been the one to glance away first. I didn’t now. Bitch, I thought — unfairly, probably — and smiled.

“That’s me.”

“He talks about you.”

“He’d better.”

She laughed. It was genuine enough. Sarah gave a small wave and they moved on, back into the common room, back into the world they lived in here.

Handful caught my eye. Held it for a second. Checking. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

I was fine. He’d handled it right. But I’d watched Tanya reach for that arm like she’d done it before and expected to do it again, easy and automatic, and I’d watched her react to the news that Handful had a girlfriend now.

I didn’t know how many women in this building had reached for that arm like it was theirs. A lot, probably.

Handful settled beside me on the porch rail, close enough that our arms touched.

“You’re doing the bartender thing,” he said.

“What bartender thing.”

“Watching us the way you watch customers at The Velvet Hour. Clocking everything, giving nothing away.”

I didn’t answer.