“What’s Monroe running from? Where’s her mom? No one remembers much about Needy. Where has Monroe been for over two decades? You know, the basics.”
I share what I know about Monroe’s past. A minute later, the three men frown at me.
“That’s it?” Bronco mutters.
“We’ve been together for two days. Before Topanga’s big show at Rooster’s, I barely spoke to Monroe.”
“Then, why call dibs on her?” Lowell asks.
“So, no one else could bang her before I got a chance to charm her into submission.”
“And your plan to charm her was to never speak?”
“Worked, didn’t it?”
Bronco rolls his eyes while Lowell’s constipation-frown hits epic levels. Through it all, Anders likely daydreams about getting out of this room.
“Well, if you don’t learn her story, I’ll have to find out the details through other people,” Bronco warns. “What would you prefer?”
“Her story is obvious. Needy couldn’t afford to live on her own. She moved to North Dakota. Monroe’s uncle is a big shit in his small part of the world. They lived there for long enough to pick up some of that Canadian-lite accent. Then, her mom got married off mysteriously. Now, her uncle wants to do the same with Monroe.”
“We need to track down Needy,” Lowell says.
“Let’s keep the background searches to a minimum,” I mutter, feeling the tension rise up my back. “We don’t want to do anything to draw her uncle’s attention to Elko. Who knows what kind of contacts or power he has?”
“Monroe knows,” Lowell says, crossing his arms. “Ask her who he is, and we’ll check him out instead of investigating her and Needy.”
“Fine, but if she’s spooked, she could run.”
“Run where?”
“Might chance contacting her mother. She’s never mentioned any friends or other family.”
“Yeah, but you’ve only known her forty-eight hours,” Bronco says, throwing my words back at me. “You don’t really know anything more than we do. We have no reason to doubt what she’s shared. After all, she was right about her father, but she’s a mystery living in our town.”
“She’s been a mystery for weeks.”
“True, but I don’t know the life story of the bunnies. Yet, if any of them had an issue that might affect the club, I’d want to know.”
I consider asking how Bronco would know if they had an issue since he didn’t know anything about them in the first place. Instead, I accept these men are spinning their wheels as pressure bears down.
That’s how shit rolls in the Woodlands. When something unexpected happens, everyone immediately overreacts to it. Two years ago, Anders brought a hippie chick he stole from a nearby cult to the community, and the club’s old ladies lost their fucking minds. They didn’t trust Pixie. What if she was a spy? They wanted to put Pixie on display to calm their fears. Except a party with her as the special guest only agitated the women more. Eventually, she got into a fight with my bitch cousin and my bitchier cousin-in-law.
Now, Monroe is the big change. The community will insist on freaking out about her before they’ll ever view her as part of our big happy family.
MONROE
I’ve never been a girly girl. When I played dolls as a kid, I had them fighting crime and beating up bad guys. As a teenager, I only wore enough makeup to hide any embarrassing blemishes. Zella wanted to be a runway model while I was happy to play her bodyguard. Uncle Clive even paid me twenty a week to make sure no one messed with his angel at school. He knew she was a dipshit with a big mouth and the other girls wanted to pound on her. Zella wasn’t a bad person, but she learned early on how she was special, even if she was stuck in Nowhere, North Dakota.
When I became a bunny, Jena took me to a salon to get glammed up. The stylist managed to make my hair shiny, which wasn’t easy after I fried it with bleach. My nails were painted a bright red, and any stray eyebrow hairs were ripped free.
I was taught how to emphasize my big lips and “exotic” eyes. That last part made me laugh. My family comes from the mud. We’re genetic garbage. But Needy said her mom might have cheated with a good-looking man in town. He liked slumming it, apparently. His positive genes overcame the Hobbs family’s negative ones enough to give Immee and Needy a step up in life. I got even luckier with a handsome dad. If Conor and I have a kid, he’ll be fucking gorgeous, no doubt.
Today, I visit the salon with Amity, Jena, Roni, and Lisa Leigh. They’re here to refresh themselves. I joined them because I don’t like sitting alone in the apartment, and Conor won’t be available until this afternoon.
My platinum blonde hair’s dark roots announce the passing of time. “I’m thinking of dying my hair back to brown,” I say to the brunette Amity on my right and the blonde Roni to my left. “I had this fantasy that I’d look like a sex bomb, but I feel like a stranger when I look in the mirror.”
“What about Conor?” Lisa Leigh asks from nearby where she gets her eyebrows threaded.
“He knows I have brown hair.”
“But he probably likes it blonde better,” Jena says.
“But what about what I like?”
Amity and Roni glance at Jena, waiting for her response. The Overlook’s den mother doesn’t answer. She no longer knows how to treat me. I was the newest bunny, needing her guidance and occasional nagging. Now, I’m blood to the second most important man in the Executioners. Can she still put me in my place when I mouth off?
“The blonde hair helped me hide,” I explain when Jena keeps her lips zipped, “but I’ll need to either fix my roots or go back to brown.”
The girls still think I’m hiding from an ex-boyfriend. That was the lie I thought would make sense to them.
“Hiding isn’t necessary now, is it?” Amity asks, standing behind me as she runs her manicured fingernails through my hair.
“Maybe not, but keeping a low profile can’t hurt.”
“If that asshole shows up here,” Lisa Leigh says, “it’ll be the last thing he does.”
I smile at the thought of the Executioners acting as a protective wall. Unfortunately, I’m too insecure about my new reality to believe Lowell and his tatted pals won’t hand me over to Clive if it fixes a problem. Sure, Conor won’t, but he’s just one guy, and younger than most other members.
While he might be president one day, I can’t see it. Conor never once mentioned taking over. And we babbled about a lot of random shit last night. I admitted I was afraid of balloons, and I’ve only told two other people this embarrassing fact about myself. Yet, during all our unfiltered babbling, Conor never mentioned the club’s future or his place in it.
The girls clearly think I should ask his opinion about my hair before I make a move. As bunnies, their images don’t belong to themselves. They can’t decide to go natural in the bikini region. Or get a short haircut. They need to ask permission from Jena. I don’t know who she asked when she was a bunny.
I’m unclear if I need to ask permission. I’m not a bunny, but that doesn’t make me a Woodlands honey, either. I don’t know my place. Not so different from how things worked back in Minton. I was powerful through my connection to Uncle Clive. Yet, I felt stuck on the outside. Since his blood didn’t run through my veins, I never quite fit anywhere.