Page 34 of Freak
“It’ll have to be,” he said and shoved himself free of the booth. “I’m goin’ back to the Hall.” A thought struck him, and he leaned on the table and stared hard at Kellen. “Abigail’s gonna be there today. You steer clear, asshole. Don’t you even look at her.”
“It wasn’t me, Mel. I wouldn’t do anything to her. She’s always been good to me.”
“She’s always been good to everybody, your asshole nephews included. She’s an honest-to-God good person. Didn’t stop ‘em from hurting her anyway.”
He shoved away from the table and stalked out of the diner.
Chapter Ten
Abigail pulled hertruck onto the Night Horde compound around half past noon. She’d been aiming for noon, but Vivien Lewis, a manager at the Keller Acres Bed & Breakfast, had called in a rush order for soaps for the guest rooms, so she’d taken time to box that up properly and drop it off on her way to the clubhouse. That also gave Mel some time to get back from his errand.
As she rolled through the large gravel lot, Abigail felt a small twitch of anxiety. Vehicles nearly filled this lot, and quite a few—maybe most—weren’t familiar. The cars and trucks, yes, she could name the owners for most of those. But there were at least twice as many motorcycles as usual. Twice as many riders as she knew—and many of the bikes had Montana plates.
The Montana charter had arrived a whole day earlier than expected. Mel had texted her to let her know, but she hadn’t fully comprehended how many more people that meant.
Though she lived a quiet life miles away from most people, though she thus spent most of her days without much human company—or had, at least, before she and Mel grew close—and was content in the quiet, Abigail wasn’t shy. She enjoyed people and was keenly interested in the ways they lived their lives. Meeting new people was generally a delight.
The Night Horde MC was a somewhat different story. She knew all the Missouri guys, of course, and their families, and got along with them all—she got along with pretty much everyone, but most of the Horde she sincerely liked—but there was a mystique about the clubhouse that made her a teeny bit uncomfortable.
It wasn’t a danger thing, it was about belonging. This building had a strong energy of exclusivity. The people who came to this compoundbelongedhere. They were a unit together, and Abigail was not part of that unit. She felt her outside-ness keenly and had generally avoided the clubhouse, even as a casual visitor to one of their big parties.
For all the wisdom she’d gleaned in her various studies, for all the work she’d done in her life to know herself and be comfortable in her own skin and not worry about what other people thought, Abigail still liked to fit in. That was simply human nature. People had different needs and thresholds for comfort, but when it came right down to it, every single human who’d ever lived—heck, every single animal who’d ever lived—was most comfortable where there was least friction. Where their fit was best.
For Abigail, though, there was an extra dimension. When she couldn’t find her fit in a situation—or worse, when she perceived (or imagined) that there was no fit for her and her presence was only tolerated, that discomfort manifested as physical pain. It gave her a terrible headache and upset her stomach.
Some things about the human psyche were, apparently, impervious to knowing better. They rooted in so early and so deeply that all the self-talk in the world couldn’t dig them out.
Mel argued strenuously that, now that she was ‘his lady,’ she absolutely was part of the Horde unit. His perspective was real, important, and true. But it wasn’t entirely correct, not yet. Mel’s claiming of her, and their relationship together, would bring her into the Horde family eventually, but until then, Abigail would have to master some old and cranky demons before she felt comfortable there.
The realization that she was about to come face to face with about a dozen strangers in kuttes who belonged more in a place they’d never been than she did having lived in Signal Bend all her life had her halted in the lot, staring at that too-long stretch of Harleys like they were an army of fairy-tale monsters preparing to charge at her.
“Stop this,” she muttered aloud. “You are a fully grown woman. You meet new people all the time. You like meeting people. Maybe there’s a grand new friend in there.”
Squaring her shoulders, she scanned the bikes again and breathed out most of her anxiety at the sight of Mel’s. While she didn’t yet feel she belonged among the Horde, she did know her fit with Mel.
They’d been a couple for about a month, and Abigail could feel things inside her changing. Ideas she’d considered fixed in her mind were reforming. Her needs and wants were shifting. All of it was subtle, she didn’t feel tremendously different, but also it was dramatic, and shedidfeel different.
