Chapter 36
Lark
Walking into the kitchen, I smile when I see Mama Astrid already at work. I cross the room to the sink, wash my hands, and join her at the counter.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Well, the roast beef for the po’boys has been going since this morning and we’re on the tail end of it.
I just checked it, and it has maybe another hour and a half to go yet.
I’m starting on getting everything prepped for the Cajun mac and cheese as well as the creamy andouille pasta since they have a few of the same vegetables.
How about you grab a cutting board and a knife?
I’ve got the onions. Can you chop these?
” she asks as she points her knife at the peppers on the counter.
“You betcha.”
We chop in silence for a bit when I feel her eyes on me.
“Are you alright?”
I sigh as I nod. “Yeah, they stung like a bitch when Doc cleaned them up, but I don’t think they were deep enough to scar.”
“Did he take bloodwork just in case?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
Something about the way she said that has my gaze snapping up to her as I stop chopping.
Her shoulders slump as she sighs and shakes her head.
“There was a bunny back in my day that tried to cause shit with Odin and me. Lola.” She shakes her head again as she sighs.
“I’ve seen it happen a lot, and I know I’ll keep seeing it.
A lot of bunnies get it in their head that the club members are ‘theirs’, so when one of them brings in a woman they like, they see it as competition.
That they need to do whatever they can to get the woman out of here.
Some, they’ve ran off. Others stayed and put the bunnies in their place.
“One night, we crashed in our room here at the clubhouse because we’d had a lot to drink.
In the morning, Odin was still passed out so I decided to take a shower.
When I walked out, I found Odin stripped naked and Lola straddling him.
He was still passed out, but she’d apparently worked him and got him hard.
She was about to have sex with him when I dragged her ass off him and beat the shit out of her.
In the process, she clawed me pretty badly with her nails,” she says as pulls up the sleeve of her shirt revealing four long scratches.
“There are a few more, but they are under my shirt since I had come out in a towel. Bitch coated the undersides of her nails with some cocktail of drugs and I ended up in the hospital.”
“Did Odin get drugged then, too?”
Mama Astrid shook her head. “No. She didn’t draw blood when she touched him—only with me. That’s how the drugs got into my system. Our fight woke him up and when he saw how I was acting after the drugs started to kick in, he got Doc to check me out.”
“That’s why Doc was so insistent on drawing blood and taking swabs of each of my wounds.” My stomach rolls at the thought that Brandy could have drugged me like Lola had Mama Astrid.
She nods and after a moment, she clears her throat as she looks over at me.
“Don’t let them walk all over you. You did good today from what I heard.
Brandy will try again; I can guarantee it since I’m almost positive she’s head over heels for Reaper.
Same for the others. Especially Star. She thinks that because she was the last one he touched that she’s top bitch. ”
I snort at that. “More like the one that made him not want to have sex with any bunny ever again.”
We both laugh at that.
“So, how are things going with Reaper?”
“Pretty good. I’m spending the weekend with him. Igor and Void get along together, so that’s a relief.” I pause as I nibble on my lip. “He asked me to be his Old Lady and I said yes. The guys are voting on it,” I tell her in a quiet voice.
She gives me a soft smile as she puts down her knife, comes around the counter and gives me a hug. After a few moments, she pulls back and smiles again.
“Good. You’re a good fit for him and will help balance him out. I think you’ll fit in quite nicely here. I’ve only heard of one instance where they didn’t let in a woman.”
I nod. “Yeah, Devil told me about what happened with Shark’s woman, Chastity, earlier.”
“I don’t think you’re going to have a problem, Sweetheart. I doubt there’s anything in your history that would alarm them. Now,” she says as she walks back to her cutting board, “let’s get to work. Those boys will be hungry once they’re done with their meeting.”
An hour and a half later, we have everything made and ready for supper. As I’m putting the last lid on the warmer, the door to Church opens and the guys all file out.
Someone whoops and I hear boots quickly walking down the hallway.
“Merci beaucoup, ma reine et ma chère (thank you very much my queen, and my dear),” Loki says excitedly as he pulls us both in to hug us at the same time. Then he surprises me by placing a kiss to both of our temples. “It smells like the house de ma mere (of my mom).”
“Get your lips off my woman,” both Reaper and Odin growl almost in unison as they spot us through the pass-through window.
Loki’s chest shakes with laughter as he kisses both our temples again before letting us go.
“Just complimenting the chefs the way I would thank ma mère (my mom).”
Both Reaper and Odin grumble, but let it go. I share a look with Mama Astrid as we both try to hide our laughter.
“As a heads up, Loki is like that a lot. He’s very affectionate. Charlene raised that boy right. Even if he does like to play pranks,” she tells me.
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. Yeah, I can see Loki as a prankster, but I’ve also seen how affectionate he can be. This isn’t the first time he’s hugged me, squeezed my shoulder, or done something nice for me.
After we set everything out on the passthrough, I grab a soda from the fridge and head out to the main room. Instantly, I’m ushered to the front of the line, and my confusion must show because Reaper chuckles.
“We have a rule. Whoever cooks gets to get their food as soon as they come out of the kitchen. We started it when Mama Astrid started cooking for us years ago and kept it going.”
Smiling, I nod my thanks to the guys. Then, I grab a plate, utensils, and start piling my food on my plate. I take a little bit of the pasta and the mac and cheese as well as assembling a po’boy. My stomach has been rumbling while we were cooking, and I want to try it all.
“Where do you want to sit, Darlin’?”
Grabbing my soda, I turn as I balance my plate and look around the room. “Let’s go sit with Loki and the others. I’d like to hear more about the food, and if he’s up for it, his background.”
Reaper stiffens next to me and I look up at him in surprise.
“Did I say something wrong?” I whisper.
Reaper hesitates. “Not wrong per say, but don’t be surprised if he’s tight lipped. He usually doesn’t say much about when he was growing up.”
“Okay,” I respond quietly and Reaper frowns.
“It’s nothing bad, it’s just… his way of growing up was a bit different from what people are used to around here and he was judged a lot when he moved here. Now he’s pretty tight lipped about it as a result.”
A knot loosens in my chest at that, relieved that he most likely didn’t have a bad home life.
Reaper leads us over to the table and pulls out a chair for me. I smile up at him in thanks and sit down.
“?a, c'est bon (This, this is good), ma reine (my queen)!” Loki exclaims before taking another bite of his po’boy.
I smile, having heard both of those words from movies before so I know what they mean and hold up my po’boy. “I’m glad they measure up to what you’re used to. I’m excited to try them all as I haven’t had much Cajun cooking before.”
Taking a bite, I immediately close my eyes and moan as the flavor hits my tongue. Fuck. This is so good.
Opening my eyes, I blush at the heated look Reaper’s giving me while a couple of the guys chuckle.
“Whoops,” I say once I’ve swallowed the food in my mouth.
That has all the guys at the table laughing. Reaper shakes his head, the corner of his lips twitching as he tries not to smile.
We eat mostly in silence for a while, and when I finish my po’boy, I debate asking Loki questions. I decide to just go for it. If he doesn’t want to answer, he doesn’t have to. Though I think I’ll stick mainly to food topics until I know him better.
“So, what other Cajun dishes are some of your favorites, Loki?”
Loki moans as he puts down his fork after taking his last bite of food off his plate and takes a swig of his beer.
“Fuck. Where to start? Gumbo, jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, shrimp creole, the seafood boils, blackened fish, dirty rice, beignets, and that’s just to name a few.
Ma mère (My mom) could make it all and she was damn good at it.
She had a big spice garden off to the side of her vegetable garden and I remember our house always smelling like the spices and herbs that she would have drying from the rafters.
She always grew a bunch because she would dry them and sell her spice mixtures at the market.
Us kids would help her tie them together and hang them for her.
My oldest sister, Cécile, and I loved to help notre mère (our mom) in the kitchen, too.
” He pauses and the tips of his ears turn a little pink.
“The recipes you guys used are actually ones I copied from the cookbooks de maman (of mother’s). ”
I grin at that and hope those words all meant some variation of the word ‘mom’. It sounded like it might be, so I’m going to go with that. Hm. Maybe I should learn some French. Or maybe look up if there is a difference between French and Cajun French. For now, though, I push those thoughts aside.
“Well, I hope you’ll let us try out some of her other recipes because I am in love with these ones.”
The pink on the tips of his ears darkens. “Ouais (Yeah), just let me know and I’ll show them to you. Maman (Mom) gave them to me one year for my birthday when I’d let it slip that I missed her cooking.”