Still Standing (Wild West MC 1)

“That’s what your dad says.”

He grinned. “That’s ’cause that’s the way it is.”

I studied him. His face was expressive. He was honest and straightforward, and it was clear he was a good kid

Maybe he could help me out.

“Do you…” I hesitated, “have any advice?”

His brows went up. “On dealin’ with Tat?”

I nodded.

He grinned big. “Just don’t be a bitch to her.”

I smiled back. “I think I can do that.”

His grin faded and he leaned into me to share, “She doesn’t have a lot of friends, Clara. She does here, the girls here like her, but the girls at home…” He shook his head again. “No. Don’t get that, she can be sweet when she’s not wound up. I think it’s ’cause girls, well…girls can be bitches. They’re jealous ’cause, she’s my sister and all, but there’s no denyin’ she’s hot.”

I nodded again. “Yes, Gear, your sister is definitely very pretty, and you’re right, girls can be mean, especially to girls who are pretty.”

He nodded back and went on, “So she’s got a ma who’s up in her face all the time, and the girls at school treat her like garbage. Fuck with her head, play with her. It’s freakin’ whacked. I try to shield her from it, but I can’t be everywhere all the time. No matter how hard I try to be that for her.”

Trying to protect his sister.

Truly…

So like his father.

“And girls,” he continued, “they don’t let much deter them when they’re set on bein’ bitches.”

“No,” I agreed ruefully. “They don’t.”

“So, you know, I reckon, a woman’s nice to her, eventually that’d break through.”

I was a little surprised at the F-bomb dropping so easily from the lips of a seventeen-year-old, like it was nothing which was how his father used that word.

But I didn’t mention that.

I’d ask Minnie about it later.

Though I suspected this was part of the biker life, what with them having a rulebook only with a couple of lines. I doubted they wasted one of them on teaching your children not to curse.

But my take from all of that was good and even hopeful.

Because I could be nice to Tatie.

And maybe, if I found a way in, I could be a woman in her life that she liked and trusted.

“Well, I can be nice,” I told Gear.

“Then I reckon you’ll break through.”

I smiled at him again. “Sounds like a plan.”

He smiled back.

I decided to change the subject. “Your car is very cool.”

His smile grew huge. “Yeah, freakin’ awesome. Chevy Nova, 1972. Classic. Dad and I worked on it for a year. It was a wreck. We worked on it out back, in his old barn.”

I had seen this “old barn.” I’d also wondered at its uses, since Buck, and now Gear, parked in the wide area by the side of the house where the steps up to the deck and front door were.

Now I knew.

“He never let on it was for me,” Gear kept speaking. “I thought he was fixin’ it up to sell it or use it himself. Then, on my sixteenth birthday, he drove up in it, Ink came with in Ink’s truck, and he gave it to me. Ma went nuts, but she couldn’t do shit. Not only is that car the freakin’ bomb, Dad and I worked on it together and it means freedom. For me and Tat. Best frickin’ present I ever got.”

“You’re tight with your dad too,” I surmised.

“He’s the shit,” Gear agreed on a mutter, looking out at the landscape.

Yes, I thought, in many ways he was.

Something to contemplate.

Like Gear, I studied the landscape.

We were comfortably silent for a while.

Gear broke the silence.

“What’s a Biker Babe Ritual?”

I turned to him to see he had his eyes on me and they were dancing.

“Um…did you see all those bags your dad had when we walked in?”

“Yeah.”

“Lorie, Minnie and Pinky took me shopping at biker babe shops today. We went to approximately three hundred of them, I tried on biker babe apparel and they talked me into buying the vast majority of it. That’s a Biker Babe Ritual.”

“Doesn’t sound fun,” Gear noted.

“Well, you’re not a girl. For a girl, something like that is fun, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t exhausting.”

“You goin’ for the biker babe look?” he asked, eyes still dancing.

“They assure me I can pull it off, but I must admit, I’m not very assured.”

“You’d probably look good in anything, Clara.”

I felt my belly get warm.

“That’s sweet, Gear.”

“But you look good now, as you are,” he continued. “You don’t need to be a biker babe. Take it from me, I’m a guy, you definitely work what you already are.”

I stared at him, stunned.

Something else to contemplate.

His lips twitched before he asked, “But, uh…what are you?”

“I’m a librarian.”

He returned my stare a second.

Then, just like his dad, he threw his head back and laughed, loud and deep.