“Wow, what a vision,” he said with an approving grin as I slipped off my stool to greet him and he got a full look at me in my short black dress, tight at the hips, thighs and ass but blousy up top to hide the lines of the wire beneath it.
I shook my curled hair over my back to give him a clean shot as he leaned forward to kiss my cheek.
He smelled like expensive deodorant but also a little bit like a teenage boy trying too hard.
“Warren, thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me,” I gushed as his hand found my lower back and escorted me to one of the more intimate booths at the back of the bar.
I spotted Nova dressed in civilian clothes at one of the tables talking up a pretty waitress even as his eyes tracked us across the room. There was a man with a stern face and too-good posture sitting alone at the bar nursing something that could have been a gin and tonic but was probably just Sprite. Watchful eyes surrounded me, but I still hated Warren’s hands on my body.
“So,” he started as we settled in, “already tired of your walk on the bad side, eh? The filth getting to be too much for you?”
I smiled at him even as I thought he was a complete dumbass for hitting on the well-known wife of The Fallen MC President. He was either incredibly cocky or incredibly dumb. My money was on both.
“Honestly, Warren, I don’t know what I was thinking. He’s so…” I struggled to find something bad to say about Z. “Big, just like this big oaf, you know?”
He nodded sagely. “I could have told you that, Louise. I understand that he got to you at a vulnerable time but I thought I’d made it clear to you that I would always be here to help.”
He opened his hands on the table for me to place mine into.
I did so with a bright smile, calling on all my years as the dutiful daughter of Benjamin and Phillipa Lafayette in order to pull it off.
“If it was a matter of money, I know I’m a high school biology teacher but you should know, I’m a man of means,” he continued.
“Oh?”
He smiled slyly. “You obviously don’t care if it’s dirty as long as it’s money if you’re with Garro so yes, Louise I’m a man of means. I can keep you in the lifestyle you’ve become accustomed to with your parents. Richer even, if things go right and my investments keep turning a profit.”
A server appeared without being asked with a bottle of champagne. We were quiet as the woman uncorked it then served us each a glass. He watched me the whole time with a small smile of self-satisfaction as if he had always known I would cave for him and it had only been a matter of time.
His thumb rubbed back and forth over my engagement ring and wedding band.
“What are we celebrating?” I asked as he handed me my glass.
“A return to the rightful order,” he cheered, clinking our glasses together.
I took a small sip and then put the glass down because I hated the sweet, bubbles enough that the taste made me want to gag.
“Did Garro even give you a proper wedding?” he asked me sorrowfully. “A girl like you deserves a big day, Louise.”
He was lecturing me about what I did or did not deserve, about what kind of girl I was. It was exactly this kind of pedantic condescension that I hated most about polite society.
I thought about my perfect wedding. Remembered the plastic tiara I’d worn that proclaimed Bride with a short veil that Harleigh Rose and Cress had found at the dollar store in town. The bouquet of beautiful red roses that Nova had splurged on from the hospital shop and the enormous red velvet cake in the shape of Clifford the Big Red Dog that Maja had bought off some baker who’d had a last-minute cancellation. Zeus had the rings because he’d sent King out to buy them, two black titanium bands that Hannah had just stoked at Revved & Ready.
My grandfather had done the service and it was beautiful in the way that forgiveness is beautiful because I knew my family would never really understand my love for Zeus and his world but it felt right that they should pass me over to him, to someone who always had and always would understand me better.
Afterward, after Zeus had kissed me as long as my grieving lungs would allow, someone put on old school rock music and everyone cracked open Coke and Sprite because there wasn’t any alcohol allowed in the hospital and we’d all eaten cake with our hands and laughed with each other until I was too tired to socialize. And then even though it was our wedding night, Zeus hadn’t copped even a feel. He’d just held me all night, stroking my hair and whispering to me about all the things we were going to do when I was well.