And I’d made another trip in to see Dr. Stone who downgraded me to a normal sling “out of an abundance of caution” that I could take off as soon as I felt ready.
So everything was, you know, settled.
It was time.
But my stomach was in painful knots as I pulled up to the clubhouse with the intention of staying for a long weekend.
It wasn’t that I thought I wouldn’t like his people. That wasn’t it at all. I’d met several of them, and they’d all been really great.
I guess I was more worried that maybe they wouldn’t like me. Especially the women.
Though, objectively, maybe the research I’d done into biker “old ladies” was not realistic. Maybe they weren’t quite so mean and territorial.
I would just have to wait and see, I guess.
“You guys ready?” I asked, which was a stupid question because Alma and Lyle were already whimpering to be let out because they saw their doggy friends playing around out back by the pool.
They, it seemed, had no worries about their little trip.
Meanwhile I was taking the shortest steps possible toward the backyard, following the overeager bigger dogs while my smaller two hung around my ankles, likely picking up on my strained mood.
“Seriously, Alaric?” a female voice called, making me turn to find a pretty blue-haired woman standing near the pool with a baby on her hip. “Tell me you are doing that because Remy’s girl is coming,” she said, sounding amused as the guy continued to do push ups on the cement around the pool. “Men, am I right?” she asked, turning toward another woman, a pretty, curvy blond, with a smile.
“No one here wants your sweaty body,” the blonde, Saskia, who was Alaric’s sister, called.
“Way I hear it, she thinks my dad-bod is charming,” Eddie called from his position behind the grill. “Ladies like pillows to sleep on, not rocks,” he added as he flipped something on the grill. “Speaking of my secret admirer,” he said, shooting me a kind smile as he spotted me. “Hey, there, mama, welcome to the shitshow!”
“Really? That’s how we welcome people to our home?” Harmon asked, rolling her eyes. “Hey, Lark!”
“Hey, Harmon,” I said, shooting her a smile that I hoped didn’t look as worried as I felt.
“Hey, girl. Can you do us a favor and eye-bang Alaric for a second so he stops showing off?” she asked, smirking.
“Hey Alaric,” I called. “Looking like you stepped out of a Greek sculpture,” I said, getting chuckles from Harmon and Saskia.
“Hear that, man? She thinks you got a small dick,” Eddie called, making everyone laugh.
“Really, though, what is that about?” Harmon asked. “They all have small packages.”
“Making themselves feel better, I guess,” Eddie said, shrugging.
“It was the standard of male beauty,” Donovan, in his fancy slacks shorts, declared as he walked outside with a big cooler. “I think it was Aristophanes who said in one of his plays that guys need to have wide shoulders, small tongues, strong buttocks, and a small prick. His words, not mine. Heya, Lark. How’s the shoulder doing?”
“We’re just going to breeze past my man here spouting off Greek philosophers and shit?” Eddie asked.
“Playwright, not philosopher,” Donovan corrected.
“Yeah, whatever he was, think we can all assume his pants had lots of room in ‘em,” Eddie said.
“What was the issue with large tongues?” Saskia asked.
“Figure his head game left something to be desired,” Alaric, done with his pushups, said, making his sister scrunch up her face because, well, who wanted to hear their brother talk about oral sex?
Okay.
Maybe I had been worried over nothing.
Everyone seemed really fun and laid-back.