Chapter Ten
The compound smelled like charcoal and beer and something that was about to be ruined.
Tess spotted the problem from across the parking lot—Stockyard standing at the massive grill with a spatula in one hand and a bottle in the other, poking at fish fillets like they'd personally offended him.
"What are you doing?"
He didn't look up. "Cooking."
"That's not cooking. That's murder."
Now he looked up. That stone face of his didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes that might have been irritation. Or amusement. Hard to tell with Stockyard.
"It's fish."
"It was fish. Now it's shoe leather." Tess crossed to the grill and grabbed the spatula out of his hand before he could protest. "You've got the heat too high and you're flipping them too often. Lake fish needs patience."
"You're stealing my spatula."
"I'm saving dinner." She lowered the heat and stepped back to assess the damage. Two fillets were beyond help, but the others might survive if she acted fast. "Where'd you even get walleye this time of year?"
"Brother brought it in this morning. Caught fresh."
"And you're about to destroy it." Tess pointed the spatula at him like a weapon. "Step away from the grill."
Stockyard didn't move. He was easily twice her size—a wall of muscle and attitude wrapped in leather and denim—and he was looking at her like he couldn't decide whether to be impressed or pissed off.
"I've been cooking at these things for six years."
"And every one of those fish died in vain." She pointed again. "Step. Away."
A snort came from somewhere behind them. Then another. Tess turned to find half a dozen brothers watching the standoff, beers in hand, grins spreading across their faces.
"She's got you, brother," Scout said. "Just accept it."
"I don't take orders from—"
"From a woman who grew up on Lake Michigan walleye and knows the difference between cooked and cremated?" Tess raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, you do. Now go get me some lemon and butter, and maybe I can salvage this disaster."
The silence stretched. Stockyard's jaw worked like he was chewing on words he didn't want to swallow.
Then he handed her his beer.
"Butter's in the kitchen. Don't fuck it up."
He walked away, and the brothers erupted in laughter and catcalls and the kind of crude commentary that Tess was starting to recognize as affection.
"Damn," Fang said, appearing at her elbow. "Nobody talks to Stockyard like that."
"Somebody should. He was about to commit a crime against fish."
"I like her," Fang said to nobody in particular. "She's got teeth."
Tess turned back to the grill and got to work.
The cookout filled the compound lot by late afternoon.
Brothers sprawled across picnic tables and lawn chairs, beers sweating in the April warmth, smoke drifting from the grill in lazy spirals.
Old ladies moved through the crowd with plates and conversation, kids chased each other between parked bikes, and somewhere someone had set up speakers that pumped out classic rock at a volume that bordered on assault.
It was chaos. Loud, messy, wonderful chaos.
Tess had never been to anything like it.
Her world had always been smaller—the shop, the regulars, the quiet rhythm of life on the lakefront.
Her father hadn't been a social man, and she'd inherited his preference for water over crowds.
But there was something infectious about the compound's energy, something that made her chest loosen in ways she hadn't expected.
She finished the fish—properly, without cremation—and helped Andrea set up the side dishes while Jessica arranged desserts with the precision of a woman who owned a bakery.
The old ladies had accepted her into their orbit without ceremony, handing her tasks and pulling her into conversations like she'd always been there.
It felt dangerous, how easy it was.
"Looking for someone?"
Tess turned to find Claire watching her with knowing eyes. She'd been scanning the crowd without realizing it, searching for a particular set of shoulders, a particular stillness.
"Just... taking it in."
"Uh-huh." Claire nodded toward the far edge of the lot, where a picnic bench sat slightly apart from the chaos. "He's over there. He doesn't like crowds much, but he shows up. For the brothers."
Lakeshore sat alone, beer untouched beside him, watching the party with an expression Tess couldn't read from this distance. Even in the middle of his family, he looked separate. Contained. Like he was seeing something nobody else could see.
"Go," Claire said. "Bring him food. He won't get it himself."
Tess loaded two plates—fish, coleslaw, cornbread, the works—and crossed the lot.
He saw her coming. Of course he did. Those pale eyes tracked her through the crowd, and by the time she reached the bench, he'd shifted to make room.
"You stole Stockyard's grill."
"I liberated it." She handed him a plate and sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. "He was committing atrocities."
"Heard the whole thing. Brothers won't let him forget it."
"Good. Maybe next time he'll cook the fish properly."
Lakeshore's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close. "You've made an impression."
"I've been here four days. I had to do something besides stare at walls."
"You reorganized the garage, fixed half the compound, and publicly humiliated our biggest enforcer over fish. That's more than something."
"I humiliated him over walleye. There's a difference."
Now he did smile. Just for a second, just a flash of something warm underneath all that cold, and Tess felt it hit her somewhere below her ribs.
"Eat," she said, because looking at that almost-smile was making it hard to think. "Before it gets cold."
They ate in silence, watching the party swirl around them.
Brothers told stories that got louder and more profane with each beer.
Kids shrieked and laughed, chased by old ladies pretending to be slower than they were.
The speakers switched from classic rock to something with more bass, and a few couples started dancing in the space between the bikes.
"This happens often?" Tess asked.
"Often enough. After a win, a close call, whenever Alpha decides we need to remember we're a family." Lakeshore's eyes tracked something across the lot—Fang, she realized, watching the enforcer pull Andrea into a dance that was more swaying than movement. "It's good. For morale."
"Do you dance?"
"No."
"Ever?"
"No."
"Tragic." She bumped his shoulder with hers. "You're missing out."
"I've seen you dance?"
"You've seen me wrestle with a grill. Totally different skill set."
That almost-smile again. Tess wanted to bottle it, save it for the dark days she knew were coming.
"He looks happy," she said, nodding toward Fang and Andrea. "They both do."
"They are." Lakeshore was quiet for a moment. "Fang wasn't always... he had a harder edge, before her. She softened something in him. Made him more human."
"And you?"
"What about me?"
"Do you have softer edges hiding somewhere?"
He turned to look at her. In the fading light, his eyes looked less cold—more gray than ice, more lake than winter.
"Working on it."
Someone called his name from across the lot. Fang, waving him over to settle some debate that had gotten heated enough to require witnesses. Lakeshore sighed and stood, but he paused before leaving.
"Stay," he said. "Enjoy this. You've earned it."
"I cooked fish. That's not exactly heroic."
"You told Stockyard he was wrong in front of half the club. That's plenty heroic."
He walked away before she could respond, joining his brothers in whatever argument needed settling. Tess watched him go, watched the way the other men made room for him without being asked, watched the way he fit into their dynamic even when he stood slightly apart.
He belonged here. Whatever darkness he carried, whatever ghosts followed him from the water, this was his family.
She wondered if there was room in it for her.
The party wound down as the sun set, brothers drifting toward bikes and bedrooms, old ladies gathering up kids and leftovers. Tess helped with cleanup until Claire shooed her away, insisting she'd done enough for one day.
She ended up in the common room, curled into the corner of an ancient couch, watching brothers play pool and trade insults. The warmth of the day had seeped into her bones, and somewhere between one game and the next, her eyes started to drift closed.
She should go upstairs. Should sleep in the bed Lakeshore had given her, in the room with the east-facing window, instead of passing out on a couch like some kind of stray.
But the couch was comfortable, and the voices around her had become familiar, and she was so tired...
When she woke, the common room was dark.
The pool game had ended. The brothers had gone. Someone had turned off most of the lights, leaving only the glow from the hallway and the distant hum of the building settling around her.
And she was covered in leather.
Tess blinked, disoriented, and realized a jacket had been draped over her shoulders like a blanket. Heavy, worn soft with age, and carrying a scent she was starting to know by heart.
Lake water. Engine oil. Something underneath that was just him.
She pulled the jacket closer and breathed deep.
He'd been here. While she slept, while the party ended around her, he'd come in and covered her and let her rest. Hadn't woken her, hadn't carried her upstairs, hadn't done anything but make sure she was warm.
Such a small thing. Such a massive thing.
Tess curled deeper into the couch, Lakeshore's jacket wrapped around her shoulders, and fell back asleep with the smell of lake water in her lungs.