The pain blinded him for half a second, and he heard Holden shouting. The sound of scuffling and grunting continued around him. Dash tasted copper and felt the warm ooze from his nose. When he shook away the cobwebs from his brain, he felt the bridge of his nose, assessing that Bruise had not broken it.
Levi and Ricky teamed up to eject Bruise from the bar. The rest of the bouncers sequestered customers in the corner as the gang erupted into a tornado of beer-fueled revenge. Someone punched out a window; another one snapped a pool cue. The beer glasses didn't stand a chance.
Before the night was over, Dash's ribs had suffered pelting by flying cue balls, and his hands had suffered splinters from busted sticks.
In the end, though, none of the other customers were hurt, and the guys disarmed several gang members. The police had been called but never showed.
"All the better," Billy said as the crew stayed to clean up afterward. Levi grimaced as he unloaded the ammo from one of the confiscated semiautomatics and tossed it into the safe. "They break the rules by bringing weapons on the premises. So, if we gotta do our own police work, we get to keep the goods."
Declan was too tired to protest the ethical and legal consequences of keeping guns belonging to a notorious biker gang and too busy sweeping up broken glass to offer anything but, "I'm gonna need a bigger crew."
Chapter Fourteen
Harper
While Harper didn't appreciate being told to stay with her moms that night, Lora and Desiree were over the moon to have their daughter to themselves for the night.
While Lora scurried around the kitchen, assembling personal Margherita pizzas, Desiree chattered about what romcom they should watch that night. On family movie nights growing up, Harper had played a delicate balancing act between her two moms. Desiree enjoyed romcoms, and Lora always wanted to show Harper the latest environmental documentaries. Harper enjoyed both.
"Ugh," Lora said. "We are not watching While You Were Sleeping ever again. It's preposterous."
"Come on, my love. Let's let Harper pick."
Harper looked at Lora with puppy dog eyes. "We can watch Forks Over Knives after that, I promise."
Desiree commented under her breath, "Perfect for lulling everyone to sleep at bedtime."
Lora said, "I heard that."
"You were meant to," Desiree said, sliding over to Lora and kissing her on the cheek.
Harper stretched and yawned. "Whatever you guys want is fine. I'm kinda exhausted already."
Lora and Desiree exchanged a knowing look. "My dear, what have you been up to today?"
Harper could not hide the heat that lit up her cheeks.
"I…had a date."
Lora and Desiree both set their plates down and cheered.
"What?! Tell me everything!" Lora said.
"Is he cute? What's his name?" Is he a good kisser?"
Harper chugged her water and knew she was going to need something stronger to get through this conversation.
"His name is…Dash."
Lora and Desiree stared at her and then each other. "Dash? That's familiar. Do I know…" Lora trailed off as she got a good look at the way Harper was chewing in the inside of her lip. "Wait a minute. Did you have a date with Dash Fitzgerald? Of Marianne Fitzgerald? That Dash?"
Harper looked from one mom to the other and waited for the judgment.
"I thought you hated him," Lora said.
"How was the date? Is he a good kisser?"
"Excuse me," Lora said. "Can we unpack this first? How did you two end up on a date?"
Harper could not look her mother in the eye. Both Lora and Desiree had raised her to talk straight with them about sex. She'd never felt ashamed about the subject or her body, thanks to them. But at the same time, this was too awkward.
"Um, well? He asked me to go on a date with him while we happened to be…having breakfast together."
Both women screamed again.
"Tell me everything right now," Desiree demanded.
"I do not want to know a single thing," Lora said. "The Fitzgeralds and the Rosses have had a long, fraught history. Each family has hated each other since the 1930s. It's a long, proud tradition. How could you do this to us?"
Desiree clucked. "Oh, that old rivalry. Come on."
"It's not a rivalry. The Fitzgeralds have held a grudge ever since all that business after the Volstead Act was repealed. They don't know how to move on from their bad decisions, and they've made our lives a living hell ever since."
"I'd hardly call what they've done as a living hell," Harper said.
Desiree nodded. "This is perfect. If you date and then marry a Fitzgerald, then there's no rivalry anymore. The two families can finally heal."
Harper held up her palms. "Okay. You're putting an awful lot of pressure on a brand new thing."
Lora agreed. "Yeah. It's not like this is a full-blown relationship yet. We can always hope that it comes to nothing and everything goes on, business as usual."
Harper looked sheepishly up at Lora. "We…Dash and I… it's a full-blown relationship."
"What?!"
"Mom, it happened so fast."
"You don't decide to partner up with someone after one date."
"Well, it wasn't like he just showed up and asked me out on a date, and we decided to become an item. It was just chemistry."
Desiree nearly knocked over her chair to run off to the hallway closet.
"Where is she going?"
Lora scrubbed her face with her hand. "She's going to do a reading."
Desiree returned and laid out a series of cards face down on the table.
"Mom, this isn't necessary."
Desiree shushed her and then started to flip the cards over.
"Look at this one. That signifies abundance."
She flipped over another. "This one symbolizes fertility."
Harper was about to speak up. As a person who dealt with several issues regarding her uterus, she assumed she would never have kids. Desiree pressed a reassuring hand over Harper's forearm. "It doesn't necessarily mean bearing children. It could be fertility in anything. It could just mean your mind
