Chapter 3 #3
The table cracked up again.
Then my brain finally caught up to my life. “Oh, shit.”
Regan blinked. “What?”
“My cat.”
Amber’s face lit. “You brought a cat?”
“Accidentally.”
That got everyone’s attention, because apparently accidental cats were universally compelling.
So I told them. The stray in the apartment hallway, the turkey bribe, the ugly crate, the screaming, the hissing, the two-day road trip, the fact that I had named him Bandit because Stockholm syndrome apparently worked both ways.
By the end, Regan was shaking her head. “Damn, girl.”
I showed them the scratch across my hand. “Parting gift.”
Regan grabbed my wrist before I could pull away. Her eyes narrowed as she inspected the red line. “That’s gonna get ugly.”
“I’ll clean it when I get in.”
“No,” she said. “You’re cleaning it tonight.”
I laughed. “Bossy.”
Skye smirked into her drink. “You have no idea.”
I started pushing back my chair. “I should go.”
Regan caught the chair with her boot. “Where?”
I thumbed toward the parking lot. “Still got a few hours.”
Her whole face changed.
Five seconds of silence.
Then she said, “Alone at night On a desert highway with nothing out there but ghosts and snakes?”
I blinked. “Yeah?”
“And the cat?”
“Also yes.”
Regan shook her head. “No.”
I laughed. “No?”
“No.”
Amber pointed her margarita at me. “Hard no.”
Evie leaned back in her chair. “Absolutely not.”
I looked around the table. “You all get bossy very fast for people I met fifteen minutes ago.”
Regan folded her arms. “It’s not safe.”
“It’s a highway.”
Amber snorted. “Not all highways are the same.”
Regan leaned closer. “You’re coming with us.”
I stared. “What?”
“We rented an Airbnb. Spa weekend. You can crash there.”
I laughed because that seemed safer than asking whether I had accidentally wandered into a human trafficking operation disguised as sisterhood. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“That’s not how adult decisions work.”
Savannah stood, tall and beautiful and sharp enough to cut glass. Silver bracelets slid down both wrists as she held out her hand. “Come on. I’ll walk you to your truck.”
“For what?”
Her grin turned wicked. “I want to meet the cat.”
Before I could react, my keys vanished from the table.
I looked down.
Savannah twirled them around one finger.
“What the hell?”
“Insurance,” she said.
“In case I bolt?”
“In case you make a dumb decision while dehydrated.”
I stared at her. “What is this?”
Amber laughed. “A rescue mission.”
I narrowed my eyes. “This feels culty.”
Evie nearly choked on her drink.
Regan wiped tears from laughing. “Oh, honey.”
Savannah hooked her arm through mine and started walking me toward the parking lot like this had all been settled by committee. They were laughing. At what, I had no idea. Maybe my expression. Maybe my resistance. Maybe the fact that I had no concept of the machine I had apparently stumbled into.
I muttered, “What the fuck?”
Then another thought hit with enough force to stop my feet. They stopped too, all five of them turning back.
I looked from Regan to Amber to Skye to Evie to Savannah. “You guys aren’t secretly trying to recruit me into some lesbian commune, are you?”
Silence.
Then the loudest laughter yet.
Amber bent over the table. Evie slapped her thigh. Savannah grabbed my arm to stay upright. Regan shook her head, still laughing.
“No,” Regan managed. “Very much no.”
We crossed the lot under a sky turning deeper blue by the minute. Savannah nodded toward the vehicles. “Lemme guess. That one?”
I followed her finger to my truck sitting under the only sad tree in the lot. Rust. Dents. Tarps. One headlight dimmer than the other. A vehicle that had clearly survived more than it had been maintained.
“Yep,” I said. “The sad bitch under the tree.”
Savannah laughed. “Clocked you the second you rolled in.”
“That bad?”
She looked at me with genuine pity. “It’s a miracle you made it.”
I unlocked the truck. Bandit launched himself against the passenger window like a demon in fur.
Savannah stopped cold. “That’s the cat?”
Bandit hissed.
I dropped the bacon through the cracked window first, then the burger scraps. Instant silence. Food fixed everything. Momentarily. I poured fresh water into his bowl while Savannah leaned closer, studying him through the glass.
“That thing hates you.”
“Mutual.”
Bandit looked up, chewing.
Savannah straightened. “You’re not making that drive tonight.”
I leaned against the truck. “Says who?”
She tossed my keys once in the air. “Me.”
“And why exactly should I listen?”
She looked over the truck with painful accuracy. Steam still curled faintly from under the hood. One tire looked suspiciously low. The back end sat heavy from everything I owned tied under tarps. My objection withered before it reached my mouth.
“You’d break down before midnight,” she said.
I looked at the truck.
Probably.
Her voice softened. “We’ll get you an escort tomorrow.”
I frowned. “An escort?”
Savannah laughed. “Not that kind.” She nodded toward the bar. “Trust me. Don’t fight Regan.”
“Why?”
“She’s got a thing for strays.”
Her eyes slid to the truck, then Bandit, then me.
I narrowed mine. “Did you just compare me to the cat?”
She smiled. “If the shoe fits.”
I looked toward the bar. Then at the truck.
Then at Bandit, who had already forgiven me because bacon existed.
My options were not impressive: keep driving in a questionable truck with a nearly dead phone and a feral cat, or follow a group of heavily accessorized women who laughed like trouble and moved like a small army.
Savannah leaned closer. “You’ll be safe.”
Then she added, “And no, we’re not lesbians.”
I laughed despite myself. “Good to know.”
“We’re all taken.” Her grin turned wicked. “And our protection?”
I waited.
“Usually six-three to six-four.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Two-forty minimum,” Amber called from behind us.
Evie added, “Covered in tattoos.”
Skye shrugged. “And leather.”
“Motorcycle club,” Regan finished.
I stared at them. “That’s a thing?”
Amber laughed. “It’s very much a thing.”
Savannah leaned close to my ear. “Rule one. Don’t look at our men.”
I blinked.
She smiled sweetly. “We’ll be nice. Until we’re not.”
I stared at her, then laughed. “I swore off men.”
She tilted her head. “That sounds like a story.”
“It is.”
Savannah handed back my keys and hooked her arm through mine again. “Good. We like stories.”
Back at the table, margarita number two landed in front of me.
I shouldn’t have touched it.
I did.
And somehow, because apparently exhaustion, fear, and female kindness were a chemical solvent, I told them everything.
The professor. The lies. The rain. The field trip.
The night in the mountains. The ghosting.
Seeing him again. The fiancée. The ring.
The humiliation. The apartment. Bandit. The job.
The road. And now this strange little desert detour with a dying truck and women who collected strays.
By the end, the table had gone quiet.
Amber shook her head. “What a dick.”
Evie raised her glass. “Sounds like you won and she got stuck with a cheater.”
Regan lifted hers too. “To fresh starts.”
I looked around the table at strangers who somehow didn’t feel like strangers anymore, then lifted my glass.
“To fresh starts.”
Glass hit glass, and for the first time since this entire insane trip started, I didn’t feel alone.
The Airbnb was bigger than it had any right to be.
It sat low against the desert like it had grown there, all adobe walls, wide wooden beams, a stone walkway, and warm yellow light spilling from the windows.
String lights glowed over the patio. The whole place looked like luxury had gotten lost in the dirt and decided to stay.
I parked crooked under a mesquite tree because I was tired, my depth perception had become theoretical, and the truck’s engine was ticking hard enough to make me reconsider prayer.
Bandit screamed from the cab like I’d kidnapped him, which—technically—fair.
Savannah killed her engine beside me and climbed out. Amber and Evie were already unloading bags. Regan stood at the front door with keys in hand, looking entirely too pleased with herself, like she’d brought home a rescue puppy. Or a hostage. The distinction seemed flexible.
I climbed out and stretched, my spine popping from too many hours behind the wheel. The desert air had cooled, but heat still clung to my skin under the dust and sweat. “This place is ridiculous.”
Regan grinned. “Needed space.”
“For what?”
“Sanity.”
Bandit slammed against the crate again, rattling it hard enough to make me wince. I opened the passenger door and reached in, bracing for claws, insults, and whatever other violence he considered appropriate.
Headlights swept across the dirt lot.
Motorcycle.
The engine rolled low and deep, a heavy mechanical growl that vibrated through the ground before cutting clean. The women barely looked, which told me they knew him. I turned with one hand still on the crate.
Tall. Big. Not gym big. Built big. The kind of muscle that came from labor, lifting, fighting, real use.
Broad shoulders filled out a black Henley, sleeves shoved up over tattooed forearms. His hands were massive, rough-looking even from where I stood, knuckles scarred, palms thick and calloused like he worked with engines or fists.
Probably both. His hair was dark brown, longer than I expected, brushing the collar of his cut in rough waves with auburn streaks that caught under the porch light when he moved.
His eyes were green.
Not bright green. Not pretty green. Deep green, darker at the edges, like wet moss after rain.
The thought irritated me immediately because it was specific, poetic, and unhelpful.
He looked like the kind of man mothers warned daughters about and daughters pretended not to hear.