Page 43 of In It for the Long Ride

“Carl, I’m only going to tell you this one time. Get your crusty-ass boots off my good furniture,” she started in, with the devil in her brown eyes.

I looked from her to my boot and back again. She was dead serious, I could tell.

“My boots are clean, woman.” I raised a brow, pressing the issue with a little wag to my foot.

“So is my shin kick, don’t try me!” She marched forward like she was the club’s next enforcer.

I laughed and slid my foot to the floor. Sitting up with a groan, I opened the magazine and once our stare-down ended, I glanced down to be confronted by an ad for feminine products. I hurriedly flipped, only to find that the rest of the pages were covered in wedding hairstyles and the best bangs of last year.

“Fuck me,” I mumbled under my breath, just as the bells chimed and the door swung open.

I tossed the magazine onto her barn-door-style coffee table and lifted my leg to laze upon the edge of it. Daisy shot me a glare that could have ended me on the spot, and I returned my foot to the floor again with a huff.

“Hey, Penny. It’s good to see you. We’re doing highlights today, right?” She swung into her friendly voice like she hadn’t just silently threatened me.

“Yeah,” Penny hesitantly answered as she struggled through the door.

She had a sticky-faced toddler on one hip and was dragging a preschool-aged child along with the other arm.

“My mom had the flu and couldn’t watch the kids for me. It’s okay if they sit in the lounge, isn’t it?”

I looked at the six by ten area around me and tried to slow the deep breath I took. There was nothing I could do about the way I stiffened. I didn’t mind kids, if they listened. These children were already pulling her in two directions. The one on her hip was grabbing at suntan lotion and sucking on the nozzle.

“Put that back, Logan. Mommy can’t today,” she told the older of the two, when he grabbed a bath bomb out of the display basket.

“Mine!” he shrieked, eyes bugging, and teeth bared.

“Logan, what did mommy say?” Penny emphasized in a voice that was far too polite to accomplish anything.

Logan let out a roar of injustice and that bath bomb whizzed past my head and made a bang when it connected with the wall. I glanced down and noticed it had broken into a few pieces in the package, and dust now littered the tile around it.

He jerked his arm away from his momma and grabbed a basket full of cosmetics. I shot off the chaise, rising to my fullheight without a word. The boy froze and his eyes locked with mine.

“Sit down, boy,” I advised, hooking a thumb toward the chaise I’d just abandoned.

The boy’s mother took one look at my Steel Disciples kutte and grabbed the boy’s arm again.

“Oh my God,” She stammered, and scrambled for the door with her children.

“Penny,” Daisy called, trotting after her. “Penny, wait!”

The women spoke in the parking lot, and it appeared pretty animated. After a time, they calmed down and Daisy sprinted back toward the store. I picked up the bath bomb and laid it on the counter.

The bells sounded and I turned to find Daisy glaring at me.

“What?”

“What do you mean, what? You just chased off my appointment.” She glared.

“I did not. I just told her ill-mannered brat to sit the fuck down,” I protested, “I didn’t even say fuck!”

“You should be so proud!” she condescended and slapped at the air while I sat back down on her fancy furniture.

We locked eyes and she bugged hers, “Get out! I have to make some money. You have to go.”

“I’m not leaving.” I started to lift my leg and that woman snatched up that bath bomb and hurled it at me.

“Damn it!” I spat back, hopping off the chaise a second time.

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