Chapter 12 #2
People started forming a line, and she went with the ol’ladies to join them, thankful this wasn’t another case of the men eating first and then the women. That still bugged her, but not enough to mention it.
She loaded up on pork and then went to the other tables, and quickly saw she wouldn’t be able to taste everything. She opted to get some of the dishes that seemed to be going fast, assuming people knew from experience what was good.
She asked the ol’ladies who’d made the dishes she liked the most, and then told the maker how good it was — and in some cases asked for the recipe.
But then had to decide how to answer when people asked for her recipe.
“The pasta and pesto are both made from scratch, so there’s a lot to tell you.
If you want to use store-bought pasta, I can just give you the pesto recipe, or if you want to see how it’s made, I can send you a link to a YouTube video that shows it from beginning to end. ”
Later, once people started on the desserts, it was easier to give them the recipe. “It’s just eggs, butter, sugar, a little cornmeal, buttermilk, vinegar, and vanilla. I can text it to you, if you’d like.”
But then someone said, “Really? I make this with boxed yellow cake mix. I just add eggs, creamed cheese, butter, and powdered sugar. It’s so easy.”
Tuesday felt her face scrunch up before she could stop it, and then tried to figure out how to recover.
“Tuesday does the clean eating thing,” Bethany told the woman.
“I’m sure your recipe is great. Have ya’ll met?
Tuesday, this is Amy and Heather, their men are…
” she looked around and shrugged. “No idea. Marcus is a psychiatrist and Kyle is a plastic surgeon, and these two have their hands full with Marcus. Heather’s a pilot, and she’s had the MC’s life in her hands many times.
Amy plays the violin for the Atlanta Orchestra. ”
“What Bethany isn’t telling you,” Angelica said with a laugh, “is that this is another foursome.”
Bethany was Gen’s best friend, and she’d apparently met Gen’s brother’s foursome — three men and a woman — and decided she wanted her own harem of men, and she now lived with three men.
And now here were two women who lived with two men, and Tuesday desperately wanted to know how that worked, but couldn’t think of a way to ask that wasn’t rude, so she asked, “So, that’s three foursomes present today?
And then Kirsten is in a threesome. Just how prevalent is that? ”
“My dad is technically part of a threesome these days, and I try really hard not to think about that,” Angelica said with a laugh.
“And don’t forget about Will with Micca and Davy,” Harmony said.
Tuesday blew out a breath. She’d been warned all humans at the party early in the day might not know about supernaturals, but everyone in this group did, so she said, “Yeah, my old alpha and his top two are part of a foursome, and I’m used to it as their normal, I guess.
They’re here, so that’s yet another foursome on the grounds. ”
More people arrived after dark, but a lot of people left — and all the kids were gone by the time the sun was fully down.
Marco and Cora arrived, along with most of Mythic Beast, which partially confirmed for Tuesday that Hailey was Lugat.
She watched Knife interacting with Silver and her boyfriend, a giant of a vampire who was Marco’s assistant.
Tuesday was pretty sure Silver was more than safe, dating the Master Vampire’s right-hand man.
Still, she could understand why Knife had felt protective of her.
Silver’s scent was both male and female, while the fragility of her humanity was front and center.
Tuesday had heard people talk about how the various Chattanooga groups get along so well because there’s so much intermingling, so many relationships bonding them together, and this party highlighted that for her.
She’d kind of grasped it at Homewood — Cora, Marco, and Nathan are the leaders of large groups and they all live together, but this party also had the King of the Imperator Crocodiles and his second, who Tuesday had only seen from a distance so far, plus the Dragon King and Swan Queen, who’d left with their kids shortly before dark.
And there were so many eagles, hawks, wolves, big cats, bears — and now vampires.
Without a single argument so far, much less a fight. It was a little mindboggling.
But she had questions, because the ol’ladies were all wearing vests that looked a lot like the bikers’ vests, but they said “Property of” at the top, and the biker they were with at the bottom.
It hit her wrong, but she’d come to respect these ladies, so when it was mostly just ol’ladies at the table, she cautiously asked, “Can I ask ya’ll about your vests? ”
Angelica smiled and leaned forward to pour more tequila into Tuesday’s margarita. “You need to be more specific. Are you asking why we let someone proclaim us as property? Or asking how to get your own?”
“I’m not sure it’s either of those. Plus, I’ve already figured out most of the men seem to be kinky, which means all of you are, too.”
“Oh no,” Gen said. “It has nothing to do with that, and you’re being much calmer about it than I was when I first saw them.”
“You’ll notice Gen isn’t wearing hers,” Angelica said.
“She does when we’re out of town, but rarely does here, unless we’re hosting another club.
In a nutshell, ownership goes both ways, right?
I belong to Bash, meaning if anyone lays a hand on me, he might go so far as removing their hand from their body, or at least breaking it so it isn’t functional anymore. And that makes him mine, right?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Tuesday agreed.
“There’s a protocol,” Harmony told her. “If your man offers you one and you want to accept it, you have to ask him to put it on you. You don’t take it and put it on yourself. It’s… tradition, I guess. The proper response.”
Tuesday nodded. “Thanks for that. Good to know.”
“It’s always a surprise,” Harmony said. “And always at a big event, in front of everyone.”
“Some of us cry,” Daisy said with a smile. “Even when we already have a wedding band on our finger.”
“When someone disrespects an ol’lady, they’re disrespecting her man and the whole club. The vest is protection. It’s a declaration.” Harmony said. “And yes, ownership goes both ways. Brain is mine, and wearing this vest lets everyone know it.”
Tuesday looked out at the yard, at the party in motion around the many large fans, at Knife across the compound talking to his brothers with the ease of a man completely at home.
He’d invited her to move in. Would he want her wearing a vest proclaiming her his? That was how he’d introduced her, that first night. This is Tuesday. She’s mine.
“It isn’t just up to your man,” Angelica said. “The entire club has to vote that he can give it to you, because once you’re wearing the vest, any Rolling Thunder member from any chapter, whether he knows you or not, will defend you if he sees you need it.”
That made sense, and Tuesday nodded, licked the salt on her rim, and took another drink of her too-strong margarita that perfectly hit the spot.
About thirty minutes after the sun went down, the party shifted into a completely different energy.
The first paintball match was wolves against cats, twelve to a side, and Tuesday watched from the sidelines with the other ol’ladies, still holding her margarita.
This was two groups of apex predators with paintball guns, and the woods swallowed them for the better part of an hour before it came down to Cora and Nathan, moving through the darkness, occasionally shooting at each other and often missing by millimeters for nearly twenty minutes after everyone else was out.
Kirsten finally walked into the woods and loudly called it a draw.
The second match was different. Someone suggested men against women, and someone else shouted we needed a humans-only battle.
Matty was on his feet before the suggestion finished landing, a huge smile on his face as he said, “Hell yes!”
Brain announced Lexi would captain the women, and she stepped out and started picking her team.
Lexi argued for having two more people than the men, and Duke quickly agreed with her.
Tuesday expected her to pick Gen first, but she never chose her, which seemed odd. She made a mental note to ask Knife about it later, though that conversation would have to wait until they were home. She wondered, not for the first time, what it would take to soundproof his room.
The men won, which wasn’t really surprising, even with the two extra people on the women’s team. Human males are stronger than human females. Simple biology. Tuesday was really happy the same wasn’t true for supernaturals.