Page 18 of Stoker's Serenity

“I don’t know.” She crossed her arms, pitcher abandoned on the counter beside her. “It’s just something people do.”

“Not me.” I shook my head. “Snitches get stitches where I’m from.”

She swallowed hard and nodded.

“I’m trusting you,” she murmured, and checked her cooker thing. “It’ll keep a few minutes, come on.”

She refilled our glasses and led me out the door and down the steps. We went into her little greenhouse and she took me to a back corner. It was humid as fuck in here and hotter than it was outside. Oppressive, but beautiful, green and dotted with color and even some white blossoms. She stopped beside some delicate lacy blooms and I knew immediately what they were. Was hard to live in south Florida and not know what they were ? and it was illegal to have them.

“Ghost orchids?” I asked in a bit of awe.

“Started with one that I kiped from the swamp, but I’ve managed to keep it alive, and…”

“I thought these were impossible to cultivate in captivity.”

“They are, um, but I figured it out.”

“That’s nuts. You’re hella talented, Serenity.”

She blushed with pleasure this time and I liked the look on her. I was struck by how much I wanted that look underneath me, those lovely brown eyes of hers heavy-lidded with passion, a halo of her dark tresses scattered over the pillow.

Fuck, I was getting chub just thinking about it, so I shut it down quick and tried to hide it by swallowing some of my tea.

“Call me Ren,” she murmured, and took me on a little tour of her collection. While the Ghost orchid was obviously her crown jewel, she had quite a few other equally beautiful blooms, even if they weren’t nearly as rare.

“You’re something else, Ren.”

“Thanks,” she whispered, and with a smile that held the gentle light of the moon even though it was still full sun, she turned and led me back out into the yard. I caught her scanning the street.

“I didn’t think I heard the bike,” she said, closing up her little greenhouse, which was pretty fucking sturdy, all things considered.

“Oh, no, that’s my truck,” I said pointing out the old 80s Ford pickup. “I gotta bring my tools with me most of the time, so I don’t typically ride into work.”

“Ah, that would explain how you managed to sneak up on me.”

I smiled and we paced slowly back toward the stairs up to her place. A little old lady waved at us from a rocker on her front porch. Serenity lit up and waved back at her.

“That’s Mrs. Sedgwick, my landlady,” she said.

“She cool with me being here?” I asked.

Serenity laughed. “Probably overjoyed that I have someone over other than Linny. Come on, let’s eat.”

The food was good, the company fantastic. She turned the tables on me once we were seated, though.

“So, what’s life like in a motorcycle club?” she asked lightly.

“Structured,” I answered carefully. “Comfortable. At least for me. We live and die by our own rules when the majority of us don’t have a hope or a prayer of fitting in anywhere else. Citizen life just isn’t made for us.” I gave a half-assed shrug. It wasn’t much of an explanation but it was hard for me to explain at the same time.

Serenity chewed slowly and eyed me carefully. She swallowed gracefully and said, “I get that. Probably more than you might think,” she said softly. “The whole ‘not fitting in anywhere.’”

Now that I could believe. She was definitely, unabashedly, and uniquely her, and I liked that. Something was still nagging the fuck out of me about her timid nature, though. I’d figure it out eventually, though. Just time and trust. I was part of an outlaw MC – trust didn’t come easy to my kind either, so I knew it would be slow going. That was okay, though. I wasn’t in any kind of a rush and good things came to those who waited or some shit.

“How come?” I asked her and fixed her with a look.

“How come what?” she asked softly, shifting nervously.

“You’re beautiful, smart, funny, kind, and obviously creative and crafty. How can you notfit in anywhere?”

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