These women were something else. It was like I was suddenly in a different conversation with different people. People who hadn’t treated me like I was a piece of toilet paper stuck to their heels for the past three months.
Apparently, the Kings of Mayhem were a clique these women wanted desperately into, and I was their golden ticket.
“Wait!” Audrey said, putting a hand up. Her smile slipped, but she quickly restored it. “You expect us to believe that you work at the clubhouse? Next you’ll be telling me you know the president personally.”
“If you mean the president of the Kings of Mayhem, then yeah. If you mean the president of the United States of America, then no.”
Her eyebrow went up and she folded her arms. “I don’t believe you.”
Another sweep of her cruel eyes rattled my last nerve, and the hair on the back of my neck bristled. “I don’t care if you do or you don’t.”
“Well, I guess if you’re such good friends, then you won’t mind showing us.”
A smugness twisted in her frosted pink lips as she jutted her chin to something over my shoulder. I swung around and felt my stomach knot when my eyes collided with Bull. He was standing with Ronnie and Roberta at the Kings of Mayhem booth where Red and Maverick were serving up lettuce cups full of blue crab.
“Well?” Audrey prompted.
I turned back to her. “Well, what?”
“Go over there and say hello…I mean, if you’re such good friends…”
I wanted to go over there like I wanted a bullet in my brain. The last time I’d spoken to Bull, he’d put his tongue down my throat.
And I’d let him.
Now my body acted appropriately, or inappropriately, at the memory.
Should I go over there like Audrey dared me?
Normally, I wouldn’t bother reacting to a challenge from someone I couldn’t care less about. But there was that small part of me that wanted to prove these frozen, mean girls wrong.
“Whatever…” I turned and walked away, taking my black sheep cupcakes with me.
The moment Bull saw me, a small smile curled on his stupidly perfect lips.
“I didn’t pick you for a barbecue kinda girl,” he said.
“And I didn’t expect to see the Kings of Mayhem president hanging around a middle school cookout.” I raised an eyebrow. “Or are you stalking me?”
“It’s all part of our community service, darlin’.”
“Sure, it is. I think the stalking scenario is more likely.”
I liked the way his smile pressed two dimples on either side of his perfect lips.
“We do it every year. We might work outside of the law sometimes, little bird, but we’re very much involved with our town.”
“Next you’ll be trying to tell me you go to church each week.”
“I do go to church every week, except, we call it chapel.”
“Hmmmm …”
“What does hmmmmm mean?”
“I was just wondering…”
“What?”
“Other motorcycle clubs refer to it as church.”
He looked mildly surprised. “Sounds like you’ve done your research.”
He was right. I had researched them.
And him.
“Why do the Kings call it chapel?”
He gave me a grin that was merciless as it slayed me. “Well, darlin, that’s because the Kings of Mayhem aren’t like any other club in the world.”
For a moment I lost myself in his beautiful face. He was too much. Too big. Too potent. Too tempting.
Stepping away from his magnetic pull, I reminded myself why I was over here.
“Do me a favor. Without being obvious, you see those women over there?”
“The ones who look like they’re about to star in an ’80s country music video…?”
“Yeah, they’re part of the PTA, and I have a feeling they’re big fans of yours.”
“Is that a fact?”
“And they really aren’t the nicest of ladies. Well, to me, anyway.”
“You want me to go over there and—”
“No, I don’t want you to go over there. Hell, they’d eat you alive.”
“Now I’m intrigued.”
“They seem to think I’m not good enough for anything in this town. Including working at the Kings’ clubhouse.”
For a moment his face darkened and his eyebrows pulled in. But in a second it was gone. “Now why would they think something like that?”
“Because they’re mean girls.” I glanced over at them. They were watching us. Audrey had her arms folded and her narrow eyes sharpened in my direction. “And the only thing mean girls respond to is a taste of their own medicine. Normally I wouldn’t care but…people like that shouldn’t think they can treat people like they’re worthless and get away with it.”
“Agreed. But I’m trying to work out where I fit into all of this.”
“They think I’m making it up when I say that I know you. And I know it’s ridiculous that I’m actually over here proving them wrong, when really I should’ve just told them to go to hell but—”
“You want me to kiss you, again?”
His words stepped on my tongue, stopping the verbal vomit.