Maybe they were just grateful for more investment in the town?
R
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re. License
Do I look like I was born yesterday?
Rachel
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re. License
Such lack of faith…
Maverick knows about the licenses?
R
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re. License
Of course. I notified him immediately.
I’ll be meeting with the club soon to get things on track.
Will you be there?
Rachel
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re. License
I should be. But no. I’ll be here. Thanks for keeping me in the loop.
R
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re. License
You’re not at the clubhouse that much, are you? Is everything okay?
Rachel
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re. License
Has hell frozen over…? How hard was it for you to ask me that?
R
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re. License
It wasn’t hard. Don’t act like I don’t care. Don’t make me ask again.
Rachel
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re. License
My father’s in pieces, Rachel. Literal pieces. They can tell me until they’re blue in the face that he’s getting better but he’s not.
So while he’s around, I’m not going to waste my time at the clubhouse when I should be with him. Even if he doesn’t have a clue that I’m here.
R
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re. License
I’ll be in later.
Rachel
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re. License
Bring the paperwork? I’ll glance through it.
R
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re. License
Will do.
Rachel
TWO
RACHEL
“Pink.”
I blinked, staring around the space with a mixture of bewilderment and distaste.
“Everything’s… pink.”
Link, clearly spying my aghast horror at the sight before me, snickered. “Thought you’d approve. Wasn’t like you preferred the old clubhouse, birthday girl.”
My brow furrowed at both his statement and endearment, the latter I ignored entirely. “I didn’t think sperm residue and beer were anyone’s idea of interior decoration but this… it’s so…”
His lips twitched. “Pink?”
“Yeah,” I breathed, twisting around as I stared at the pink accent wall, the pink sofa, the pink chairs. Everything was goddamn pink.
Even the white walls had a tinge of salmon to them like those opalescent nail varnishes I’d worn when I was a kid to try to discourage myself from biting my nails.
Nyx, ambling inside, arched a brow at me. “‘Sup with her?” he asked Steel who was sitting his ass down on a pink cushion.
I felt like I’d wandered into some kind of Barbie version of an MC clubhouse.
“She’s a little in awe at how much pink there is in here.”
Nyx turned around and peered at the place. “Looks like a bar to me.”
My eyes bugged—I understood how Bugs Bunny felt when they bugged out. “I think it’s a good thing that I’m the one who defends you in court if you fail to realize your bar looks like Barbie puked all over it.”
Link, his ever-cheerful self, grinned at me. “I like it.”
“You would,” I sniped, watching as he turned off the TV where President Davidson and his First Lady, Elizabeth, were shaking hands with some cops that had survived the recent Sparrow cull.
The PR stunt wasn’t fooling anyone.
The cops were as corrupt as ever—with or without the secret organization that had infiltrated every aspect of American bureaucracy tainting them.
Steel snorted. “Link’s never been scared of any threats to his masculinity.”
“No, I’ve transcended that part of evolution,” was his pious rejoinder. “I know where I like to stick my dick, and liking things shoved up my ass and having a preference for pink doesn’t make me gay.
“Anyway, it’s not like we had a say in it.”
I frowned. “You didn’t?”
“Nah. It’s revenge—”
Before he could finish, Maverick walked into the room, albeit stiffly, grumbling, “What’s wrong?”
“Rachel prefers our old bar,” Sin mumbled from behind the bar. He was clearly stocking the shelves with liquor.
“Are you going to be serving still?” I asked, puzzled. “That’s a Prospect’s job, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “Prefer to keep my hands busy as we talk. Might as well unpack the bottles.”
“Quin and Hawk should work here,” Nyx rumbled as he propped himself against one of the pink stools.
I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d seen a more discordant sight than black leather, denim, and flannel clashing with pink velour cushions on a rose gold-accented stool, but he apparently didn’t seem to notice.
Men were often unaware of the minutiae, but this?
The Old Ladies had to be joking around…
Either that or the brothers were downplaying the vomit-inducing amount of pink in their supposedly ultra-masculine space.
“You’re right; they should,” Link agreed. “That’ll get Hawk outta the strip joint. If I hear Amara bitching at Lily one more time about him coming home stinking of perfume, I’ll shoot my brains out.”