Chapter 10
The compound was throwing a cookout, and Dana had no idea what to do with herself.
She stood at the edge of the courtyard, watching the organized chaos unfold with the bewildered fascination of an anthropologist stumbling onto a new civilization.
Brothers hauled coolers and stacked cases of beer.
Wives and girlfriends carried platters of food from the kitchen.
Children—actual children, laughing and shrieking and chasing each other around the firepit—turned the outlaw fortress into something that looked almost like a neighborhood block party.
It was surreal. Three days ago, she'd watched a man die in front of her. Now she was watching a prospect struggle with a fold-out table while his buddies heckled him from the sidelines.
"You look lost."
Dana turned to find Rachel approaching with a stack of tablecloths in her arms, honey-blonde hair pulled back, an easy smile on her face.
"I feel lost," Dana admitted. "I didn't expect... this."
"What, that bikers have barbecues?" Rachel laughed, dumping the tablecloths on the nearest stable surface. "The club isn't all violence and drama. Mostly it's family dinners and too much beer and arguing about whose turn it is to clean the grill."
"It's just not what I pictured."
"Yeah, well." Rachel shrugged, starting to unfold a red-checkered cloth. "The movies leave out the boring parts. Help me with these?"
Dana grabbed a tablecloth and got to work, grateful for something to do with her hands. The repetitive motion was soothing—shake, spread, smooth, repeat. By the time they'd covered three tables, she'd relaxed enough to actually look around.
The courtyard had transformed. Picnic tables arranged in clusters.
A drink station set up near the garage, coolers organized by contents.
The firepit cleaned and ready for later, when the sun went down and the real drinking started.
Overhead, someone had strung lights that would glow warm when darkness fell.
It looked... good. But not quite right.
"The tables are wrong," Dana said before she could stop herself.
Rachel blinked. "Wrong how?"
"The flow. People are going to bottle up at the food line because there's no clear path to the drink station. And the kids' table is too close to the grill—someone's going to bump into someone carrying hot food." Dana was already moving, grabbing the edge of the nearest table. "Help me shift this?"
Rachel's expression shifted from confusion to amusement. "You know what? Sure. Show me what you're thinking."
Twenty minutes later, Dana had rearranged the entire courtyard.
Tables now created a natural flow from food to drinks to seating.
The kids' area was relocated to a corner where the little ones could play without getting underfoot.
The drink station—which she'd reorganized twice already—finally made sense, with beer separated from soft drinks, cups stacked in accessible towers, and a clear path for refills.
She was adjusting the cooler arrangement for the third time when she felt someone watching her.
Forge stood at the edge of the garage, arms crossed, something that looked almost like a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He'd been scarce all morning—club business, she assumed—but now he was here, and his eyes were fixed on her with an expression that made her stomach flutter.
"What?" she demanded, suddenly self-conscious.
"Nothing." The almost-smile grew. "Just watching you take over."
"I'm not taking over. I'm optimizing."
"You've reorganized the drink station three times."
"It wasn't right."
"It was fine."
"Fine isn't good enough." She straightened, wiping her hands on her jeans. "If you're going to throw a party, throw a good one. Details matter."
Forge pushed off from the garage and crossed toward her, that almost-smile still playing on his lips. He moved differently today—looser, easier, like some of the constant tension had unwound from his shoulders. Dana realized with a start that this was the most relaxed she'd ever seen him.
"You're happy," she said.
The almost-smile flickered. "What makes you say that?"
"You're not scanning the exits. You're not watching everyone like they might attack. You're just... here."
He stopped beside her, close enough that she could feel his warmth in the cool afternoon air. "Is that strange?"
"It's nice." She met his eyes, finding something soft there that she hadn't seen before. "You should be happy more often."
"Working on it." His hand found the small of her back—a casual touch, possessive without being aggressive. Just a point of contact that said mine without words. "Party looks good, by the way. Better than it usually does."
"I moved some tables."
"You moved all the tables. And reorganized the drinks. And convinced Pounder to relocate his fireworks stash before someone's kid found it."
Dana winced. "I might have gotten a little carried away."
"You got it right." His thumb traced a circle against her spine, sending shivers through her entire body. "That's not getting carried away. That's being you."
Before she could respond, a small body crashed into her legs—a dark-haired girl, maybe four years old, with sticky fingers and a gap-toothed grin.
"Are you Forge's girlfriend?" the girl demanded with the brutal directness of the very young.
Dana looked at Forge. Forge looked back, something heated flickering in his gaze.
"Yes," he said, before Dana could answer. "She is."
The girl considered this. "She's pretty."
"She is."
"Can she come play with us? We're doing princesses."
Dana bit back a laugh. "I think I'm a little old for princesses."
"Nobody's too old for princesses." The girl grabbed her hand, tugging with surprising strength. "Come on!"
Dana let herself be pulled away, glancing back at Forge. He was watching her go with an expression she couldn't quite read—something between amusement and hunger, possession and tenderness.
Girlfriend, she thought, her heart doing something complicated in her chest. He'd said it without hesitation. Like it was already true.
The cookout rolled on through the afternoon and into evening.
Dana played princesses until her knees ached from kneeling on concrete.
She helped Grace manage the food line and listened to Rachel's stories about how she'd met Gunner.
She learned the names of children and wives and girlfriends, the complex web of relationships that made the club feel less like an organization and more like an extended family.
Nobody treated her like an outsider. Nobody asked uncomfortable questions about why she was there or how long she was staying. She was Forge's girlfriend—his word, spreading through the compound like wildfire—and that was enough.
It shouldn't have been enough. In her old life, being defined by a relationship would have felt limiting, reductive. But here, in this strange world of leather and loyalty, it felt like belonging.
Forge appeared at her elbow periodically throughout the afternoon, checking in without hovering. A hand on her back. A brush of fingers against her hip. Small touches that added up to something bigger, a constant low-level claiming that made her blood hum.
She caught him watching her more than once—across the courtyard, over someone's shoulder, through the crowd. Each time, his gaze held hers for a beat too long, loaded with everything they hadn't done yet.
When you're ready, his eyes said. I'm waiting.
By sunset, the party had mellowed into the quiet exhaustion of a day well spent. Children had been collected by tired parents. The diehards had migrated to the firepit, beers in hand, voices low. Someone had found a guitar and was playing something soft and slow.
Dana stood at one of the empty tables, folding tablecloths with the methodical precision she brought to everything. Fold, smooth, stack. Fold, smooth, stack. The repetitive motion was grounding, a way to process the overwhelming amount of feeling this day had generated.
"You're still working."
She didn't startle at Forge's voice—she'd felt him approaching, some new sense that seemed attuned specifically to his presence. He stopped beside her, close enough that his arm brushed hers.
"I'm almost done."
"Dana." His hand covered hers, stilling the compulsive folding. "It's okay to stop."
"I know. I just—" She let out a breath, trying to find words for something she barely understood. "Today was a lot. Good, but a lot. I'm not used to..."
"Not used to what?"
"This." She gestured vaguely at the compound, at the remnants of the party, at the life she was being drawn into without ever consciously choosing it. "Community. Belonging. People who just accept you because someone vouched for you."
Forge was quiet for a moment. His thumb traced the back of her hand, a soothing rhythm that matched her heartbeat.
"You know what I noticed today?" he said finally.
"What?"
"You didn't jump at every loud noise. Didn't watch the gates like you expected someone to come through them. You talked to people. Laughed. Played with kids." His voice dropped, something rough and tender underneath the words. "You looked like you belonged here."
Dana's chest tightened. "I'm not sure I do."
"I am." He turned her to face him, hands settling on her hips with comfortable possession. "I've been watching you all day, you know. Couldn't help it. Watching you reorganize everything, make it better, find the broken places and fix them without even thinking about it."
"That's just how my brain works."
"I know. It's one of the things I—" He stopped, seemed to catch himself, then pressed forward anyway. "It's one of the things I like about you. One of about a hundred things."
Dana's breath caught. "Only a hundred?"
"Lost count around ninety. Figured I'd stop there and start over tomorrow." His hands tightened on her hips, pulling her closer. "You want to know what else I noticed today?"
"What?"
"You're the first person who's made me feel like the world moves at the right speed."
The words hit her like a physical force. She remembered their first conversation in her store—him saying the world moved too fast, too loud, everything overwhelming after five years in a cell. She remembered thinking that he carried prison with him like a weight he couldn't put down.
And now he was looking at her like she'd somehow made that weight lighter.
"Forge—"
"I mean it." His forehead dropped to rest against hers, close enough that she could feel his breath, the warmth of his skin.
"Everything since I got out has been too much.
Too fast. Too loud. I couldn't catch up, couldn't find my footing.
And then I walked into your store, and you were there, and something in my head just... settled."
Dana's eyes burned. She blinked hard, refusing to cry, even though the tears were the good kind—the overwhelmed, too-many-feelings kind.
"You barely knew me."
"Didn't matter. Still doesn't." His hands slid up her sides, cupping her face with devastating gentleness. "When I'm with you, the world makes sense. When I'm with you, I feel like I can actually live in it instead of just surviving."
She had no words. Her whole body was trembling with the effort of containing everything she felt—the want, the fear, the desperate, terrifying hope that this was real.
"That's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me," she whispered.
His smile was small and real, cracking through the steel in ways that made her heart stutter. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." She reached up, fingers tracing his jaw, the edge of his mouth. "And I mean it."