His head bobbed as he chewed his food. “So where’d you learn?”
“To cook? TV, and a friend of Turk’s took me under her wing when I mentioned I wished I knew what the hell to do in a kitchen. She gave me the lasagna recipe, but we’re not eating that.”
He shot a side-long look at me. “Friend of Turk’s?”
I nodded. “Cathy. I believe she’s someone’s Old Lady, but since she never wore her cut in the kitchen I don’t know who she belonged to.”
We lapsed into silence, not for the first time, but this one didn’t feel as comfortable.
I broke it to ask, “Where’d you learn to make gravy?”
A brief frown pulled at his face. “Dad. He was a firefighter and since he had to know how to cook, he decided me and Ben had to learn too.”
“But not Corinna?”
His eyes took on a faraway look. “No. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, but he thought that was on Mom.”
I nodded and finished my food. Sitting next to Har did things to me. Made me feel comfortable when I shouldn’t, made me want things I would never have. The sooner I got away from sitting next to him, the better.
While I packed the lasagna into lunch-size containers, Har picked up his beer, tipping it toward me. “How did you know this would be any good?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I didn’t, but you said craft beer, so I took a gamble.”
He rinsed his plate and started washing the empty lasagna pan.
“Har, you said if I cooked, I cleaned.”
He twisted his hands up and back down. “Doesn’t matter, Steph. One pan isn’t gonna kill me while you deal with the meat and potatoes.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
He dried the pan, tucked it away, and folded the dish towel, putting it next to the dish strainer.
I took in a deep breath for courage. “Har, before you go...”
He stopped and looked at me expectantly.
I couldn’t believe I was going to ask this.
“What if I change my mind about no strings being a myth? Would your offer still stand?”
His arms folded across his chest while his chin dipped and he closed his eyes for a few seconds. Then he looked at me with disappointment, which puzzled me. “No, Combes. It wouldn’t. You were right. Woman like you has expectations, and you should. I can’t fulfill those for you. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need. Thanks for the food. You’re a great cook, even if you don’t get along with gravy.”
Har
SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGED, and a woman confounding him still topped the list.
Stephanie’s random and bizarre question threw him for a serious loop. A huge part of him wanted to tell her the offer stood, but he knew better. Indecisiveness did not work for him. Unless it was regarding something trivial, like what to eat for dinner, at which point he was fine with a coin toss. He knew she couldn’t separate the physical from the mental, so he wouldn’t open that door. No matter how much he wanted to do it.
He needed to get out of the house.
On the road he normally knew where he was going, but tonight he operated on autopilot. He found himself at the casino where Stephanie worked. The tables were full, which made it rankle with him that Stephanie had to take the night off. He almost wondered if she were being given the short end of the stick for some reason.
That wasn’t his business.
He shoved those thoughts aside. The wait list for a decent table was ten players deep so he left the poker room and found a spot at a craps table instead. After he lost half his stack at the table, he took his chips to the cashier cage and left.
Fifteen minutes later, he rode around the lot outside clubhouse, noticing there were more cages than usual. Maybe Brute, Cynic, and Block – their treasurer – had decided to throw an impromptu party. He could only hope the cages belonged to women he’d never met before.
When he walked inside the clubhouse, he couldn’t believe how dense the smoke was. There were plenty of women in the common room, but none of them immediately appealed. Brute sat at the corner of the bar with a blonde and a brunette hanging on him.
“What’s goin’ on brother?” he asked, as he leaned against the bar behind the blonde.
She looked at him from the corner of her eye, then her manicured eyebrow arched.
Brute grinned at him. “What’s it look like? It’s Saturday night.”
Wreck sidled up to Har, a cigarette hanging from his mouth. He was one of those smokers who could talk around the cancer stick in his mouth. “Hear you’re talkin’ to brothers one-on-one behind our backs, Prez.”
Har kept a blank expression while Brute stiffened and muttered, “What the fuck, Wreck?”
The women exchanged a look at the tense vibe and slunk away.
“You not gonna answer, Prez?”
Brute slammed a fist on the bar. “Why should he—”
Har held a hand up. “I shouldn’t answer this bullshit, but no, I’m not talkin’ to anyone behind your back, Wreck.”
“Roman,” Wreck snarled the name like it tasted bad.
He suspected Wreck of having something against Roman, but he never thought Wreck was racist. The glint in Wreck’s eye and the way he said Roman’s name told Har otherwise.
“What’s it matter if our President has a conversation one-on-one with a brother, Wreck?”
“Inside church?”
Brute looked at Har. “Seriously?”
Har had to be careful. Not only could Wreck fly off the handle and misconstrue this to the rest of the brothers, but Har needed to figure out how much Wreck knew. He didn’t think Roman would run his mouth, and especially not to Wreck. But how else would Wreck know they’d had a sit-down at church without the other brothers?
Then he remembered Layla showing up.
Har glanced at Brute for
