Page 73 of Angel

“Wait,” Lucky said, holding up a finger. “I have a suggestion that might help us in the long run.”

Steel nodded. Angel tried to keep the surprise off of her face. Lucky was not one who regularly used the Honeys for sex. Maybe once or twice before he’d met Harper. Of all the members here, she hadn’t thought that it would be Lucky who stood up for the Honeys.

Lucky looked to Ghost and Ranger. “The two of you have been saying you need more help at the bar.” He looked across the table at Bulldog. “You’ve been having to pull the prospects away from the bar more and more.” To everyone, Lucky said, “What if we move the Honeys to the bar? They become servers and bartenders. This frees up Ghost, Ranger, and the prospects.”

“And their…other activities?” Ghost prompted. “I won’t have my bar turned into a brothel.”

Lucky shrugged. “They’re consenting adults. They can sleep with whomever they want, just not on company time or on club property.”

Steel nodded slowly. “It’ll keep them employed. What about the clubhouse? I won’t see Jenna turn into a housekeeper. She has enough on her plate now with Ollie and the holidays coming up.”

“We hire actual housekeepers,” Lucky suggested. “That’s their job. If they cook, great, but we can hire one or two who come in just to clean up and do the laundry.”

Bulldog leaned forward. “I’m adding extra security around the property. I’ll need the prospects for more than the gate,” he told Steel. He looked to Lucky. “I’m in agreement.”

“What if the Honeys don’t want to be a server at the bar?” Ranger asked. “They’re of no help to us if they refuse to do their job.”

“Fire them,” Lucky said with no sympathy. “This is their option if they chose to remain employed with us.”

“We already told them Evette quit,” Bulldog added. Angel did not feel the least bit guilty for having been the one to pull that trigger. “They all signed NDAs when they hired on with us too.”

Steel looked around the table. “All in agreement for moving the Honeys over to the bar and hiring two housekeepers who are actually housekeepers around the clubhouse?”

The room as a whole said, “Yay.” No one said, “nay”.

Steel pointed his gavel around the room. “No one is to sleep with the new housekeepers or they’re out.” Then he slammed his gavel down on the table.

Part of the custody agreement laid out by the family court judge was that Aaron had to attend school. The delay in registering him was due to Veronica not bringing Aaron’s birth certificate to court with her as ordered. Not only was she fined a thousand dollars by the judge, but she still needed to relinquish it to the courts to be given to Cage.

Once Keys had gotten the necessary paperwork together to fake Ollie’s adoption—since, technically, the kid didn’t exist due to his birth having never been reported—and transcripts, Ollie was also able to start high school.

True to his word, Cage went to the school to register Aaron wearing his new Papasaurous shirt under his cut, which also had a new rainbow patch. Cage even went a step further and wore his new rainbow socks as well as rainbow underwear. Although Angel was pretty sure she was the only one who knew about that last one.

Steel, Jenna, and Ollie also accompanied Cage, Angel, and Aaron to the school so they could get Ollie registered too. While neither Steel nor Jenna wore anything rainbow, Ollie wore a flashy, new outfit courtesy of his shopping spree with Jenna. He had on lilac purple pants, a pink shirt, and suspenders. He painted his fingernails yellow and was wearing fake eyelashes and purple eyeshadow. His hair was gelled to add a flair in the back.

As their group walked down the hall to the main office, there were a few students who gave Ollie sneers. Angel wasn’t sure who scowled more darkly at them: Steel or Aaron.

Aaron was wearing his previous team’s football jersey and a pair of jeans. There was nothing about him that stood out as gay—not like Ollie, anyway. Students could very easily mistake Cage’s shirt to be a reference to Ollie. Angel certainly saw a lot of girls checking Aaron out.

While Ollie’s outfit screamed confidence, his expression did not. He was constantly glancing around, biting his lip, and had tripped over his own feet twice. After the second time, though, Aaron took his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world and continued walking without missing a beat. Ollie beamed up at him and wrapped his right hand around Aaron’s bicep while Aaron gripped his left hand.

Angel and Jenna exchanged a glance and then had to look away or risk tearing up.

Though Aaron told both Cage and Angel that he was not interested in dating with everything else going on in his life, his feelings towards Ollie were obvious. And vice versa. Ollie glowed in Aaron’s presence. While Steel had mixed feelings in regard to Aaron as a potential boyfriend to his new son, there was no doubting that Steel liked Aaron as Ollie’s protector.

Aaron towered over most of the students. He was sixteen and already six feet tall and packed with muscle. No one would be foolish enough to pick on Ollie with Aaron standing between them.

Angel wanted Aaron to be his own kid here. She wanted him to grow and find his place. But, as a mom of a paraplegic teenage daughter, she couldn’t help but also feel grateful that Bree would also have Aaron looking out for her.

No doubt Lucky felt the same way regarding Scotty.

After they got Aaron and Ollie signed up, Principal Rockland took them around for a tour. Unlike Lucky, Bear, and Bulldog, none of the parents present were alumni of Mount Grove High. Angel had already been on a tour when she’d registered Bree, but the others were as new to the building as Ollie and Aaron were.

Aaron got to meet Coach Wallace, who was thrilled Aaron played football. While he was coming late to training, Aaron informed the coach that he’d attended a football camp over the summer in Illinois.

Ollie fell in love with the drama classroom. He picked up a feather boa, put it flamboyantly around his neck, and started Roxy Hart’s opening monologue from Chicago. “…you wanna know something? I always wanted my name in the paper…” he cooed at his applauding audience, holding his hands like he was gripping an invisible newspaper.

But no one was as enthralled as Aaron, watching the boy like he was center stage on Broadway with a thousand spotlights on him.

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