Beverly was sitting on the edge of her bed looking at her hands when Leo called her.

 

“Yes?” she said.

 

“I’ve got some fried, greasy chicken tenders, onion rings, shrimp, and cheese sticks here — enough for four, really. Feel like getting comfortable with some incredibly unhealthy food?”

 

She smiled. “Couldn’t you have just as easily asked for chicken Caesar salad?”

 

“Maybe, but I have a rep to protect, ya know? Besides, salad and saddle bags?”

 

She pictured this and agreed. “Probably not the best pairing. But more to the point, I would like you to be here. I’m feeling rather low at the moment. Yvette is really torn up, and there’s nothing I can do to help her.”

 

“I’m on my way then with comfortable food and intentions.”

 

“See you soon,” she said, and broke the connection.

 

That was nice, she thought. Really nice.

 

She hadn’t been sure she would occupy any space in his head tonight, with everything that was going on. She had nearly convinced herself that there were things afoot which would be far more important than her. It was good to know that wasn’t the case.

 

It was also good to know that going to Yvette didn’t make her one to be looked on with contempt. Not that anyone’s contempt mattered to her. Yvette had no one, and Bev wasn’t going to let that happen. More than twenty women were in that bar tonight who should have been beside her as well, but that wasn’t something to hold against them, either.

 

Bev chose her ground, chose who to ride in with and who to ride out of there with. She remained confident that those two decisions were well meant and well made.

 

Yvette hugged her for a long time before running up the stairs to her apartment and to Crash. She had almost asked if Yvette wanted to stay the night with her.

 

She had told Yvette, “If you need me, no matter what time or what reason, just call. I’ll be here.”

 

More than an hour now, and no call. She wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Would Crash take this out on her? She had never mentioned Crash being violent with her in the past. The urge to call Yvette was strong, just to get a feel for how it was going. Just to make sure she was alright.

 

Why Yvette loved Crash, Bev couldn’t guess, but she did. Bev sort of envied that kind of no-matter-what love Yvette shared with him. Yvette had certainly showed the depth of her resolve by going to him tonight. It would be so nice to find out in the morning that her love was reciprocated. Something deep in her gut told her that if Crash was the kind of man who could reciprocate that level of love, he would never have been in the position he was in tonight.

 

Laying back on her bed, t-shirt and panties still on but the rest draped over the bedroom chair, she thought about the process of the tribunal. She’d never witnessed anything like that before. The emotional tension in the room had been amazing. People were obviously torn. Leo was probably right when he suggested that most of those in attendance were called by Crash and told it was finally Leo’s night to fall. They came to see Crash’s victory, not Leo’s.

 

Did Leo think of it as a victory? Glancing at him on the way to the door with Yvette, he hadn’t appeared to be happy in the slightest. In fact, he had looked so morose, the urge to go to him had been intense. Maybe he was looking for comfort just as much as offering it to her.

 

By morning, no later than eight, she figured, the whole club would have heard the news. Would they keep silent about what Leo was asked to do, as Danny requested? She had the feeling they would. The Woody and Emma wound held a lot of sway with these people.

 

Was this part of what Leo had been talking about in the farmer's market? He had told her that he was into some things which could not be discussed, or even hinted at. It was obvious to her at that time that at least one of those things was following him. She saw him searching for multiple watchers, but she knew a bird dog look when she saw one. Leo had spotted at least one watcher that he believed to be dangerous or important enough to let her know he was in some heavy shit. But that was all he could let her know.

 

“Six weeks, he said,” she told her ceiling. “Six weeks.” It made sense that whatever he was into would be growing more intense, not less, during these last six weeks. Countdowns were used most often for heralding explosions: rockets, bombs, lift-offs.

 

She heard his engine coming down the lonely road, and she got out of bed to meet him on the porch.

 

“With legs like that, you never need to be lonely, that’s for sure,” he said as he came up her stairs with two bags of grease-soaked food.

 

“Think that’s all it takes to find a good man? Flash some leg and reel him in?” she countered.

 

“Seems to be working on me rather well, but I guess we still need to figure out if I’m a good man or not,” he said, stepping through the door.

 

“Are you fishing for a complement? That feels so below you,” she told him, following him inside. She took the bags of food from him to the kitchen.

 

“Maybe I was a little, but, well, I wish I could discuss things with you that I can’t right now, and it makes me feel like I’m not being honest with you,” he said, taking off his jacket and then pulling off his chaps.

 

She came out with two plates and set them on her coffee table before going back for sauces. “Which you aren’t, and you’ve already told me you can’t be. You even said it would be better to wait a few weeks until whatever it was, was over. I declined then, and I decline now.”

 

“Danny was quite impressed by you tonight,” he said, changing the subject.

 

“Impressed?”

 

“By the way you stood by Yvette.”

 

“She’s my best friend. There was nothing else I could have done,” she said, sitting down beside him with a tray of various sauces. She noticed his slight dismay at the offering on the tray, and she told him, “I’m into dipping.”

 

“I can see that,” he said. “I don’t even know what some of these things are.”

 

“Best not to try them tonight, then. I plan on using you roughly, and I don’t want your stomach to suffer,” she announced.

 

“What if I was planning on sleeping in my bed tonight?”

 

“I’ll persuade you,” she answered.

 

“And if that doesn’t work?”

 

“Are you really going to push this to the point of handcuffs? I could probably produce a bear trap as well.”

 

“Sounds like I’m sleeping here, then,” he agreed.

 

“Yep. Just get comfortable and let nature take its course, big guy,” she agreed with a nod.

 

They ate together, dipping and smiling, and after a while Leo said, “That’s quite a knife you carried tonight.”

 

“Dagger,” she corrected.

 

“Ah, ok, dagger. Any good with it?”

 

“For ten years, my dad was a training officer for Recon marines at Camp Pendleton, specializing in knife and hand-to-hand combat. He started teaching me with that dagger when I was about twelve. So, yeah, I’m pretty good. So far I’ve been able to get out of situations that I didn’t want to be in with it. And that’s my only goal, really. Just be good enough to get out and go home.”

 

“Is that why you brought it tonight? Thinking you were going to have a rough way out of the door?” he asked.

 

She searched his eyes. “Yvette told me what Crash planned — or rather, had planned for you, and she described the weight of it to me. She told me that I should distance myself, because it could be really ugly for me if I went there with you tonight.”

 

She finished an onion ring. “I wanted to tell you, but didn’t know how. We’re only a few days into each other, and it seemed like such an insulting thing to even bring up. The feeling I got from you, though, said that whatever Yvette and Crash saw that day, it wasn’t what they believed it was. I didn’t believe that Yvette was lying to me, not at all, but I also didn’t believe it was the truth, either.”

 

“Hell of a risk, then, riding in with me like that,” he offered.

 

“Hence the knife,” she agreed.

 

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t need it,” he told her.

 

“So am I,” she told him. “Being gutted tends to stick in people’s minds, even as the years pass.”

 

He raised an eyebrow.

 

“Well, yes, we’ve only been into each other for a few days, but I felt that withholding that from you carried the price of being at your back. And I planned on riding out of there with you, too.”

 

“What if it appeared that Crash was right?”

 

“He wasn’t,” she answered flatly.

 

“And if—”

 

“If’s are sort of useless once you’ve made up your mind. I rode in with you and I was riding out with you, and I was only leaving you if I had the feeling that you were going to be alright. Which I did, and I felt that Yvette needed me more once things turned so horribly wrong for Crash,” she told him, then turned to face him more fully.

 

“You’re feeling me out for something,” she told him, “which I normally wouldn’t mind, except you aren’t using your hands. So, what is it?”

 

Leo leaned back and studied his hands. “I guess I was trying to get a handle on your value system. It seems so cut and dry on the surface, which is reassuring.”

 

“But…” she pressed.

 

“I’m just going to drop it on the floor and let you decide how you will act. I believe, strongly, that your heart is in the right place, that you feel good about the club, and you love Yvette.”

 

“I feel strongly about you, too,” she offered.

 

He nodded. “It is reciprocated, I assure you, but you might not think so once you realize what I’m getting you into.”

 

She waited. There was nothing to say to that. He might be right, after all; he observed details like no one else she had ever known.

 

“What Danny said,” Leo began, “about not letting rumors out about what Crash brought to the table tonight — it is true that that particular plan, that particular moment, was not a success. He didn’t lie. There are concerns, however…”

 

She had a sudden and alarming insight into where this conversation was going. “Crash has no reason now to keep back names.”

 

Leo nodded, and he leaned forward to take up a shrimp. “You catch on fast. That will spare me from going through all of the details.”

 

“If Crash tells the wrong people about what he saw that day, adding in that it was an operation condoned by the club and created by the president, it could mean war. Failed or not,” she reasoned.

 

“Yes, but certainly my death,” he added.

 

“How deep are you in?” she asked.

 

“Deep enough that I can’t talk about it, and if you press, I’ll have to leave,” he told her flatly.

 

“Alright. And so far you haven’t told me anything I didn’t already know, just pointed out a perspective,” she mused. “How can you safeguard against Crash?” she asked, concerned now.

 

“I can’t.”

 

“Shit, and he would love to see you put down,” she said, worried, her heart racing.

 

“And then the club — we would have no warning about his actions, either,” he added.

 

It hit like a hammer, leaving a nice ringing sound in her ears after it struck. She sounded out the words carefully as she said, “Unless, of course, Yvette told me about what Crash was doing and I breached trust with her to tell you.”

 

The words hung between them and tore at them both.

 

Finally, he said, “I don’t need, nor really want, an answer. I’m just putting in on the floor.”

 

“That’s a hell of a thing to leave on a girl’s floor, Leo,” she growled. She got up and took their plates into the kitchen, unconcerned that Leo hadn’t finished his yet. She dumped them in the sink, and rinsed them, and then stacked them in the dishwasher before coming back for her sauces.

 

“I’m not going to give the ‘Crash weather report.’ I’m not going to tell you if she says he’s edgy or needy or calm or whatever else she might say about him,” she announced, heading back into the kitchen with her tray and grabbing a towel to wipe the table with. “That’s too much to ask. I love Yvette, and I can’t do that to her, even for the club. I can’t.”

 

She wiped down the table, then stood up. “But if she mentions something that is a clear and present danger to you or the club, I’ll tell you. I believe the only reason she would tell me something like that was if she wanted you to know, anyway.”

 

After taking her cleaning towel back into the kitchen, she leaned against the doorway. “Is that good enough?”

 

“It’s fair enough,” he told her. “Would you like me to leave?”

 

“Have I asked you to go?”

 

“I withdraw the question,” he consented.

 

She bit her lip and then said, “You are wearing far too many clothes.”