Page 8

Chewy

I ’m feeling triumphant and have decided that mine and Rhodie’s child really is superior to other children. Thanks to the routine I have implemented Laney managed to do her reading, have structured play time, spend time with family and friends, a short brain break with a power nap and now I have successfully unfolded her pushchair from the back of the SUV and strapped her into it. I timed it so I arrived at Girl Gang Moms group exactly on time, but I can see walking through the doors that not everyone is here yet.

“Over here Chewy!” Mira waves enthusiastically.

To begin with I was unsure about Mira. She is very bubbly and warm and not really into murder in real life, however I got to know her and I appreciated the warmth she brings. Each of the Girl Gang brings new skills to share with the group and I feel that’s a good thing. Glancing at Lovely, I note how much she has changed since being a Girl Gang member. Our skills are rubbing off on her and vice versa. It’s a good thing.

“Sorry I’m late! Jr slept late,” Ana says, rushing in with her designer buggy and her silky blouse. She is very fancy. And not good at keeping a sleep schedule, obviously. “So, who are we waiting on?”

“No one, we’re all here. Kaia, the new owner, will be bringing us a selection of new muffins to try,” Remy says, excitedly.

I look forward to meeting this Kaia woman. I’m not sure what all happened but when we were surveilling this place Judge and her had some type of interaction that made the brother even quieter than usual. And he refuses to come here.

“Ladies, I have been usurped,” Pops sighs dramatically after his big announcement.

There are gasps and giggles around the table before Remy asks, in a concerned voice, “By who?”

“Mad Dog,” he grumbles under his breath.

“Huh?” Nat asks.

“Mad Dog. Rhodie’s father. My darling granddaughter has ditched me.” His shoulders slump as he fiddles with a napkin, tearing it to pieces.

“Sage?” Blanche asks.

“No, not that sweet baby girl. She’s a good girl. All she does is study and look after her old Pops.”

I side eye Pops. More often than not Sage is mooning over Takoda, Chef as he’s now called. It’s not subtle if even I can pick up on it.

“Cove then?” Ana asks, trying to hide her smile.

“Or Bee or Rosie?”

“No, not those sweet babies either.” His eyes dart toward me and Laney. “It’s Chewy’s kid that has forsaken me.”

Looking around the table I can see everyone trying hard not to laugh at him. He can be ridiculous at times.

“Anyway I need help. I can’t have Mad Dog swanning in, taking my grandbabies.”

“You have like, a ton of them. You’ve claimed them all,” Nat says, jiggling Rosie in her lap. To prove her right Pops leans over and squishes Rosie’s fat thigh, saying something or other to her in baby talk.

He should really stop doing that. Evidence suggests that talking in normal, adult language is perfectly fine for children and babies.

“I’m going to accelerate Laney’s learning,” I blurt out.

“Ooooookay. And what does that entail?” Lovely asks.

It’s a good question. From what I know education for girls wasn’t a huge priority at The Keep where she grew up.

“Well, I have her on a learning schedule. For 20 minutes every morning and evening I will read language-enhancing literature to her whilst playing classical music to stimulate her brain waves. Once she’s older we will add in math and perhaps even a second language. I may need your help with that Vi, seeing as you speak Spanish.”

She stares wide-eyed at me while Juno gives me RBF. It really is uncanny.

“That sounds like a, um, intense plan, Chewy. But I’m sure it will be beneficial,” Lovely says, almost too politely.

“Well, now that’s been stated, how am I going to usurp Mad Dog?” Pops asks.

The table starts brainstorming, but none of it sounds very good. Especially Mira’s idea which was to maybe share Laney. By the horrified look on Pops’ face, he’s not down for that.

“Here you are ladies, and man,” a short, curvy brunette angles herself between Blanche and Remy, to place a large platter of muffins down in front of us.

“Ohhhh they look so good!” Mira claps and bounces in her seat, the rest of us agreeing with her.

They do look delicious, and I want to take one, but I have questions. “So, a little while back we had a, ah, special operation here in your diner.”

She smiles warmly and bobs her head. “Oh yeah, I had Chef and TumTum in the kitchen. They’re so funny.”

“Ah, yeah, I guess. Anyway, There was an exchange between you and one of our DRMC members, Judge?” Her brows pull down a little. “So I just wanted to know what that was about.”

“Chewy!” Ana hisses, but I ignore her. I want to get to the bottom of this, and Judge will never tell me.

“Judge?” She snorts, “When I knew him he was Leo. We were best friends. Then he became the small town quarterback and turned into a popular meathead asshole. He may have changed for the better, but I’m not holding my breath to find out.” She turns stiffly, taking a few steps before turning back to look at us, a tight smile on her face. “I hope you enjoy the muffins.”

“Well, it sounds like Judge has been a naughty boy,” Blanche grins.

Before we can gossip about what exactly happened there, Jr starts making a fuss until his mother feeds him a small piece of muffin. I know Laney can handle most foods, so I select one of the delicious morsels and break a little piece off, holding it up to her mouth, mimicking Nat and Ana. Laney gobbles it up, then spits it down her front.

“Hey! What was that for?” I ask her.

I pick up a piece in my other hand, not the one that went near Laney’s mouth, and I pop it in mine. The flavours burst on my tongue and I try not to moan in appreciation. That doesn’t stop the rest of the table,

“Holy fuck, I don’t care what Judge did, he needs to marry that woman so we can get unlimited muffins.” Pops’ eyes pop open. “Do NOT tell my Ol Lady that!”

We all snicker, and I try Laney on another piece. She does the same thing, this time spitting it over herself and me. “What the hell are you doing? Nothing I’ve read said this happens,” I mutter.

“Chewy, I know you love research, but maybe this is less research and more scientific observation?” Lovely offers, Remy nodding in agreement.

“Huh. Like David Attenborough learning the movements of a particular species. Instead of a new species, it’s my daughter. Interesting.” I stroke my pretend moustache. I never once thought to do that, but I will from now on. A two pronged research attempt could be perfect for me. “In this case I think the research is telling me that she is not fond of chocolate muffins.”

“You think?” Blanche says, taking the chocolate muffin off Laney’s plate and placing it on hers.

“Violet, fancy seeing you here, with these, um,” the owner of the voice looks over our table, “friends?”

“Yes Josh, they are my friends, and guess what? They don’t care where my mother is from.” Violet says, throwing her half-eaten muffin onto her plate and staring him down.

“Wait, this is Josh? This-” Blanche waves her hand in the air, indicating the boring looking man in front of us. “This is him? The one that was mean to your Mom and then dumped you?” Blanche shoves the rest of her muffin into her mouth and struggles to get her pregnant bulk out of her chair to stand next to Vi.

“This is him?” Mira asks, her voice almost a screech.

“I’ve never seen a human embodiment of a ham sandwich,” Pops says.

We all stare as he gapes. “No, come on Vi. We were perfect together, you just needed a little…. refining.”

“Oh hell no!” Nat throws down her napkin and stands, as do the rest of the Girl Gang.

Oh, it’s so on.

Rhodie

“So brother, you wanna tell me what the hell is going on with you?” I raise a brow at Judge and stare him down. I’m not letting him get away without answering.

Which is why I made him go for a ride with me. I figure a little wind therapy is what he needs to get his head in order.

“Leave it in the past, brother.”

“Like you clearly haven’t?” I goad.

He huffs out a long sigh before turning to look at me. We’re both parked up next to Rose Grove’s town square, eating hot dogs from a street van because Judge refuses to go into the diner. “You ever do something when you were younger that truly fucked up one of your best relationships?”

I chew my mouthful, staring at him. “You talking bout cheating on a girl?”

“Yes. No. Fuck, I don’t know!”

Both my brows raise of their own accord. Judge never struck me as the type of guy to play around like that, but I guess we were all young and dumb once.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Fairly certain it’s easy to know if you’re cheating on a girl.”

Judge scrubs a hand over his bald head, and then down his face. “Look, I had a best girl friend, inseparable since we were kids. We fooled around a couple of times, lost our virginity to each other, that kind of shit. But we were never dating or going steady or anything. Anyway, the last time I saw her, she’d come to talk to me, said it was important.”

“And?”

“I was with my new friends, I’d made quarterback and suddenly found myself popular, that sort of shit. She kinda caught me getting a blow job from a girl,” he cringes and I fucking feel for him.

“But you guys were never anything official? Not dating?”

He shakes his head, a wistful look on his face. “No. By the time she came around to talk we hadn’t done anything for like a month or so. We only slept together twice and went about our normal lives.”

“Well, it definitely wasn’t cheating. That little lady in the diner, was it her? Did she think you were cheating on her?”

He lets out a soft growl. “Yeah, it’s her. But-” he looks away, a frown marring his features, “I don’t think it was the blowjob, as such. Argh, fuck this is embarrassing and makes me look like an asshole,” he shakes himself off. “So, I was off my face, hanging with the jocks and the cheerleaders and she turned up asking to speak to me. My dick was in Chelsea Master’s mouth and some of the jock kids started calling her names, Geek Girl, Dweeb, that sorta shit. Fuck, at the same time Chelsea tickled my balls and I giggled. That one giggle broke her fucking heart man. I could see it on her face. It was one thing to be getting a blowjob, but she always had a rough time making friends and me, her fucking best friend laughs at her with all these jock losers?” He looks toward the diner, face screwed up. “The look on her face, fuck, it screws my guts up thinking about it.”

I close my eyes and fuck, my heart goes out to the brother. I mean, yeah, it was a shitty thing to do, but hell, we all do dumb shit when we’re in high school. We’re young, dumb and really fucking full of cum.

“Did you apologize at least?”

“I hid away for two days, trying to come up with a big fucking gesture. I turned up at her place, flowers, chocolates, her favourite DVD’s, the fucking lot all to find her and her father had moved. No idea where they went.”

“And now she’s back.”

“And now she’s back and full of piss and vinegar and I can’t even blame her.”

I slap a hand on his shoulder and give him a shake. He’ll figure it out. Shit if he ever wants to eat at the diner again, he’ll have to. Vibrating in my pocket has my thoughts changing direction. Glancing at the screen I see Moss’s name flashing.

“Moss? Don’t tell me my Ol Lady needs your assistance again.”

“Not if you get there first. Got a call from the diner, Chewy and her gang of merry ladies have kicked off on some poor schmuck.”

“Ah, shit, is it bad?”

“Fucking hope so. He’s Vi’s ex boyfriend and he’s an absolute douche lord. You take this one, and I’ll come down if it escalates.” He hangs up at the same time I hang my head.

“What’s wrong?” Judge asks and I know I’m going to have to drag him to the diner with me. With the number of Ol Ladies we have, this is going to take more than me to calm the situation down.

“Got a scene at the diner, need your help, brother.”

His dark eyes bore into mine and he blows out a breath before he nods. “Let’s go.”

We throw our legs over our bikes and leave them where we parked. The diner is just across from where we were sitting, so we jog across the road. I’m about to push through the door when I freeze at the scene inside. The patrons that aren’t attached to the MC are all staring wide-eyed. One random old lady is holding Jr, while another is holding Rosie. Bee is kicking her legs in her car seat, where she is sitting next to Juno in hers atop a table with teenage girls eating fries. Laney is strapped into her stroller, her legs kicking, one fist in the air yelling an almost Xena like cry as she frowns at the scene in front of her. Some skinny, pasty guy is laid out across the table while all the women hold him down. No, scrap that. Pops, Lovely, Remy, Ana and Mira are holding him down. Blanche, Nat and Chewy are covering the guy in hot sauce while Vi is yelling “How do you like that spice? Huh, pendejo ?”

I can see a little smirk on Chewy’s face as the dude squirms and whines, so she pops him in the middle of the forehead with a teaspoon. I try to hide my chuckle as I pull open the door and walk in, Judge at my back.

“What the fuck is going on?” I say out loud, hoping to draw the attention of the MC women. No such luck.

The short, dark-haired owner comes bustling over, completely ignoring Judge.

“Look, I’m sure this looks bad, but the patrons and I are in agreement. This dick needs to learn his lesson. You don’t talk shit about anyone’s mama,” she nods her head decisively before turning to walk away.

She makes it two steps before she spins back around. “Maybe leave them for a couple of minutes, I want to see what they do with the lime. Once they do that you can break them up.” Her eyes flick to Judge, her cheeks pinken and she sucks in a breath looking nervous more than angry. Interesting.

“Ah shit,” I mutter as the guy screams like a little girl.

“There’s sauce in my eye! It burns!” he’s winking frantically, I’m guessing to get the sauce out, but he’s shit outta luck.

“Oh, I know what neutralises that,” Chewy says in a sweet voice.

“Lime juice! Let me help you,” Vi laughs maniacally as she gets ready to squirt lime juice into his eye.

I tuck my lip and let out an ear piercing whistle. Yes, it’s not only Marx that can stop a room with a whistle.

“That’s enough now ladies.” The whole diner lets out a collective “aw” and starts bitching under their breath. “I’m sure he’s learned his lesson.”

“No, I don’t think he has,” the old woman holding Rosie says. “That guy is a Grade A asshole and racist,”

“Yup, I say lime juice to the eye,” her old lady friend shouts, jiggling Jr. The diner lets out a cheer and shit, this guy must have really rubbed everyone up the wrong way.

Unfortunately, we don’t need any heat coming back on the MC. We already skirt the law in one way or another. The last thing we need is to draw the attention of Rose Grove PD thanks to the antics of the women.

“Put. The. Lime. Down.” I say in a firm voice. Oh OK, I growl, because I know these women are hard of hearing sometimes.

“Ugh, why do you have to come and shit all over our fun? Huh, Shitstain?” Pops growls. Then he eyes Laney before turning his gaze on me. He and I hold eye contact, knowing that as soon as one moves, the other will swoop in and snatch her up.

I lunge then pull back, faking him out. Due to his advanced age he falls for it, pulling back once he realizes, allowing me to get to Laney first, unbuckle her and cuddle her to me.

She throws her hands up and yells, gifting me a huge smile. “Hey, baby girl. You been cheering on Mama?” She grins and turns toward Chewy, pumping her little fist out and yelling at the wimpy ass motherfucker who is whimpering on the table top while Blanche whispers in his ear. “You’re gonna be a little trouble maker like Mama, huh? Damn, Daddy will be busy.” I may let out a sigh, but there’s a little flutter in my stomach. I can’t think of a better role model for a little girl than my woman.

The woman who has just squeezed the lime wedge, “accidentally” getting it in pasty guy’s eye. Pasty guy starts squealing like a stuck pig and cheers break out amongst the diner patrons. Shaking my head at her I hold out my hand, my woman taking it without question. I pull her until she’s plastered to the side of my body, exactly where she belongs. With my two girls in my arms I feel like the fucking king of the world.

“Well, not quite the outcome I would have expected, but a satisfying one nonetheless.” Moss’s voice says from over my shoulder.

“How long have you been lurking?”

He throws a smirk my way. “Since I called you. I was in an unmarked cruiser outside watching shit go down.” His face breaks out into a grin.

“Officer! Officer! Are you going to do anything about this? This, this, it’s assault! That’s what it is!” Pasty guy yells, spittle flying from his mouth.

“I guess it is,” Moss answers, nodding gravely but staying exactly where he stands, hands in pockets.

Pasty waves his arms wildly in the direction of the women, who have gone back to eating their muffins, babies on their laps. Judge has joined them, chewing on what looks to be a blueberry muffin. He keeps glancing at the little diner-owner lady, but she’s doing a fucking stellar job at ignoring him.

“So? Aren’t you going to do anything?”

“You know what? I don’t think I will. Let this be a lesson to you, don’t diss anyone’s mother ever again. Especially mine,” Moss’s voice drops to a fucking scary tone at the end there and Pasty must get the picture because he lets out an indignant huff before tucking tail and leaving the diner to the cheers of the old women and teenage girls that are in their booths.

“Well, now that’s sorted. Wanna muffin?”