Chapter 17 #3
Laughing, I pressed, “But you’ll drink tea? That’s just as natural as coffee.”
“Don’t touch that stuff, either.”
I tilted my head in confusion. “You have a tea kettle. It sits on your stove all the time.”
“Hmm,” he grunted his understanding. “That was my mom’s. It’s the only thing of hers I brought when I moved up here.”
“Oh,” I whispered. “Was she a big tea drinker?”
“Not so much when I was a kid, but after her diagnosis—yeah. Made her more than a few cups. Sometimes, it was the only thing I could do to cheer her up.”
Damn, I thought, sitting back in my chair.
Another soft spot.
“You said the tea kettle was the only thing of hers you brought when you moved up here. You didn’t grow up in Missoula?”
“Nope. Born and raised in Cheyenne. After mom died, wasn’t hard to leave. Nomad convinced me to make the move with him. Worked out, I guess.”
I wondered at this new information. Life was weird—the good and the bad pulling and pushing us in different directions, to different places. The things each of us had to endure, the decisions we made to get us to Missoula, to bring us to this night.
Fate was such a delicate little devil.
“Enough about me. Tell me somethin’ about you.”
“What do you want to know?” I asked with a shrug.
“How’d you get hooked up with the Stallions if your brother’s a Copper King?”
“Really?” I coughed out an unamused laugh. “I thought that much would be obvious.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You mean Viv’s? The diner is a job. You hangin’ around the clubhouse is a choice.”
“No, I mean—you’ve met the guy. I’m definitely not trying to hang out with the Kings.
” I knit my eyebrows together and shifted my gaze, reaching for my wine glass so I had something to fidget with again.
“Not that there wasn’t a time when I did.
Before Carmy got his final patch, I was a hang-around in their territory.
I thought it was fun. The parties. The people.
Carmy was always looking out for me, so it’s not like I got around—but it was something we had in common. Our draw to that lifestyle.
“Then he turned on me. He never wanted me there. He pushed me away so hard…”
My sentence trailed off as old memories tried to resurface in my mind. I hated how remembering those days didn’t just bring back the things he said and the way he said them, but also how badly it hurt. It felt like betrayal. It felt like the end of the world—my world as I knew it.
I pulled in a deep breath as I lifted my glass of wine to my lips and took a healthy sip.
After I swallowed, I cleared my throat and muttered, “Anyway, he successfully chased me away from the Copper Kings. But the life? It’s always called to me.
” Lifting my eyes to find his, I added, “I don’t like to be put in a box.
I don’t like to be restrained by other people’s boundaries.
And I sure as hell don’t like society telling me who I’m supposed to be and how I’m supposed to live. ”
“Babe…” Pistol paused, eyeing me intently. “You emptied every bag, box, and carton in my pantry and fridge and put it into matching clear, plastic containers and wicker baskets. If that doesn’t scream boundaries, I don’t know what does.”
“No—the fact that I like order and an aesthetically pleasing home is a result of dreaming of living in a place where someone gave a fuck since I was eight years old. It doesn’t mean I’m destined to be some trad wife. You deciding it does proves my point.”
Pistol didn’t get a chance to respond before our server was back with our dinner. When she was sure we had everything we needed, she left us with our food, and silence stretched on between Pistol and me.
Hungry as I was, I didn’t hesitate to reach for my fork.
I was cutting into my first bite of duck when Pistol asked, “Ever consider the fact that maybe you might be putting the concept of a trad wife in a box? Or is there some rule book that says she can’t ride and party until dawn?”
I drew in a breath, gearing up for a rebuttal, but then stopped short when I saw the amusement in his eyes.
“You’re joking.”
“Yup,” he stated matter-of-factly before putting a fork full of whipped potatoes into his mouth.
They were so smooth, he didn’t even have to chew.
He merely swallowed before he said, “Don’t mind you give a fuck.
Prefer it, if I’m bein’ honest. Like a clean place. Don’t foresee that bein’ a problem.”
“You know what? Now that you mention it,” I began, cutting away at my duck. “You’re probably the tidiest biker I know. At first I thought it was because you hadn’t been around in a while, but I’m starting to change my mind about that.”
Pistol paused his knife at work on his lamb and deadpanned, “I got a kutte on my shoulders, a patch on my back, ink on my body and it surprises you I know how to clean up after myself? It must shock you to learn I can read and write, too.”
I laughed.
I tried to hold it in, but it was no use.
And then his expressionless face broke into a smile more handsome than any I could remember.
Riley Wells was hot and funny.
Damn.
My heart was a goner.