Page 33 of Scotch: Unraveled

They offer all my favorites from biscuits and gravy to scrambled eggs to grits. We sit through two cups of coffee each, enjoying our last views of the ocean until we can get back here again, then we check out and grab a golf cart back to the dock. It’s sad sayinggoodbyeto the island. I wish we could just move here, but our lives are back in Thornbriar.

After ten hours of highway driving, a couple of pitstops and a lunch break included in that time, we roll back onto club property. It’s Saturday and members with old ladies riding on the backs of Harleys rumble past the truck.

“Party tonight,” Rory tells me. “Let’s go.”

“It’s okay. You go. I’ll stay with the girls. I doubt a club party is the place for babies.”

“I want ya there as my old lady. Make it official with the club.”

What are we doing with the girls then? And really, making it official with the club? I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I love Rory. I want to be with him, but at the same time, he got shot and has markers owed to him by a leader of a cartel. That’s big. I should probably not be with a man who knows cartels, butit’s Rory. And if I walk away this time, there’ll never be another chance.

“What’s that face, Frankie?” he asks.

I didn’t realize I was making a face. “I just—”

“Ya’re backing out,right?” His face guts me, a combination of pissed and sadness.

“I’m not.” It’s sort of a lie because I don’t actually know what the hell I’m doing.

“Then what?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what to do with the girls. Maybe if she’s home, Brighton will watch them.”

He smiles at me and pulls my head close to kiss my temple. My stomach pitches in a way that I know I’m going to that party as his old lady because Rory. That’s it. Because freaking Rory MacGregor. “Take the girls in, get them changed. I’ll try Brighton.”

I pull my phone out from my purse to call my best friend. “Hey, babe,” she answers first ring. I can always count on Brighton. “How was Bald Head?”

“He wants me to go to this Lords party as his old lady—that’s how it was.”

She stays silent for a moment. “Frankie, you sleep at his place like every night. The Lords still scare the shit out of me, but that doesn’t negate the fact that even I know you’re his old lady.”

Right. If my best friend who is scared shitless of the biker life admits I’m a biker’s old lady, then I should probably admit it too. “You going out tonight?” I ask.

“Need me to sit for those precious little doll-babies?”

“Not if you’re going out,” I hedge, half-hoping that she’s got plans.

“Nope. I’m home tonight.”

“Brighton Lee, why the hell are you sitting home on a Saturday night? You never go out. If there’s something you haven’t told me, like you’re attracted to women or hell… maybe you don’t feel attraction at all, you can tell me. No shame in any of those games, babe.”

“I like men. It’s just… we live in this swipe-left culture, where guys are only interested in hooking up. Like not even a first date—meet for the first time to bang. Then they’re off to the next one. I’m not that kind of girl. I’m a Virgo. We can rock your world, but you got to work for it a little before we do.”

I laugh. She did make the guys work for it when we were younger, that’s true.

“All right, either Rory or I will drop them off. Thanks, babe. I love you; you know that?”

“Back atcha, girl. Now go get pretty to show all those party skanks up.”

Party skanks? I never thought about them.Shit.

In the end, we decide Rory should take the girls because when I asked him if party skanks will be in the clubhouse, he informed me that skank is a judgmental word, but yes, the pieces—which stands for “pieces of ass,” butskankis judgmental?—will be there. I have to make myself look like I belong on the arm of a Lord.

The music blares from the clubhouse loud enough that I can sing along with the AC/DC song playing and I’m still inside Rory’s home.Yeah, yeah… I know about your dirty deeds, I think continuing to primp until my man finds me in the bathroom.

“Goddammit, Frankie, I wasn’t planning on carrying tonight,” he says. I look at him, puzzled.

“Uh, why would you need to carry?” The thought of him and guns still makes me nervous as hell, but the fact remains that this is him now and if I’m going to be with him, then I have to accept the new brother-of-the-Lords Rory.

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