So, we cooked.
And I found out that Harleigh Rose was hilarious, confident in the way of only the most well-loved kids, and utterly genuine. She gabbed away the entire time about boys (of all whom seemed to like her but none of whom she seemed to like), girls (much the same deal), and how awesome The Fallen was. I wondered if Zeus and King had elected her the MC spokesperson because she waxed on about how they organized huge charity fundraisers every year, how well renowned the garage was in the automotive community and how cool it was to grow up with so many ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles.’ It struck me hardest when she talked about her mum and how much of a ‘total bitch’ she was but how much it meant to her to have all the biker babes to talk to about things she couldn’t go to her mum about.
I wanted that.
It was obvious that Harleigh Rose noticed because when we all sat down to dinner at my rickety dining table that I’d bought from a garage sale for forty bucks, she’d informed the guys that they were going to throw a BBQ to celebrate the start of Spring Break and to properly introduce me into The Fallen.
I was terrified and I objected until I was blue in the face, but both Garro men seemed to think it was an awesome idea so by the time I served the apple pie I’d made for King that morning, the news had spread through the biker network and plans were set.
Which led me to that moment in the changing room with Tayline, trying on clothes because Harleigh Rose had raced up to my bedroom after dinner to check my closet for ‘party gear’ and found nothing suitable. She’d rounded up some of the biker babes, calling it a ‘total fashion emergency, like ‘9-1-fuckin’-1’ and dragged me out of the house to meet them all at Revved & Ready.
My heart had been lodged somewhere in my throat even before I’d seen Tayline. Telling more people our secret didn’t seem ‘careful’ of us but when I’d tried to express that to King, he’d laughed and said, “babe,” in that way of his that was supposed to be enough of an answer.
I told him he did that and I didn’t like it, which made him laugh some more. But then he’d said, “Babe, The Fallen is a fuckin’ vault. You think anyone is gonna nark on the fact that the son of the Prez is fuckin his teacher? Not fuckin’ likely.”
When he put it like that, it was difficult to argue with him.
Tayline knowing was a whole new kettle of fish.
For one, she was my friend and she now knew that I’d kept a pretty colossal secret from her. Our friendship was new but I loved it, loved her. She was tiny but enormously personable, pretty but unafraid of the ugly truth. Tayline Brooks was the kind of woman who lived the way I wanted to live and I’d be crushed if I’d lost out on having a friend like her because she decided I was a gross perv for sleeping with a student.
Then, of course, there was the unassailable fact that she was my colleague at the school where said student and I conducted our professional (and sometimes overly personal) relationship. Ethically, she was honor bound to tell the Headmaster about my inappropriate transgressions. This time tomorrow morning, I could be out of a job and known across Entrance as a whore.
“Told you that night in McClellan’s,” her soft voice pulled me away from my miserable inner monologue. “A man without respect for the law isn’t a man without respect for anything. That kind of man sees a woman he wants, he’s gonna have her even if she doesn’t want him at first. Fuckin’ wear her down ‘til she’s can’t even remember the reasons he wasn’t supposed to be her dream man.”
I slowly turned around to look at her, my heart jumping from my throat to my mouth. I felt like I was going to throw it up.
Her huge brown eyes were wide and sad on me. “I’m trying to tell you that I understand. First off, the kid is sinfully hot. Like honestly, they shouldn’t send a student like that to anywhere but a monastery. Even then,” she shook her head, “he could probably give them some lessons in corruption if you know what I’m saying.”
Despite myself, I snorted with laughter.
She sobered quickly. “I’m telling you I get it but I’m also really worried, Cress. I know you look like a Disney Princess but this is real life and I think you know enough to understand that happily ever afters don’t happen real often. Not saying it couldn’t happen for you and King but given the circumstances, you can’t think the odds are in your favor.”