26 Ivy
Ivy
I thought things would be different once they moved me into the house, but it wasn’t. Not really. Truth be told, shit was weird.
The two-bedroom house was big enough without feeling too big.
The main area was an open floor plan. The living room, dining area, and kitchen created an L-shape.
There was a corner of the kitchen that was cut off from the rest of it, but other than that, it felt very spacious.
Surprisingly, the place had a lot of windows.
It sat on a hill, so I could see all the dust and dirt and nothing for miles around.
Coming from Florida, this was like being surrounded by the deadest land ever.
Even the trees looked thirsty, their leaves nearly turning to dust when the wind blew.
I’d seen my claimers exactly once after the day they brought me to my new prison. That had been a week ago, by the way. A fucking week. They dumped me here and left me for a week.
Oh, but I wasn’t alone. Of course not.
I had a watcher. And by that, I meant a Prospect was stuck on babysitting duty.
The one and only Prospect who rubbed me the wrong way.
If I thought I could let my hair down now that I was away from the compound, I was wrong.
I felt his eyes on me constantly, even when he wasn’t directly looking at me.
So, with nothing else to do, I was determined to make him like me. Or at least, stop being suspicious of me.
What better way to win someone over than with food? Maybe? I really wasn’t sure. Though Vike had brought some basics the first night I’d been here, there wasn’t much in the way of food in the house, but I did find peanut butter and jelly. Who didn’t like a good PB&J?
“What is that?” he asked as I held the plate out in his direction. He eyed it like it was a bomb ready to blow at any second.
“A sandwich. Peanut butter and grape jelly.”
“I’m allergic,” he stated nonchalantly.
I gasped and pulled the plate away from him. I hadn’t even thought of that. Peanut allergies were no joke, or so I’d heard a lot in school. “To peanut butter?”
“No, to… whatever the fuck this is that you’re doing.” He snorted at his own cleverness.
“Asshole,” I muttered loud enough for him to hear. I tossed the plate on the couch beside him and walked back to the kitchen.
“There’s something off about ya,” he called out.
I closed my eyes tightly and took in a deep breath.
Do not fall for it. Don’t turn around. Don’t let him goad you into snapping.
I continued on to the kitchen, proud of myself for walking away.
If only Muff could have seen me. He would have been proud, too.
Before I could figure out what to do next, there was a knock on the door. I peeked around the corner, and the Prospect was already there, tucking his gun away as stared through th glass on the door at the figure on the other side.
“Let me in, you little bastard,” a rough, boisterous voice rang out. Strangely, there wasn’t a hint of malice. “I’m going to see her one way or another. Don’t make me call your pa.”
The Prospect grumbled something under his breath as he put in the code to turn the alarm off. Without a flicker of hesitation, he opened the door and stepped aside.
A woman with bleach-blonde hair stepped inside, eyes sharp as she looked around.
She was probably in her late forties, if I had to guess.
The moment I caught her attention, I was frozen in place.
It was like she could read my whole story with one sweep of her eyes.
I tried not to flinch under her sharp gaze.
“You must be Ivy,” she said, strutting across the way on her leopard print high heels.
Her jeans fit her like a second skin, showing off her curvy legs and, well, quite frankly, thick hips and ass.
Her boobs threatened to spill right over the top of her low-cut body suit. She was stunning and also terrifying.
“That’s me,” I replied. My smile was tight, but mostly because I didn’t know what was happening. I glanced at the Prospect, who only shrugged at me as he closed the door and then flopped down on the couch.
“My, my, my,” she said, taking me in once again, but this time her eyes were alight with amusement. “I knew you had to be something special to take those two boys down at once.”
“It’s not really—”
She cut me off with a hand in the air. And a roll of her eyes.
“Don’t bullshit Mama Marge,” the Prospect lightly warned. His eyes were glued to the TV, but it was clear he was tuned into the conversation. “She can always smell it.”
I snorted before I could stop myself.
“I’m Mammoth’s ol’ lady. I’ve been around this club a long time. Everyone calls me Mama Marge.” She tossed a look over at the Prospect. “As you probably caught.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I’m here to check on you and help you in any way.”
“Thanks,” I replied. I wanted to trust her, but there was a huge alarm in my brain reminding me that I was here for a reason. A reason I was still hiding. “You want the truth?”
“Yeah, hit me with it.” Her smile was almost motherly. Or what I would imagine a motherly smile to be like.
“I have no clue what’s going on with Grip and Viking,” I whispered, leaning in her direction as if that would keep the nosy Prospect from hearing. Now he was the one snorting. I leaned to the side and glared at him, but he didn’t look over at me. “You are so annoying.”
I was teasing. Mostly.
“Yep,” he said with a shrug.
“Prospect, go get all the shit out of my car.” Mama Marge aimed a fob at the window and hit a button. “There. Trunk’s open. Make yourself useful.”
There wasn’t a single hint of attitude as he got up and did her bidding.
“He’s a good kid,” she told me once he was outside.
I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my trap shut.
Did I trust him? Yes and no. If it came down to it and there was an attack against me, I didn’t doubt that he’d do his best to protect me.
But I also sensed he was watching me too closely, as if he was waiting to see me slip up.
Good for the club? Yeah, but bad for me.
My eyes tracked him when he came back in, his arms loaded down with bags full of what appeared to be groceries.
After he headed outside for the next load, I made my way into the kitchen, Mama Marge right behind me.
I had no idea where to put the groceries, but that didn’t stop me from grabbing up things and attempting to look busy.
“I have a feeling there’s a story here,” Mama Marge said.
I felt her eyes on my back as I turned to put some boxes of cereal away in the long cabinets on the far corner of the kitchen.
I already knew they were empty since I’d snooped a little.
Hey, it was just to get more familiar with the house.
“But I’m also sensing I shouldn’t be asking. ”
I shrugged with my back still to her.
“Thanks for bringing me some food,” I said without answering. “I was really getting tired of eating sandwiches and cheese crackers.”
“No problem. We like to take care of our own around here.” She paused when the Prospect brought in a few more bags. His eyes bounced between the two of us, but he didn’t say anything as he spun and headed out once again. “You ever need anything, let me know.”
“I… thanks.” I swallowed hard. “I don’t have a phone or anything.
” I’d ditched it before I even left Florida and never bothered to pick up another one.
It wasn’t like I’d really needed it. “I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing.
” I laughed nervously, feeling like admitting it took a huge weight off my shoulders.
I was lost, yeah, and trying too hard to stay afloat.
“I think it’s pretty much been figured out,” she said, and when I turned around to face her, her head was cocked to the side and she’d raised a pointed brow. “Looks like you landed where you belong.”
If only that were true…
I smiled tightly, praying she didn’t see all the things I was hiding.
This guilty feeling was starting to live in my gut.
Maybe these weren’t the nicest of people, but they were taking care of me.
They’d taken me in… and I had started to make a place here.
I’d started to want to know what it was like to be part of this world.
With the kindness Mama Marge had shown me in the span of, like, ten minutes, I knew this could be something.
I could make a life here. I could be happy.
Too bad I’d fucked it all up before I even knew what I could have.
“Listen, sweetheart,” she said, placing a hand on mine, which was resting on the counter. “I’ll bring you some more things. Clothes and stuff. I know the boys aren’t up for the idea of you leaving right now for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take care of you.”
“You don’t have to do—”
“It’s my thing. Let me.”
I laughed. It came out a little wet since I was trying so hard not to cry.
“There are a few things I could use,” I admitted, though I did wish I could have taken it back the moment the words were out of my mouth.
Asking for help wasn’t easy. Accepting it was even harder since I was here carrying a bag full of lies around on my back.
She might not have know that, but it still made me a shitty person.
“Let’s get this stuff put away, and then you can make me a list. Sound good, sugar?” She sent me a smile. It was rough around the edges, but I could feel the warmth coming from her.
If only I’d had someone like her back home. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t be here right now. Then again, I couldn’t say that I hated where I’d ended up. I just wish Muff hadn’t paid the price for me to be here with his life.
“Oh, and since I get the feeling you’ll be sticking around a while, I should fill you in on the club stuff,” she said.
Of course this was the time the Prospect walked in. And though he didn’t look at us, I knew his ears were tuned in.
“Um, I have an idea about it,” I told her, trying to leave it vague. “And I’ve caught on to some stuff while I’ve been here.”
“Oh, okay.” She eyed me, and I felt her walls going up. Just like I would have done if things had been reversed. I sounded shady, and in this life, shady meant bad news. And bad news meant trouble for the club.
“I’m from Judgment, Florida,” I told her. “Before I came here, I worked in a diner that a lot of the bikers would eat at.” Well, at least I didn’t lie to her. I left out a lot, but I didn’t lie.
Then she relaxed, and I was both relieved at the tension being broken and mad at myself because I didn’t want to mislead her.
I bet the Prospect was filing this information away, putting it in some folder he kept in his head. Would he figure it out too soon and ruin everything?
Mama Marge stayed for a little bit, chatting about easy things and helping me put the groceries up.
She made a pitcher of fresh lemonade while I wrote out a list, complete with all of my sizes, since I really needed some clothes.
I told her I wasn’t picky, but until I could talk to Grip and Viking, this was going to have to do.
And when she corrected me, saying “my men” like it was something I needed to get used to saying, I tried not to let my emotions show.
They were my men in a sense. I would very much like them to be my men. But things weren’t right just yet.
I needed to come clean. It felt like it was almost time, but it wasn’t quite right.
I decided to figure that out tomorrow.
Now it was time to make dinner because I was getting hungry.
I said my goodbyes to Mama Marge, then headed back to the kitchen. I had my choice of things to cook. Some of them I probably wouldn’t ever use because what did I know about cooking with some kind of green veggie that looked like a weird cucumber but felt more spongy?
But the boxes of overly processed meals in a box, I could work with. So I headed for the cabinets and took my time picking out which one felt right.
As I held the boxes of mac and cheese, an idea came to mind.
“Hey, Prospect,” I called out sweetly.
He went statue-still as if he thought that if he didn’t move, I wouldn’t see him. Finally, he slid his eyes in my direction.
“Message my men, will you?” I shot him an overly sweet smile. “Tell them I’m making dinner. Maybe strongly suggest they should come home.”
He didn’t respond, but he reached for his phone in his pocket.
“Thanks!” I called out as I got to work.
I was going to feed my men. The best way I knew how.