Chapter 3
Tuesday was full when they left the restaurant, thanks to the extra omelet and waffle. He’d driven them in his truck, since bringing her suitcases back on the bike would’ve been awkward. Usually, she prefers driving, but she found she didn’t mind riding when Knife was driving.
When they arrived at the clubhouse, it was full of people, and Knife asked, “Pinks versus blues?”
She had no idea what that meant, but someone opened a cabinet along the far wall as soon as he asked — and alarm shot through her system at all the guns inside until she realized what they were. Paintball guns.
She saw women loading pink paintballs into them, men loading blue ones, and Knife walked to her with two guns. “C’mon. I’ll take you outside and give you a few minutes to practice.”
He showed her how the gun worked, demonstrated, and handed it to her.
She shot the tree he pointed to, and frowned when it hit lower than she intended. She recalibrated her aim, tried it again, hit bullseye, then walked forward and backward until she could hit the same spot no matter how far from the tree, and turned to him to see him smiling.
“Not the first time you’ve shot a gun.”
“No,” she agreed. Her dad had taught her with rifles and shotguns first, and had eventually shown her how to handle pistols.
“Rules are simple,” he said. “Stay in human form. No physical contact with the other side on purpose, we shoot each other, we don’t do anything else, but don’t aim for heads, balls, or tits.
Stay in the wooded area. Be careful not to hit bystanders.
” He sat at a concrete picnic table and began loading his own gun.
“Everything else is fair. Climb trees, stay on the ground, whatever it takes. Go to the sidelines when you’re hit.
Last team with someone unmarked by paint, wins. ”
He settled his gun on the table. “I’ll run downstairs and grab one of my shirts for you. Most of the men do this shirtless. Some of the women wear a sports bra, but you’re in a lacy bra, and that isn’t happening.”
Everyone had come outside by the time he returned with his shirt. It fit her like a dress, and she decided to let it.
Matty stood on the table and said, “Sixty-second count. Go!”
He blew a whistle, and everyone ran into the woods. She went all the way to the concrete wall, thinking she didn’t want someone sneaking up behind her.
And she let her wolf surface enough to help. She heard multiple heartbeats and monitored them as they moved, letting her peripheral vision work for her, looking for movement.
She took out Dawg and nearly got Bubbles. He’s so big, she thought he’d be hard to miss, but the fucker was fast.
Heartbeats pounded loudly overhead, and she looked up to see Bash lifting his gun and aiming. She fired before he could, and then looked to see who he’d been aiming at. Angelica grinned at her, gave her a small salute, and then disappeared into the upper canopy of the next tree.
She smiled and moved her position.
When there were less people and they weren’t coming near her, she moved ten feet in and put her back to a large tree, but that didn’t completely cover her from the back, and several minutes later, she felt something impact the back of her right arm when she was looking left.
It hurt worse than she thought it would, and she turned to see who’d got her. Brain was smiling, and she smiled back and then did as the others had done while leaving the field – walked with her gun high in the air, so no one else would shoot her.
Eventually, it came down to just Brain and Harmony, and no one saw much of either of them, going up and down in the trees, staying high in them most of the time.
Angelica was standing beside her, and she told Tuesday, “It’s nearly always these two at the end, when it’s just the MC without outsiders.”
They both took a few shots and missed, and eventually, Harmony managed to get Brain in the chest while he was lifting his gun to shoot at her.
He dropped to the ground, ran to her and hugged her, smearing paint on both of them, and then bent her backward and kissed her like some kind of demented wedding kiss, and everyone laughed.
“How often does Harmony win?” Tuesday asked.
Angelica considered. “I haven’t kept count, but I’d say it’s close to fifty-fifty with them.”
The men had all played shirtless, and they used baby wipes someone produced before putting their shirts back on. Most of the women disappeared downstairs, even the ones that’d played in a sports bra, but Tuesday only had to take Knife’s shirt off and hand it to him.
The women sat outside at a huge round picnic table with fans blowing on them, and Gen, who hadn’t participated in the battle, had set them up so no one had to go back inside.
A huge bowl of ice, lots of Dixie cups, two-liter bottles of various sodas, and at least a dozen bottles of liquor — rum, vodka, tequila, whiskey, and so much more.
She had notebooks, which she handed out to a few of the ol’ladies, and then the planning started for a party happening in the future, but no one ever said the day. Clearly, they already knew that detail.
Connie was apparently in charge of running the kiddie area, which included snacks and drinks for the little ones as well as activities.
Matty was handling table and chair setup, which they decided would be the same as it always is for a mid-sized party.
Angelica was handling the bar setup, which the men would be in charge of running.
There was more, a lot more, and Tuesday was impressed with everyone’s organizational skills.
When they finished, the conversation turned to gossip, and there was a lot of it — and it wasn’t just about the club.
She found out Martin, a tiger who lived in the area, was dating someone from Faerie he’d brought home with him.
And a vampire who gave everyone the heebie-jeebies was dating someone named Mikey.
A woman walked by them and into the clubhouse, and Gen’s face showed total disgust. She clearly didn’t like the woman, and Tuesday wanted to ask about it, but decided maybe she shouldn’t.
She’d noticed the sweetbutts the night before, of course. Noticed the other women looking through the ol’ladies, away from them. No eye contact. Saw the men treating the sweetbutts like casual possessions, touching them as they pleased, ordering them around like it was perfectly natural.
Matty, of course, had to say something to Gen once the sweetbutt went inside. “She isn’t so bad. Each one is their own person. I’ll agree all day that Cindy is annoying as fuck, but Chiquita is a sweetheart if you take the time to talk to her.”
Gen glared at Matty. “At least Duke keeps his hands off them. Razor still engages in intercourse with them! How can you be okay with that!”
Matty grinned. “He fucks them, Gen. Pure and simple, and that’s okay with me. I’m his, she isn’t. Nothing is going to change that. Your rules with Duke are between the two of you, but don’t disparage my rules with Razor just because they’re different.”
Angelica stood, reached across the table, took Matty’s beer away from him, and sat back down with it. “Go get something to eat before you get in trouble with your Daddy. Go.”
Matty looked at her, stood, and walked inside.
“Thanks,” Gen told Angelica, and then she looked at Tuesday, “We don’t talk to them.
We don’t engage with them. Matty isn’t technically an ol’lady, and he likes to flaunt it.
” She sighed. “And okay, a few of the newer ol’ladies don’t feel like I do, but tradition says we ignore them. Pretend they don’t exist.”
“Brain isn’t interested in them,” Harmony said, “so I have nothing to worry about. I’m not a fan of some kinds of violence, so I usually leave when one needs to be punished, or if the men start some kind of belting game. Gen always leaves for that. If Tippy’s around, she leaves, too.”
“Matty and I always stay to watch,” Angelica said with a laugh. “I actually enjoy seeing them get their asses belted. Bash is often wielding the belt, and that’s okay with me. We all have our different lines in the sand, and that’s fine.”
Tuesday figured she’d stick with Angelica and Matty about wanting to watch, but decided to keep that to herself.
She wondered how often Knife had been with them. How many times he’d fucked them — and how many times he’d done so in the last couple of months.
And she shut down that line of thought. Whatever had happened before wasn’t any of her business.
Angelica gave her a knowing smile. “Knife’s ropework is like watching an artist.”
“It is,” Matty said, coming outside with a salad topped with cherry tomatoes and barely any dressing. “His shibari is some of the best I’ve seen.”
Tuesday felt like everyone wanted a comment from her, but she wasn’t prepared to talk about her sex life with these people yet, wasn’t comfortable enough with them to tell them how much she enjoys hanging in his ropes, so she lifted her Dixie cup and took a long drink of her margarita.
Several of them lifted theirs with a smile as well, and she figured she’d sidestepped the question well enough.
The sun was just going down when a large SUV pulled onto the property, and Matty said, “Oh good. Finally.”
He got up and went to the SUV, and Daisy told her, “Micca is his best friend since, like, elementary school.”
Micca was clearly the woman who hugged him and then walked between Matty and another man, holding both of their hands.
And she immediately recognized the other man, but she had to watch him walk a good five seconds before she could be sure.
That was Lord Byron. Frontman for one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. The hair was different, pulled into a ponytail, but the walk and the eyes were him.
“Is that…” she couldn’t say the name. Couldn’t ask the question. She’d known the club was friends with the band, but she hadn’t expected them to just show up.
“It is,” Harmony said. “He’s a friend of the club, and we don’t talk about him outside of the club.”
“Yeah,” Tuesday said, completely starstruck. “Makes sense.”
When they neared, Lexi stood and said, “Tuesday, this is Will. Lord Byron is his stage name. He’s with Micca. And this is Hailey, who’s with Ghost.”
She focused on Hailey and nearly squealed, “You’re Suli!”
Suli smiled and said, “Again, stage name. Call me Hailey, please.”
Tuesday looked at Lord Byron — Will — and tried to say hello, but nothing would come out.
He smiled and walked to her. “Hello, Tuesday, it’s nice to meet you. I’m afraid the club’s gossip made it to our dinner table, which means I already know about you, but I have to ask, how long have you and Knife been together?”
She just stared at him, unable to answer, and Matty thankfully answered his question.
“That’s a complicated question. They were together in secret for a long time, and then they were broken up for months.
She completely changed a big part of her life so they can be together, and he was pissed, at first. But now here she is, no longer a huge secret we can sit around and gossip about. ”
She nodded, because that was close enough, though she hadn’t known they’d gossiped about her.
Lord Byron smiled. “I knew that much.”
“February. We met in February, and broke up after the big Homewood party.” She managed to tell him. Getting that much out assured her she could put another sentence together, so she turned to Matty and asked, “Ya’ll gossiped about me?”
“We didn’t know it was you,” Matty said, “but yeah, there was a lot of talk about who his secret love affair was with.” He shrugged. “It kills us when we don’t know the tea.”
“It’s nice to have other people be the main gossip,” Hailey told her. “Dare was my stepbrother when I was little, and then we found each other again as adults, long after our parents split, but you can imagine the fun they had gossiping about me, at first.”
Tuesday nodded, because yeah, that was fucked up, and she wondered that Hailey just offered the information so freely.
“There are no secrets in the MC,” Hailey told her with a smile. “The only exception seems to be everyone being super-careful not to gossip about me and my bandmates outside the club, which we appreciate.”
“We do,” Lord Byron said, and he kissed Micca on the cheek. “I’m going to head inside. Davy should be here soon. Send him inside when he arrives, please.”
Suli and Micca sat at the table and fixed drinks, and Tuesday took in their scents. Micca was a bear shifter, but Suli smelled of both Lugat vampire and werewolf, which wasn’t possible.
Eventually, Tuesday decided she must be Lugat, and just carried more of the scent of her werewolf mate than most. Or perhaps she’d recently drank from him.
And she absorbed the fact Suli was an ol’lady, and Matty’s best friend was clearly with Lord Byron.