And I’ll be walking into the Lockup with a crown behind my ear, a dead husband in the ground, and a living biker at my back who looks at me like he wants to stand between me and every shadow but is trying, painfully, not to.
The clubhouse is too quiet for a place built out of cells. Morning light slides through high old windows, catching on iron bars that were left in place because the Kings of Anarchy have never been subtle about their sense of humor. Chairs are pushed in. The long table is clear except for a stack of unopened mail, two mugs, and an ashtray someone cleaned but did not move.
Lottie sits at the clubhouse kitchen table.
Waiting.
She has a mug of coffee in front of her, hair pinned up, floral blouse crisp, earrings shaped like tiny pistols today. Her face is calm. Too calm. The little crown behind her ear is hidden under soft brown highlighted hair, but I see it anyway. Not with my eyes. With the part of me that now understands marks can sit under skin too.
In Oregon, they called her Julip.
Here, she is Lottie again, and somehow that scares me more.
Derby stops beside me at the kitchen doorway. “You want me here?”
The fact that he asks almost undoes me.
I look at Lottie.
She doesn’t look at Derby. Only me.
“No,” I say softly.
Derby’s jaw tightens.
Not anger. Not at me.
Instinct fighting itself.
“You sure?”
“No.”
His mouth curves slightly, but his eyes stay dark. “Honest.”
“I need to do this alone.”
He nods once. “I’ll be outside.”
“Derby.”
He turns back.
“If I need you…”
“You say my name, I break the door.”
“It’s not locked.”
“Then I’ll open it aggressively.”
A laugh slips out before I can stop it.
Lottie lifts her mug. “Good Lord, the romance of outlaws. Poetry weeps.”
Derby gives her a look that would scare a saner woman.
Lottie sips coffee.