Chapter 9 #3
“He fixed what he could, which was not enough. Then he took me on his motorcycle because my apartment keys were waiting and my truck had chosen martyrdom.”
Lena’s brows shot up. “You rode on the back of a motorcycle with a hot biker?”
“He is not hot.”
“Sienna.”
“He is structurally inconvenient.”
“Meaning hot.”
“Meaning built in a way that suggests protein intake and unresolved emotional damage.”
“So hot.”
I sighed and moved to the couch. “Fine. Objectively, yes. He has visual impact. That does not make him a good idea.”
“Good ideas are for retirement accounts and dental insurance. Tell me about the motorcycle.”
“No.”
“Oh, something happened.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Something happened.”
I stared at her through the phone.
She stared back.
This was the problem with Lena. She had known me through finals week, food poisoning, one depressive haircut, and the Everett disaster. My face had no privacy with her.
I tucked one leg under me. “We swore never to speak of it.”
Lena slapped a hand over her mouth. “You did not.”
“I said we’re not speaking of it.”
“You absolutely did.”
“I did not say that.”
“You’re blushing so hard I can feel the heat through the Wi-Fi.”
I pressed the cold mug against my cheek. “There was tension. That’s all. Tension happens. It’s biology. Adrenaline. Proximity. Shared inconvenience.”
“Did shared inconvenience have abs?”
I closed my eyes.
Lena screamed.
“Hush,” I said. “Bandit will think joy is happening and report us.”
“I am definitely coming to New Mexico.”
“You are not.”
“I am. Which brings me to this biker wedding.”
I opened one eye. “How do you know about the wedding?”
“You told me two minutes ago.”
“I mentioned a wedding.”
“You mentioned a wedding connected to biker royalty.”
“Regan invited me.”
“So …it’s not crashing…?”
“Technically, no. Emotionally, yes. I barely know these people.”
“You know Regan. You know the girls. You know Bandit’s medical sponsor. You know Mason’s abs.”
“I regret calling you.”
“No, you don’t.”
I didn’t.
That was annoying.
Lena leaned closer to the camera. “Are you going?”
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“The fanciest thing I own is a Walmart clearance rack sundress and sandals I think I wore to graduation. It has little blue flowers on it and one strap that keeps twisting. That is not appropriate for an MC royalty wedding, whatever that even means.”
“What do you wear to those things?”
“Damn if I know. Leather? Diamonds? Bulletproof chiffon?”
“Desert black tie sounds like rich people invented sweating.”
“Exactly.”
Lena laughed, then sighed and flopped back against her pillows. Hank snorted behind her. “Life here sucks, by the way.”
I shifted, surprised by the sudden change. “Work?”
“Work is fine. Boring. Same people. Same overpriced smoothies. Same guys on Tinder with wedding ring tan lines they try to hide with self-tanner.”
I stared at the screen. “That’s a thing?”
“That is absolutely a thing. They bronze the finger.”
“No.”
“Yes. One had a pale stripe and a slightly orange knuckle. Like a cheating traffic cone.”
I laughed so hard I nearly spilled coffee on the couch. “That is horrifying.”
“It’s the new thing. Wedding-ring ghosting. Literally. There’s always a haunted finger.”
“Please never date again.”
“I keep trying not to, but then I get bored and make poor choices with men named Chad who own paddle boards.”
“This is why you need hobbies.”
“I have hobbies. Judging men is a hobby.”
“Fair.”
She went quiet for a second, eyes flicking offscreen toward Hank, who had rolled onto his back with all four paws in the air. “When’s this wedding?”
“Saturday.”
“This Saturday?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t have plans.”
“Lena.”
“And I do have points.” She looked back at the screen, already calculating. “My parents transferred some airline miles because they’re trying to bribe me into visiting them in Phoenix next month, but honestly, Santa Fe is more interesting.”
“Lena.”
“What?”
“So I’m supposed to crash an MC wedding and bring a date?”
“Do you want to go alone?”
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
That was rude, because it was a very good question.
Going alone meant walking into a room full of Royal Bastards and their women by myself, pretending I didn’t know what Mason felt like under my hands on a motorcycle.
Going with Lena meant backup, distraction, and someone to physically remove me if I started making choices with my nervous system instead of my brain.
“I don’t even have a dress,” I said, which was not an answer and we both knew it.
Lena’s face changed. That bright, dangerous look she got when a plan formed fully armed in her head. “I have a hookup out here.”
“That sentence has never led anywhere legal.”
“You’re still a size six, right?”
“Six up top, eight on the bottom.”
“Gotcha.”
“Why did you ask that so fast?”
She was already moving, phone bouncing as she got up from the bed. “My friend works at this insane secondhand place in Silver Lake. Designer stuff. Rich women buy gowns, wear them once, donate them for tax reasons, then move on with their empty little lives.”
“I cannot afford designer.”
“You’re not buying designer. We’re borrowing optimism.”
“That sounds like theft wearing perfume.”
“She’ll look the other way. I’ll grab a few options, take the tags off carefully, slip them back on if something doesn’t work. Worst case, we find you something cute and cheap. Best case, you walk into that wedding looking like the woman Mason is definitely pretending not to think about.”
“I hate that sentence.”
“You hate that it has structure.”
“I hate that it has Mason in it.”
“Liar.”
I dragged a hand over my face. “I don’t even know if I want to go.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
“You do, but you’re scared.”
“I am not scared of a wedding.”
“You’re scared of wanting to belong to people who might actually make room for you.”
I went still.
Lena’s expression softened immediately. “Sorry. Too accurate?”
“Obnoxiously.”
“That’s my brand.”
I looked around my apartment, at the new couch I hadn’t paid for, the coffee table I hadn’t chosen but liked, the cactus on the windowsill, the spare room door behind which Bandit was probably plotting revenge.
“They’ve done a lot already. Too much. They got Bandit vet care.
They got my truck into town. They replaced half my furniture. They didn’t ask for anything.”
“That’s nice.”
“It’s unsettling.”
“It can be both.”
“I don’t know how to take it.”
“Maybe you don’t have to take it like a debt. Maybe you take it like people being decent.”
I snorted. “That sounds fake.”
“I know. But I’ve heard rumors.”
I looked down into my coffee, stirring the melted ice with the straw. “I kind of did give him something.”
Lena froze.
Then slowly leaned toward the camera.
“I knew it, spill.”
I could feel the heat hit my face before I answered.
“No.”
“Mason?”
“Stop.”
“You gave Mason something?”
“No. Not like—” I stopped, because there was no way to explain without explaining, and explaining would violate the sacred agreement I had made with myself, my dignity, and possibly the state of New Mexico. “We didn’t have sex but we both came.”
Lena’s eyes went wide enough to be seen from space. “I am definitely flying out now.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t. You need me. You need a dress, backup, and someone who will sit beside you at this biker wedding and kick you under the table if you start making lust face at a man in leather.”
“I do not make lust face.”
“You are making it right now remembering whatever you’re refusing to tell me.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“No, you’re not.”
I didn’t.
She grinned and dropped back onto her bed, already scrolling on another device. “Okay. Flight first. Dress second. Emotional interrogation third.”
“You are not sleeping in Bandit’s room.”
“Obviously. I value my organs.”
“He’s kind of taken over the guest room.”
I laughed despite myself and sank deeper into the couch. “The couch is fine. You can sleep here.”
“Perfect. Hank will stay with my neighbor. I’ll bring dresses, shoes if I can swing it, and moral support.”
“Moral support from you usually comes with poor choices.”
“Exactly. You’re welcome.”
I looked at her on the screen, at the friend who had dragged me to that dive bar, who had watched me see Everett with his fiancée, who had known when to offer escape and when to hand me a beer instead. The idea of her here, in my strange new life, made something in my chest loosen.
“Okay,” I said.
Her face softened. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Come.”
She smiled. “Good. Because I already found a flight.”
“Of course you did.”
“And for the record?”
“What?”
“You’re going to that wedding.”
I sighed. “Regan said the same thing.”
“Then she’s smart.”
“She’s invasive.”
“Those can overlap.”
From the spare room, Bandit’s bell jingled violently, followed by a thump.
Lena tilted her head. “Was that him?”
“Probably attacking the concept of indoor life.”
“I can’t wait to meet him.”
“He will hate you.”
“I’m great with difficult men.”
“Mason isn’t staying here.”
“I meant the cat.”
“Sure you did.”
Lena grinned. “Book my couch, babe. I’m coming to Santa Fe.”
When we hung up twenty minutes later, my apartment felt quieter but not empty. The light had gone soft across the floor, Judith sat smugly in the window, and Bandit’s bell jingled from behind the spare room door like a tiny warning.
Saturday was suddenly not a vague threat anymore.
Lena was coming.
Regan was expecting me.
Mason would be there.
I stared at my phone, then at my reflection in the darkened window over the sink.
Hair damp from the shower. Oversized T-shirt.
Bare feet. A woman with a new job, a hostile cat, an adopted social circle, and no safe explanation for the way one biker had managed to turn my entire nervous system into a bad idea.
I took another sip of coffee.
“Fine,” I muttered to the empty apartment. “One wedding.”
Bandit hissed from the other room.
“Exactly,” I said. “That’s how I feel too.”