Chasing Claire (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) (16 page)

Jules looked at me and snarled.

Nice.

“Get back here and sit the fuck down, Glory. I am not leaving this house until we have talked this food fucking serving shit out.” Jules crossed his huge arms over his chest, ready to do battle.

“Food fucking serving shit? Food fucking serving shit? Are you referring to
my business
?”

“Babe, throwing together a couple of cupcakes, whipping up some goddamn Rice-A-Roni, and serving it to some fucking mobsters who are downing it, while staring at your tits, is not a
business
.”

Glory’s blue eyes narrowed and glinted like ice.

“You big, dumb moron. How dare you?
How dare you
? You wouldn’t know good food if it bit you in your ass! Rice-A-Roni? Did you just call my creamy wild mushroom risotto,
my signature dish
, Rice-A-Roni?”

“Yeah, I said it.” Jules stood his ground and roared even louder than before. “And I don’t care if you are serving solid gold goose shit under goddamn crystal domes. My woman is not going to be serving anything to some oily-haired, dago wops. I mean it, Glory. The boys don’t like it and neither do I.”

“Oh really? Really, Jules? You and your boys don’t like how I make my money? Well, guess what? I don’t give two shits what you and your boys like. Last time I looked, you and your boys weren’t exactly standing in line to pay my bills.”

She had a point.

“And what was that? Your woman? Am I your woman, now, Jules?” Glory swung around and advanced toward him.

Jules looked suddenly unsure of himself, and took a step back.

“And what exactly makes me your woman? The fact that we have been
doing it
for over a year now? Is that it? Is that what makes me your woman?”

“
Doing it?
” Jules still looked confused. “Yeah, if by
doing it
you mean me taking you to my bed, then yeah. I would say that, yeah, that makes you my woman.”

“Yeah, well lucky me,” Glory hissed.

Uh-oh.

Jules arched an eyebrow. “That ain’t enough for you, woman? Because I sure as hell don’t remember you ever complaining. I remember a lot of moaning and groaning and you screaming out my name loud enough to wake every brother from here to Texas, but complaining? Nah, don’t recall any of that.” He stood in front of her with a self-satisfied grin and his big arms crossed in front of him.

Glory narrowed her eyes.

I thought that would be a very good time to get the hell out of there and into that tub. I had just started toward the door when I saw Glory hold up her hand and waggle her ring finger in Jules’s face.

Oh, boy.

“Do you see a ring on this finger?” Glory growled at him. “No? Well, neither do I, and where I come from, when a woman belongs to a man, she has his ring on her finger!”

“A ring? Is that what you want? You want to get married, Glory?” Jules roared back. “Love, honor, and
obey
? You ready for that, baby? Because it sure as hell does not look like it.”

Jules could roar all he wanted.

He could stomp and yell and pace.

But there was no covering it up.

When Glory had flung that ring finger in his face, he’d turned an immediate and unmistakable ghostly shade of pale despite his bluster. A sheen of sweat appeared instantly on his forehead. If
Glory had suddenly sprouted wings and flew over the guy’s head, he could not have looked more stunned.

Glory did not miss that. “Did I ever say that, Jules? Have I even once said that I wanted to get married? Did you ever,
ever
hear me even mention the word?”

Then she moved toward him and pushed one long elegant finger into the leather-covered steel that was his chest.

“No, you haven’t. Because if I did, if I ever wanted to get married, why would I want to marry a gigantic ass like you, who does not know a good thing when he has it?”

Jules looked down at that finger. Even I could see that Glory meant business.

“Baby, I know a good thing. Course I do,” Jules growled. “And if you need green, you know that I got you covered. Whatever you need, baby. You know, I got you.”

Way to try and save it, Jules.
I cheered to myself, until he added the next bit . . .

“But, Jesus, Glory, you ain’t serious about that marriage shit, are you? You are not standing there telling me that you want to get . . . uh . . .” Jules scrubbed his hand over his face and looked totally ill at ease.

Jules’s confusion just seemed to add fuel to Glory’s fire. I had never seen anything even close to this side of her, and despite the awkwardness of the situation, I had to admit I was totally fascinated.

“Oh, just forget it, Jules. Why would I want to marry a man who I had to tell that I wanted to get married? A man who is too damn stupid to think of it on his own is no one,
no one
I would even consider marrying. Ever!” Glory turned to walk away.

“Woman, what the fuck are you talking about?” Jules followed her. “Damn woman, how the hell did we get from your goddamn
signature dish
to me putting a ring on your finger? Where is this coming from?” He looked so confused, I almost felt sorry for him.

Then Jules arched one perfectly formed blond eyebrow and said, “Babe, you on the rag?”

He ducked just in time.

“Woman, you throw one more of those dishes at . . .”

Glory kept on throwing things at him until Jules was out the door.

When he was gone, she snapped the lock noisily behind him.

My best friend leaned against the door and took a minute to pull herself together.

Then she looked at me. And I knew, I just knew, that she was going to ask me if I thought Jules was the marrying kind.

I had no idea what I should say to her. Because while I didn’t want to hurt my friend, I really did not think Jules had the first idea of what it took to be that guy.

“Can I ask you something and will you answer me truthfully?” My girl’s light blue eyes looked sunken in her pale face. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

I moved to place my arm around her and whispered, “Of course.”

She turned to me, one teardrop spilling over onto her smooth cheek. She sighed and put her head on my shoulder. “My whole future depends on this, Claire. So please, please tell me what you really think.”

Oh, boy. I prepared a careful answer in my head.

“My creamy wild mushroom risotto . . .” Glory’s lips trembled.

Her creamy wild mushroom risotto?

“Do you think Jules was right? Do you think it tastes like Rice-A-Roni?” Glory sputtered those last words out like she was trying to rid poison from her blood stream.

I heaved a sigh of relief. This question I could answer with one hundred percent honesty.

“Not even close, honey,” I answered and hugged her tight.

CHAPTER 26

B
y the time I got back from class at midday, Glory was home putting on the final touches for the catering job that she had booked for tomorrow. The screen door was wedged open and I could hear Bono singing through the open windows. As I walked toward the house, the mouth-watering scent of perfectly seasoned sausage, onions, and peppers wafted through the air.

I glanced at my phone to find a text from Reno. He and the rest of the brothers had been home about a week now. Since their return the air had been charged with tension. The rumble of exhaust pipes had been echoing through the compound for days. Chief officers from the surrounding chapters been called in for a meet, and it was safe to assume that whatever business was keeping the outlaw men behind closed doors was risky, dangerous, and illegal.

It wasn’t the first time I had felt that wave of secrecy and surge of violent urgency wash over the compound. It all came with the territory. Raine had learned to navigate these times, but I knew they scared her just as they scared me. I knew that Reno expected the same of me. I just didn’t know if I could do it. Or if I even wanted to. A part of me still yearned for that normal everyday kind of life.

The kind of life that I knew loving a man like Reno could not provide.

Sometimes I felt like he and I were just a big puzzle to be solved and every time I got close to solving it, I discovered a new piece that just didn’t seem to quite fit.

I sighed and turned my attention to my roommate. I stood in the doorway for a minute and watched Glory work her magic. I had to hand it to her, it had been a few weeks now since that scene with Jules and undeterred by his ultimatum, our girl had cut her losses and moved on. While I knew that letting go wasn’t easy for her, I was once again impressed by Glory’s strong will and strength of character. At times it even made me a little envious. While Glory was enjoying enormous success with her business, I was still struggling with my course work. While Glory was busy getting on with the Life After Jules, I was still busy figuring out Reno and me.

Standing in the doorway watching her now, I thought for the millionth time that I could learn a lot from Glory.

Besides, Glory in the kitchen was a thing of beauty. Blond hair flying, blue eyes flashing, and long limbs swinging, Glory was like a one-man band. Only instead of crashing the cymbals, beating the drums, and humming into a harmonica, Glory got her groove on by stirring, melting, and sifting.

My best buddy was feeling the happy. Most days. Most days Glory was feeling the happy.

But as always in life, at least in our lives, everything was a tradeoff. Every grain of happiness had its price.

That last huge disagreement between Glory and Jules turned out to be the
last
huge disagreement between Glory and Jules.

Reno had heard from Jules that things had gone bad between him and Glory. And even though I had been careful not to divulge any of the particulars Glory shared with me, Reno knew how deep our friendship went. He took as much of my ranting and worrying as he could before he said, “Babe, if it don’t involve me or you, I
honestly don’t give two shits about it. Now get your sweet self over here and I will show you exactly what I do care about.”

I stopped talking about Glory and Jules as much after that, but I never stopped fretting. I hoped for a happy outcome. Glory seemed content to wait it out, and I thought that might be a good sign. Then Jules did something really stupid.

In a very poorly played, typical Hells Saints fashion, Jules started to pay a lot of attention to Bambi. Bambi was a twenty-five-year-old club whore with bottle-blond hair, skinny legs, huge tits, and eager eyes, and her only ambition was to snag a brother.

The first time Glory saw them together, Jules had stared hard at her. His eyes issued a challenge, his body language smugly signaled his ultimatum.

Glory took one look at Bambi pulled tight to her man’s side, and decided to let him go for good.

When she turned and walked out that door, there was such a look of utter disbelief on Jules’s face that I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

But mostly, I felt sorry for Glory, because I knew just what turning away from the man that she loved had cost her. I knew because in the days that followed, Glory reverted back to a lesser version of herself. I knew standing her ground wasn’t easy for her. Glory gave herself a few weeks after the final blow to learn how to live without him.

Then she rallied, like I knew she would, and bravely kept on keeping on.

My girl had this.

And we had her back.

CHAPTER 27

I
t had been a long night, but another smash hit for Glory Days Catering. The booking had been the wedding of Julio “Little Finger” Pagnatellio and Antonia Baccalaria, the daughter of Anthony Baccalaria, a well-known, high-profile attorney and reported consigliere for the Bonzini family. Raine, Glory, and I were all in a great mood.

We had been one of three catering services chosen for the extremely lavish celebration. Glory Days would make and serve the hors d’oeuvres at the extended cocktail hour. Glory had spent the last couple of days preparing prosciutto and fig wraps, Italian fried olives, paper thin slices of Calabrese salami, and provolone wrapped in a flaky crust, steakhouse crostini, grilled mussels, and a huge antipasto platter.

All the way home, Glory chattered away like a happy little songbird. “I think that went well. Don’t you? And those girls from the college, they did a great job. There was a couple of times when I thought that tall one was going to drop the crostini, and the one with all that hair, next time I will have to make sure she puts it up. But I think we should use them again. What do you think?”

“I . . . uh.” Glory had been talking at such a nonstop rate that I had been taken totally by surprise when she actually directed a question at me. But, I shouldn’t have worried, because the question was strictly rhetorical.

“Of course,” Glory continued without missing a beat, “Dolly and Pinky get right of first refusal on every job, but I know how much they love looking after Willow. Not sure why it takes two of them, though. Gianni asked for her a couple of times . . . hm . . . really hadn’t thought much about that at the time. But do you think? Dolly and Gianni? Oh God, if the boys had a hard time accepting me working for the Italians, can you imagine if Dolly and Gianni . . . Oh, boy, can you just imagine that?” Glory paused for a moment to consider the possibility.

Not in my wildest dreams.

I couldn’t imagine the sister-in-law of the president of the Hells Saints MC having any sort of romantic entanglement with the purported front boss of the Bonzini crime family.

Talk about complicated. Disaster would not even begin to define it.

But Glory was right. Tonight, Gianni had definitely expressed concern about Dolly’s absence. I suddenly wondered if all the jobs being thrown in Glory’s direction had less to do with her and more to do with the fact that Gianni seemed to like having Dolly around. Not to take anything away from the bang-up job that Glory always did. But still, Gianni did seem to hover whenever Dolly joined our little serving crew.

I pushed that thought aside and concentrated on how good it was just to see Glory happy. And she was right, the girls had done a great job helping out. Donna and Linda were classmates of mine. I knew that they had previous experience waitressing. When Glory told me that we were going to be short some help, I had asked them if they were interested in earning a few extra bucks. I think that they said yes before the offer was fully out of my mouth. And I didn’t blame them. I knew firsthand that the cliché about perpetually broke college students was true, and I had assured them that Glory would make it worth their while.