Lucy

 

“You ready for work?” Robby was intimidating, even in his work clothes. He was a wide, tall man with a full, dark beard and short wavy black hair that he kept mostly pushed back. He wore a long sleeve work shirt – to cover his tattoos, I assumed, since everyone seemed to have so many – and khaki work pants, along with work boots. He looked out of place in his work clothes, but I was starting to see why he didn’t need a street name like everyone else had. He didn’t need it.

 

“I guess so,” I told him, trying not to be intimidated by him. In the world where I found myself – the world of biker clubs and strippers – he fit in just fine. He was a little bigger than everyone else I had met so far, and that was all.

 

“Come on, then.” He tilted his head for me to follow as he walked around his work truck and opened the door to let me in. They had all been gentlemen so far, something else I wasn’t completely used to. Each of the Vicious Thrills seemed to treat women with the highest respect.

 

I sat quietly as Robby climbed into the driver’s seat and buckled up before putting the truck in gear and pulling away from the clubhouse. I was on my own, it seemed, among Blade’s people. I hadn’t spoken to him since he dropped me off, and I had stayed in my room alone overnight, despite what he’d said about making it work so I could stay in his bed every night even when I was “staying” at the clubhouse.

 

“So you’re Blade’s new old lady, huh?” Robby barked on the way to his office.

 

“I wouldn’t take it that far,” I told him.

 

“Oh, that’s right. He’s just watching out for you.” I could tell from his voice that he wasn’t buying the story.

 

“Well, now it looks like he’s got everybody watching out for me, doesn’t it?” I asked, laughing nervously.

 

“Yeah, I guess so. Hey, do you want some breakfast? I like grabbing a little something to eat before work, something fast.”

 

“Sure.” I was along for the ride. I wasn’t going to turn down free food, not when the sun and I were competing to see who was up first.

 

We stopped at a drive-thru and grabbed a couple of sausage biscuits and coffees. He ate in the truck on the way to his office. I’d had a few summer jobs over the years, mostly little retail deals, but nothing that felt so comfortable or informal. It felt like I was just going to be spending the day with a cousin or uncle, not with an employer. It was very relaxed.

 

I expected things to change once we got to the office. I expected Robby to introduce me to everyone and then crack down on me, but he didn’t. His office was a small work trailer, the kind that normally popped up on temporary job sites and disappeared afterwards. It sat in the middle of a plot of land surrounded by a tall chain link fence, where his company kept the equipment that wasn’t in use.

 

Once inside there were several desks along the walls of the trailer. It wasn’t a very big space, but there was enough room to walk around between everyone. The desks were either covered in scattered paperwork or piled high with organized files. I figured it depended on who worked where. There were three other women in the office, all dressed in jeans and blouses. It was a very business casual atmosphere.

 

There was even a small radio on the ledge of one of the windows, playing music from the light rock, adult contemporary radio station. I wanted to ask him if my coworkers were other old ladies from the MC, but I got the distinct feeling they weren’t. They didn’t look like any of the women I had met at the clubhouse cookout the night before. Besides, I figured he would have told me if they were.

 

For some reason, it made me uncomfortable that they might have been from the outside. I had just started coming to terms with the fact I was part of an elite group of people, and I was being thrust back among people I couldn’t share that knowledge with.

 

It also seemed odd to me that Blade and Robby both owned and ran businesses that weren’t actually associated with the Vicious Thrills, outside of their membership in the club. Something about that didn’t ring true to me. I knew nothing should have seemed shocking at that point, so I put the questions out of my head and let him introduce me to the other women who worked in the office for him.

 

There was Amelia, who had curly sandy blonde hair and the cutest green eyes; Hannah, with straight red hair and brown, puppy dog eyes; and Kelly, with jet black hair and eyes as blue as the sky. Despite their natural beauty, they all looked very studious and reserved. Something about the expressions on their faces gave off an air of experience and knowledge, like they’d been working for Robby for years.

 

“Lucy is going to be working with us for a while, so please make her feel at home. I’ve pulled her in as a customer service specialist,” he said to the others, letting me know for the first time what my job was actually going to be. I figured I was going to be another secretary. Having four women running his office made it seem like his company was very busy.

 

He led me to the back where his private office was. We went past the break room, which was across from the office restroom. The office was laid out like a camper or RV, except smaller. He closed the door to his office and gestured for me to sit down in the chair in front of his desk.

 

“All right, I haven’t told you what you’re going to be doing yet,” he said with a sigh as he took the chair behind his desk. It was the most professional his voice had sounded all day so far. He started to roll up his sleeves.

 

“I figured I would just be filing paperwork or something secretarial like that,” I suggested with a shrug.

 

“If you’re willing to get up and dance for Blade for a living, you can talk on the phone for me. Sometimes, people call in with questions or complaints, or whatever they call about, and I need someone to take those calls. My company operates at three separate locations. I have three teams out there, and that’s why there are three people in there. Each one handles work orders, invoices, schedules, whatever for their team. Taking calls on top of what they do is just too much. However, there aren’t so many calls that I need three people on the phone. So, I’m going to see if it will help to have someone in here answering the phones for them,” he explained.

 

“What happens if I can’t answer their questions?” I asked.

 

“Then just find out who is handling that team and send the call over to her. No big deal. That way, they’re only on the phone if they need to be,” he answered.

 

I nodded, as the picture started becoming clear to me.

 

“Don’t worry about it. Like any other job, the first day is scary, and by the time you clock out, you start to get the hang of it,” he said lightly.

 

“Right.” I didn’t know what to say, but it felt like he was expecting something else from me.

 

He sat back and stared at me like he was waiting on me to ask him questions or something. “So tell me, what do you think of all this?” he asked all of a sudden.

 

“What do you mean?” I responded, unsure if he was asking how I felt about the job, or the MC, or even the situation I was in with Blade.

 

“This whole new world, man. Blade told me about your situation and the falling out with your father. Man, I’m sorry to hear about that, but it happens.” He was reaching out to me, just like everyone seemed to do when they met me.

 

“It’s definitely different. One thing gets me, though,” I mused.

 

“What’s that?” A smile spread across his face. He looked pleased to get the opportunity to explain something to me.

 

“The names. I know Blade, Brick, and Hatchet, and I know those are just street names. What about Robby? Why don’t you have a name like theirs?” I asked.

 

He laughed. “I guess they never came up with anything. I haven’t done anything to get a name.”

 

“You have to do something to get a name?” I felt a little chill. I remembered then that Blade had said the same thing to me. He’d told me that Robby always stayed out of trouble and hadn’t earned a name from the rest of them.

 

“Pretty much. I mean, Hatchet has an extensive ax collection and isn’t afraid to bring one out in a fight. I don’t know if he’s ever used one or anything, but he always has at least one near him. Blade didn’t tell you his?” he asked.

 

“No, he’s never really mentioned it. Has he done anything bad?” I wondered aloud.

 

“Oh, we’ve all got our stories, Lucy. I think that’s something you should talk to him about,” Robby told me.

 

I started to think that maybe he’d cut someone up pretty bad and that was how he got his name. But I knew there had to be another reason. These men have reputations to uphold, I reminded myself. There were bound to be stories that were nothing more than just stories to make them seem big and bad even when they weren’t.

 

“Hey, don’t start thinking anything. He’s definitely the person you think he is. He doesn’t hide behind anything. He’s about straightforward as they come, okay? Have you met his brothers yet?” Robby was trying to distract me. I wondered why he kept me talking instead of letting me get to work, but I was glad I was starting to get answers for some of the things that were bugging me.

 

“I thought you were all brothers,” I said, smirking.

 

“We are, but he has two younger brothers, actual brothers, named Hammer and Sketch. You’ll meet them soon enough. Hammer used to work for me, but they should have named him Loose Screw. I taught him what I could, but then I had to let him go. He just doesn’t work well underneath people, you know?”

 

“What about Sketch?” I asked. That was a peculiar name.

 

“Sketch is a tattoo artist. How much do you really know about Blade?” he asked abruptly.

 

“We’ve only known each other for a little while. It’s been kind of a whirlwind with me trying to get settled and him trying to help me,” I admitted.

 

“Well, don’t worry. You’ll learn your way around us. I guess I should go ahead and put you to work,” he said, getting up from his desk.

 

I felt like our conversation was ending prematurely. It seemed like he had more that he wanted to tell me, but we’d reached a point where he realized he needed to be quiet. I agreed. There were more questions after talking to him. I wanted to ask him if he could introduce me to everyone I hadn’t met so far, like Blade’s actual brothers. I also wanted to know the story behind Blade’s name. Who did he have to cut to get the name? Did it mean anything else?

 

I went back out to the front and got on the phone. Robby left after he got me situated, and I spent most of the rest of the day with the other ladies in the office. We sat and joked in between calls and files. They didn’t say anything about the MC, and I assumed they didn’t know. Robby didn’t walk around in his vest the way Blade did at the strip club.

 

They both ran pretty straightforward businesses, it seemed, and it seemed they went out of their way to make it look that way. There were cracks in the façade, and I was starting to get curious. But I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know anything that would change how I felt. By the end of the day, it didn’t matter anyway.