Gemma makes an appearance, striding over to me long enough to let me know that a ride home would be provided once a course of action had been decided upon by her boys. "I promise you, sweetheart, we will fix this." She assures me, "Your bakery will be up and runnin' in no time."
I guess she's taking off, judging my the way she hefts her purse onto her shoulder, and that's okay-it's been a long day for her, too, what with the babysitting and all. "What about my car?" I ask, not that I could drive it in my current condition. Still, I wonder at its whereabouts.
Gemma does her chin-grab move again, making sure she has my full attention. How could she not, gripping my face like that?
"It's taken care of, baby." She kisses my cheek, surprising me before calling out to a hang-around that I needed a refill on my coffee before disappearing out the door in a blaze of hot Old Lady. Dutifully, my cup is refilled and this time I'm actually offered cream and sugar, the hang-around clearly intimidated by Gem even in her absence. I shake my head-nothing could improve this coffee.
"How clean's that couch over there?" I ask instead, changing the subject.
I'm gesturing to one of the many love seats in the room and the guy in front of me looks suitably dubious. "Not very."
I sigh at his answer. "Fuck it," Much to his (and quite frankly, my own) surprise I go over to it anyway, stretching out, propping myself up just enough to keep my coffee elevated. It had been a long fucking day. Before I know it, I'm dozing with the empty cup sitting between my knees, snapping out of it by the chapel doors being flung open, startling me fully awake in a way the caffeine hadn't been able to achieve.
Juice is one of the first men out, and I see him zero in on my now-vacated bar stool immediately, walking right past me in his haste to jump someones ass. "Where the fuck is she?" I can hear the New York accent in his voice now that he's good and worked up over something and I find myself wondering idly if that always happens when his heat rises, making myself blush immediately. I was a grown woman. I was being ridiculous.
"Someone shoulda been watchin' her, numbnuts," Numbnuts is falling all over himself trying to explain, but all that's coming out is a stutter, and I take pity on him, using the flat of my hands to slide myself into an upright position, skillfully keeping the mug, although empty, in place. "Juice,"
All it takes is me calling his name across the room to snap him out of his fury, or at least shove it down some, and he whips around, visibly relaxing once he sees me. This is weird. It's familiar, comforting to call to him, for him to come after me. It's also the last thing I need.
Blessedly, I'm distracted from the bizarro-world my thoughts are heading into by the Sweetbutts (ew) and their freak sonar hearing, emerging from wherever they were at the sound of the Men's voices, all of them assuming (and rightly so) that the welcome home party was back in full swing now that Club business had been taken care of. Juice ignores them in favor of crossing the room towards me and that makes me feel warm as he reaches me in a few long strides, plucking the coffee mug from between my legs making me blush like a twelve-year-old all over again before offering his hand.
I take it with absolutely no hesitation, and he pulls me to my feet where I stand almost, but not quite, eye-to-eye with him.
I blush even harder once I realize that it's been months since a man has held my hand or been anywhere near the space between my knees, even in an innocent enough way, but that this kind of physicality is nothing to Juice-it's commonplace, meaning nothing more than a kiss on the cheek from Gemma.
What a goody-two-shoes I am to feel any kind of stirring from this. "Come on," Juice tells me, taking a step back but keeping hold of my hand.
"I'll take you home." Ah, I think, I am being dismissed. And really I don't blame him, I think as I take a look around the room at the scantily clad women, one of whom has found, much to the MC's delight, the stripper pole in the corner and is working it for all she's worth, which, I'm assuming, is a fist-full of crumpled dollar bills. Even knowing what I do about this world, while not much, it's enough to keep a sane person kissing ass, I balk. Or maybe my blood-alcohol level does. Either way, my feet stay planted stubbornly just where they are. "Wait." I protest. "Just hang on a minute. Everyone that was in there knows what went down, knows who I am, right?" This is not difficult to surmise, and Juice nods an affirmative. He doesn't look happy about it, but he does it anyway.
"I don't know anything, Juice," I'm taking care to use his name, to integrate myself with him as much as possible, in hopes that this butters him up a little.
"My future is completely up in the air, my car is AWOL, and I'm trusting you people here, but I don't even know most of your names. In fact the ONLY thing I know right now is that I'm going to have a bitch of a hangover in the morning. So fill me in here, Juice. Make it okay for me to trust you guys." I plead.
"Okay?" Juice is endlessly patient with me, something I love him a little for, and drops my hand, pointing to his brothers scattered throughout the great room and giving a name to each one. Dimples, I'm delighted to learn, is actually called Happy. Once he's recited the last man's name, I feel a little better about the whole situation, which is nuts but true, and I try to commit as much as I can to memory. Incredibly, Juice smiles. It's like he gets it.
"The guys that torched your place are called the Rebels." His smile goes ironic at this, a nod to the stupidity of their existence.
"A rival MC, a bunch of white-supremacy assholes. They've been going after everyone they think is associated with the club, including Jax's old lady. We're going to take care of this, Charlie, I promise. We'll make it right."
So I'm not crazy to trust them. That's a relief. "Okay?"
I exhale the breath I hadn't been aware of holding and smile. Or try to, anyway-the effort feels a little wobbly.
"Okay," I agree. "Let's go."
