Chapter 14
Knife was working in the back when he heard Shaggy on the loudspeaker. “Knife, you’re needed up front, please.”
He hung his apron, washed his hands, and made his way up front, wondering what the problem might be. Shaggy was damned good at handling the front and rarely needed help.
He saw her through the swinging doors and came through them with a smile.
“Miss June, what can I help you with?”
She was wearing slacks and a blouse, and a fancy springtime hat that somehow worked without looking ridiculous.
“I want to see where my granddaughter is living, and I figure you probably go home for lunch, since she says she lives close to the butcher shop. I’ll just wait around so I can go with you.”
He didn’t actually go home for lunch. They usually threw handfuls of small pieces of meat on the grill when they got hungry.
Scraps too small to sell as steaks that they’d have ordinarily thrown into the grinder for ground beef.
Damned good meat that was a shame to grind.
It let them eat and get back to work quickly.
Also, he got to teach his helpers how to cook meat properly, so they could better talk customers through it.
“Give me five minutes to finish what I’m working on, and we can head that way.”
He called Tuesday on his way back to finish the last couple of cuts on the piece he’d been breaking down.
“Your grandmother is here, demanding I take her to see where her granddaughter is living.”
A pause. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
He laughed. “Not a problem. We’ll be out of here in maybe five minutes.”
“Okay.” She didn’t sound panicked. She sounded like she was already moving. “I’ll throw something on to cook. Do you have time to eat while you’re here?”
“Yeah.”
Four minutes later, he was back up front, telling Shaggy, “Be back in thirty or forty minutes. Call me if you need me.”
June drove a practical mid-size SUV, and Knife drove the speed limit home. She kept up with him just fine, but he hadn’t expected anything different from the competent, elderly werewolf. Tuesday had told him she was in her seventies, but she still looked like she was in her forties.
He smelled the fried pork chops from outside as soon as his helmet was off.
June slid out of her car, looking around, taking everything in, and he led her up the steps and into the house, where Tuesday was stirring fried squash in a cast-iron pan, the pork chops sitting to the side, resting.
“I’m just gonna go change shirts,” he told them, and then raced upstairs to make sure the bed was made and everything was presentable.
But there was nothing for him to straighten. The bed was made. The closet doors were closed. The bathroom looked pristine.
Not that it’d been bad, but he’d figured the towels would need straightening on the rack, at the least.
How had she had time to run through the house for a quick tidying up and get a meal nearly ready to sit down to, in under fifteen minutes?
Downstairs, in a fresh shirt, he set the table while Tuesday finished the meal.
She had a caprese arranged on a board — tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, olive oil.
The pork chops were on a nice platter, and she was pouring the fried squash into a serving bowl while he set plates out and asked June what she’d like to drink.
While they ate, June asked Tuesday questions about her filming schedule, and how she was going to film in a new kitchen. Tuesday stood to pull the hidden lighting arms out, to show her grandmother how he’d set things up for her.
She asked about the fence, whether deer came inside of it, and was pleased to hear they sometimes jumped the gate to come in.
She’d scented an owl when she arrived, and asked what kind lived on the property — and was delighted to hear they had a mating pair of barred owls along with a passel of noisy crows.
Knife ate his fill, kissed Tuesday on the forehead, told June he was glad she’d come, and then left them to it. His darling Tuesday was more than capable of showing her grandmother the house, her office, and whatever else she thought her grandmother could see.
He really did need to get back to work, but he was relieved he wouldn’t be present when her grandmother noticed the pulleys in the bedroom and asked about them.
But seeing them together, how close they are, the love they have for each other, settled something in his chest. She’d lost the pack, but she still had her family.
And that reminded him he only had around forty-eight hours until he met her dad, but he put it out of his mind because he had no idea how that was going to go, and no amount of worrying or planning was going to help.
- - - ? - - -
Saturday arrived, and Knife watched the love of his life step out of the tiny bathroom wearing a pale-yellow dress with delicate lace at the top resting on her perfect fucking glorious rack, and tall heels in the exact same shade as the dress that made her legs go on for-fucking-ever.
She looked like summer personified and had absolutely no idea what she did to him, just walking out of the motherfucking bathroom in a perfectly normal dress.
She saw what he was wearing and frowned.
“I didn’t ask you to dress up.”
He was the opposite of summer in his charcoal slacks and slightly lighter shade of short-sleeved charcoal dress shirt, but at least he wasn’t in all black.
“Your dad’s expecting a biker who’ll be out of his element in a fancy restaurant where the bill will easily clear a thousand dollars for seven people.”
She tilted her head. “I’m not sure that’s the case.
It’s really more about treating everyone to something special simply because he can.
” She sighed. “My mom might be thinking something like that, though.” She looked him over from head to toe and back up again.
“Just to be clear, I’m not complaining about you dressing up.
You look hot enough for me to undress you before we get out the door. ”
He grinned. “The dress is nice. Expect to get your ass fucked while wearing it when we get back.”
When they arrived, Coach Mike Robinson was already seated with his wife and mother-in-law, and he looked every bit the famous NFL player turned wide receivers coach, now offensive coordinator for a team that’d nearly made it to the Super Bowl last year, and had a damned good shot at making it all the way this year.
He’d made it to the Super Bowl several times as a player though, and was wearing one of the rings to show it, along with dark navy dress pants, a crisp white dress shirt he’d clearly changed into because no way had that shirt survived airports and airplanes, and a matching navy tie.
Tuesday’s father stood when they came in, his smile genuine when he looked at his daughter, and then he shifted to look at Knife, and his expression turned appraising, clearly measuring the man his daughter had chosen.
Knife met his gaze and didn’t look away.
The two men shook hands, and Knife used his werewolf strength to make sure he shook back with just as much power as the other man — not something he could ever recall needing to do with a human before, but this man was six-seven and had clearly never stopped the kind of training that’d built his career.
“Mr. and Mrs. Robinson,” Knife said. “It’s so good to finally meet you. I hope you had a nice flight this morning?”
“Please, call us Mike and Jan, and the flight was uneventful, thankfully.”
Tuesday’s mother was quieter. She was knockdown gorgeous, and he wasn’t sure why that surprised him. She hugged Tuesday for a long moment and then smiled at Knife. He wasn’t sure if she was unsuccessfully trying to be warm, or if it was fake on purpose.
The three women sat down together with June in the middle, and that put Knife sitting directly across the table from Tuesday’s father.
August arrived with his girlfriend a few minutes later.
She was human, pretty, and way more enthusiastic than necessary.
August was clearly smitten with her, and while it was sweet, it was a little too sugary for Knife’s liking.
Still, he liked August well enough despite his choice in women.
He had his sister’s directness and clear-headedness, and Knife quickly saw him as the protector-type, taking care of his little human girlfriend as only a werewolf could.
As far as Knife was concerned, she wasn’t for much more than needing to be taken care of, and for sticking your dick into. Since that seemed to be August’s thing, then more power to him, but if Knife had to live with her, she’d spend most of her time in a bit gag to keep her from talking.
Mike started the conversation by bringing up Knife’s father, which made sense.
Technically, he and Tuesday both had famous professional athletes for fathers.
His dad had eventually grown tired of the circuit and found other ways to use his driving skills, but it meant he’d retired at the height of his career.
He’d had a goal of winning the cup, he had, and that was it. Time to focus on different goals.
Her father had found a picture of Knife behind the wheel of a racecar when he was young, and he wanted to know if it was just a photo op, or if his father had really let him drive at seven or eight years of age.
“Oh no, that was real, and dad got shit from track because of that picture. He raced his own cars on dirt tracks during the off-season, and since he owned them, and he paid for time on the track to practice, he figured he could teach his son to drive while he had track time. He taught me how to read the surface, how to handle curves, how to set up the suspension for the track and the conditions, how a car behaves when it’s at its limit, and how to keep from going past it.
” He lifted his water glass and gave the final part of it before taking a drink.
“He believed in learning things before you were old enough to be afraid of them.”
Mike tilted his head. “That’s a sound philosophy.”
“It worked.” He smiled. “Someone taught your daughter to drive as well as the best racecar drivers.”
“Her… heritage gives her good reflexes, and she liked speed from the start. Made me nervous, so I sent her to a weekend-long thing at Barber Racing school, and then later, to a one-on-one day of instruction at the BMW Performance center.”
She’d somehow left that out of their conversations, and he turned to her, but she merely grinned at him.
No wonder she was so damned good. But she’d had a lot of practice. All that skill wasn’t just from a few workshops.
The conversation flowed easily from there, talking about his family and hers, about football, and the ATVs he’d bought for the entire family when they’d been in Colorado.
And then the meals arrived, and August’s girlfriend asked for ketchup when her steak was put before her. Everyone froze, even the fancy-schmancy waiter, but he quickly recovered, nodded, and left to get it.
Knife managed to keep his face neutral until Tuesday’s hand found his leg under the table and squeezed, and he had to look down at his plate to keep the others from seeing him nearly laugh.
But everyone was looking at the ditzy bitch, who was completely oblivious, chattering on about how good it smelled, asking August how his lamb chops were, and questioning June about her sea bass.
June told her she could get steak anytime, but seabass, properly cooked, was a real treat.
Tuesday’s mom was quiet at first, but when she finally joined the conversation, she seemed to be giving him a chance.
He figured it’d take some time for her to warm up to him, and he got it — a biker the woman’s daughter had left the pack for, upending her life, was absolutely going to have to prove he was good for her daughter.
He wasn’t going to win Jan over today, but that was okay. Over time, he would.
Conversation flowed smoothly, and he felt like August approved of him sometime during the salad.
Knife excused himself halfway through finishing his entrée, walked in the direction of the restrooms, and then made a beeline to find their waiter, out of sight of the table.
He made arrangements to pay the bill, and returned to finish his steak.
Later, when Mike asked for the check, the waiter told him it’d already been taken care of, and the large man was clearly taken aback, but it only took him a few seconds to recalibrate and assess the situation.
He turned to Knife. “That’s why you left the table earlier?”
“It was the least I could do, after the two of you came all this way.”
And this was the true measure of a man. Knife had bested him when Mike hadn’t expected it, but the large man merely said, “Thank you.”
And it was genuine, without any qualifiers. Tuesday’s father not only knew how to lose gracefully, he’d learned to respect someone who could beat him at his own game.
“My pleasure,” Knife said.
June made a motion that made him look at her, but she merely smiled at him with a twinkle in her eye that told him she was pleased.
Tuesday said nothing. But under the table, her hand found his leg again. She didn’t squeeze it this time, just rested it on his thigh.