“Hello, Cilla. What can I do for you?”
Now, I would laugh if I wasn’t here for a serious reason because Keys is looking behind me, at the side of me, and squinting while he does it. “What are you looking for, Keys?” I ask, knowing full well that he’s trying to see if I’ve brought a ghost in here with me.
“Nothin’,” Keys replies quickly, and his eyes are still darting around me.
“There are no ghosts here with me. Not even the three assholes. Now, I wanted to talk to you about the wedding planners. Do not post reviews that could ruin them. It is just ridiculous that they will lose money because they don’t want to create a biker wedding. It is what it is, Keys. I don’t care and I have an appointment to see a planner later, so hey, it is all good.”
Keys looks very shifty, and I squint my eyes at him. Nervous, yes, he is. I cross my arms, lean forward, and give him my undivided attention. Attention that he is trying to avoid.
“Um, I already did it,” Keys says sheepishly.
“No! What did you do?” I jump to my feet feeling panic rising.
Keys shrugs, “Look, we are bikers. We know what we are, but do more for this town’s benefit than they ever do for ours. We help damsels in distress all the fucking time. My brothers have been shot for it more times than I can count getting women awayfrom asshole men. But hey, we want a wedding and they won’t do it. Well, fuck ‘em, Cilla.”
I step closer and place a hand on Keys’ shoulder. “Show me.” It is all I am able to ask, but feel a little dread at what I might see.
“Well, this bitch is up to her neck in debt. Debt she isn’t going to be able to pay. Yet she thinks she’s above planning a wedding for a bike club. A legit bike club at that. Now, a few years ago, when we were a one-percenter club I could understand it, but we haven’t been that since Pres decided he wasn’t going to see any brothers end up in jail or deep in the ground. We’d seen that in his father's era, but not from Pres.” Keys gives me a proud look, and I give a small nod and wait for him to continue. “I set up AI to post reviews at staggered intervals. Stated her planning was shit, and she was in so much debt that they may not get their wedding as she’ll run off with the dollars that they pay her.”
“Oh, my…” I look at Keys when he chuckles to himself.
“It’s cool, actually. I set an algorithm for it to spin words around, rewrite what I said, and just keep putting it out there until I tell it to stop. That’s number one, the other one is a woman who is sleeping with someone’s husband. But the best thing is that she is married herself. So, I just dropped some stills from cams I accessed to her husband's email address. Job done. She’ll be out on her ear by suppertime.” Keys looks at me with such a look of satisfaction that I can’t help but shake my head, followed by a smile.
“Okay. But no more. I have a planner coming to the house to discuss things. Jet found her, and I reckon she’s a good one.”
Keys nods. “Give me her name and I’ll check out that she is good. But you need to get her here to the clubhouse so she can look over the place. With the wedding here, she’ll need to see it.”
“Yeah, okay, you’re right. She needs to see and then make suggestions with all the facts in hand.” I kiss Keys cheek before stepping towards the door. “Thanks, Keys.”
“You’re welcome, Cilla.”
“Maybe you should have been a wedding planner, Jet,” I say with light amusement.
Jet gives me a filthy look but then has that one-sided smirk that most bikers seem to have. I wonder if it is something they test for before they allow them to prospect?
“Come on, let’s take a look. You suggested it, Jet, so you are coming in with me.” I tuck my hand under his arm, and he leads me into the bridal shop.
It’s so white in here you’d think you were in the hospital. “I’m not sure this is the place for me, Jet,” I mumble when I see the woman behind a freestanding rack of dresses walk towards us.
Oh, dear. She is looking down her nose at us. Now, that is not a good sign, and we’ve already had women curl their noses up at us, and I’m not having that again. Or maybe I can ask my boys to help out.
“Why have you got that smile on your face?” Jet asks, but I ignore the question.
“We would like to see any dress and jacket fit for a bride that you may have, please.” Now, I ask her with all the grace I can manage, but it seems that it isn’t going to be easy here either.
“This store only supplies couture wedding dresses. We have a limited number of off-the-rack dresses. Aiming for custom-made, high-end, and hand-stitched designs that suit our clientsperfectly. One of a kind that exudes luxury, detail, and high costs. I’m not sure, dear, that you are the kind of client that we can cater to.”
“Hey, who the fuck do you think you are? If Cilla wants a dress made here, she can afford it, and some bitch like you doesn’t have the right to say all that shit you just did,” Jet snarls and as he does his spittle flies in the woman’s face.
Tank and Pyro I can see are standing with arms folded over their chests and looking more than slightly angry. Honestly, I’m more worried about Pyro doing something he shouldn’t. What I don’t expect is Tank to close his eyes and appear like a man made of fog.
Jet points at Tank, his eyes about ready to fall out of his head. The woman who I didn’t get her name screams, then faints dead to rights in front of me. I place my hand over my mouth as a little giggle escapes.
“Well, Tank, that’s new, and I like it,” I coo, which has him strutting around with his chest puffed out.
“Holy Mother of God!” Jet mumbles, and I grab his arm to steady him.
“It’s okay, Jet. He’s not going to hurt you,” I say as I turn and wink at Tank, right before leaving the woman on the floor and strutting out of the shop, dragging Jet by his arm along with me.