***
“This is the clubhouse,” Ellen said.
I looked around, noting that it wasn’t much different from Tunnel’s old chapter’s clubhouse. The place, although it looked more like a house than a huge room, was really an enormous man cave. There were huge flat screen televisions hanging on each wall, and on one wall, there were even two.
It was decorated in a muted brown that would be able to hide dirt and grime really well.
And the chairs. Yeah, those were really similar. It was like they’d all went in, sat on some couches, and bought the ones that were the most comfortable. None of them matched, and some of them were even different styles of furniture completely.
“It’s…nice,” I grinned.
And it was. It really was nice. Well, as long as you didn’t care if shit matched, which I did.
She started to chuckle, and once again I was surprised to find her there.
I’d arrived with Silas just a few minutes ago, and she’d been one of the first people I saw as I walked up the steps.
She was with her husband…who was definitely not the same man that she’d gone out with to the ballgame a week ago.
I hadn’t yet seen the other man that I saw her with at the ballgame, but for some reason, I knew he was there. It was as if I could sense him.
“Not to sound rude or anything, but when you went to that ballgame, you were with another man,” I whispered quietly. “I don’t understand.”
Her husband, who was close but not directly at her side, because he was giving us the illusion of privacy, snorted.
Ellen turned to look at him. “Jessie,” she indicated to the man who hadn’t let her out of his sight. “That’s my husband. The other man I was with was Ghost. He’s another one of the brothers here, and he didn’t want to go to the game by himself. I was the only one free, even though I’m sure he would’ve preferred to go with anyone other than me. Apparently, I’m a talkative person, and I annoy people while they watch baseball games.”
She said that last part staring a hole into the side of her husband’s head, and I had to pinch my lips together to keep from laughing.
This couple, I could see. Ellen and that other man? No. No way in hell. He’d been too intense. Too masculine. Too scary.
I couldn’t see why anybody would want to be with him. Well, except me. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
And then, as if he sensed my thoughts, he appeared on the back porch; the only thing that lit his way was a small green light outside. It’d been a light I’d asked about when I’d gotten here.
Apparently, green lights were for veterans. According to Ellen, they kept a green light burning here all day, every day, in support of veterans everywhere.
I’d never been a veteran, and neither had Tunnel, but we’d both known many veterans, and a few were important people in our lives. Hence the reason I thoroughly approved of this gesture, as I made a mental note to get a green light bulb for my house as soon as I found the nearest Wal-Mart.
“Ghost is here,” I murmured to no one in particular.
But both Jessie, the man Jessie was talking to, and Ellen all turned.
A hush came over the room after that, and the moment that Ghost came inside, all eyes were on him.
“What?” he rasped.
And yes, I do mean rasped. He had a smoker’s voice. One that said he smoked and smoked a lot.
Which kind of disheartened me a little bit. I didn’t like smokers. My father had been one, and even the faintest whiff of smoke reminded me of the man who loved to beat the shit out of my mother, often while he had a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
A big man that had been introduced to me as ‘Big Papa’ earlier, walked toward him and said a few words.
I saw the moment Ghost realized that I was in the room.
His eyes swept over the room, stopping on me, before he quickly looked away.
He turned back to Big Papa as he pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and slipped them on, causing me to slump a bit in disappointment.
I wanted to see his eyes. Badly.
But with him all the way across the room, that obviously wasn’t going to happen, especially considering that I had really poor eyesight.
It was my heart, though, that grabbed my attention with the way that it was beating out of control. With just that one single sweep of the room, his gaze briefly locking on me, and I was nearly shaking in my pretty, new boots.
“I really like those leggings,” Ellen broke into my contemplation. “I wouldn’t have thought that the octopus print would’ve been very cute, but they are adorable. I sell leggings at my store. I’ll have to see if I can order any like that.”
I looked down at my leggings.
They were my primary wardrobe choice now after a woman from work got me my first pair for my birthday. Every time a pop-up sale would show up in my Facebook news feed—I followed over ten leggings sale pages—I would buy at least one pair. Most of the time, it was more like two or three pairs.
Now, I owned more than fifty-five pairs, and I probably would’ve owned even more than that had I not given away a few pairs to friends as birthday presents over the last year.
Yes, I was addicted to leggings.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I didn’t think they’d be all that cute either, to be honest. I originally ordered these for a friend for her birthday, but when I saw them after I got them, I couldn’t give them away like I’d originally intended. This is one of my favorite pairs.”
She nodded. “I tried to wear leggings out of the house once, and my husband told me I needed to go change. I’d love to have some, but they wouldn’t be practical.”
“That’s a good thing, Elle,” Jessie offered his two cents, not bothering to act like he wasn’t listening to our conversation any longer. “Because I’d seriously have to spank your ass, and those leggings wouldn’t offer much in the way of protection.”
I grinned. He was, of course, correct.
“I don’t have a husband to tell me no.”
I heard something crunch behind me, and saw that Ghost was standing there, next to the food table, holding a beer can in his hand that he’d somehow crushed.
I looked up to see his eyes, but was caught with the glare of the glasses covering them.
He stared, but that gaze was too intense for me, so I looked away.
And I felt him there, for at least twenty minutes, while he spoke quietly to another member of the club, this man was huge and bulky with kind eyes and had been introduced to me earlier as Sunshine…or something similar to that.
I felt like my skin was about to burst into flames.
“Can you give me a drink, Mister?”
I turned at the sound of my child’s voice, and I saw that she was standing in front of Ghost, pointing to a pitcher of tea.
Normally, she would’ve just gotten it herself, but the pitcher was completely filled to the brim, and she didn’t have the arm strength yet to lift it up and hold it without spilling.
“Yeah, Sugar Girl. I can get you a drink,” Ghost said, picking up the pitcher as easily as he would lift his own hand. “You got a cup?”
My entire body locked.
Sugar Girl.
It could’ve been a coincidence. Sure, it could. It had to be.
No one else would know to call her that but my husband. It had to be a coincidence!
Memories of the first day that Tunnel called our child ‘Sugar Girl’ assaulted me.
“Go give Daddy a kiss, baby,” I patted my daughter’s diapered bottom.
She toddled over to her daddy, who was in his chair in front of the TV, still in his police uniform, and tried to pull herself up.
Automatically, Tunnel hooked an arm under her diaper-clad butt and pulled her into the chair.
She did the rest of the work and scrambled up his chest to get to his face.
Then she started laying kisses on his face. Except they weren’t normal kisses. They were open-mouthed kisses with lots of slobber and a little bit of tongue.
“Ohh, thank you, Sugar Girl.” Tunnel said laughingly. “I love you, too.”
Sienna gave him a gummy smile, her lone white tooth glinting along the bottom of her mouth, and then fell face forward into his chest.
And, just like she always did, she was out like a light a few seconds later.
“I wish I had your superpowers,” I murmured.
He grinned, then lifted his forearm to wipe the drool from his face.
“One day you’ll be her everything, baby. So, right now, just let me enjoy our Sugar Girl.”
He had no clue how right he was. He’d enjoyed the best of Sienna’s baby years and had died right before she’d turned two.
A lump formed in my throat at those thoughts.
My husband had a name problem. He never once called any of us by the same name. Sometimes he would cycle through about four names. For our daughter it was Sienna, Dee, a shortened version of her middle name, Sugar Girl, or See. For me, it was Mina, Minnie, Philly, a shortened version of my actual name, Philomina, or Min. I never knew what would come out of my husband’s mouth, so we really had to be ready to answer to any of them.
“You okay, girl?” Ellen asked.
I nodded.
“Would you like to meet the rest of the girl squad?” she asked. “They’re all in the family room, or they would’ve been out here to greet you by now.”
No, no I did not. Because doing that would require my leaving this spot, and I liked this spot. The man, Ghost, was like a wall of fire at my back. Even though he wasn’t touching me, I could feel his heat practically seeping into me.
“How’s work going for you?” I heard asked behind me.
“Good and bad,” came Ghost’s reply.
I froze at that raspy voice.
“Mina?”
I was frozen in between leaving and staying, and I couldn’t get my feet to move.
I turned to look over my shoulder at the man at my back and was unsurprised to find his eyes on me.
What was it about this man that made me act like this?
Ellen touched my arm, and the connection between us was severed.
I took a step away from Ghost. Then another, and another, until I was all the way across the room.
“Where to?” I asked breathlessly.