Crash (Brazen Bulls MC #1)(79)
When Rad had left her here and gone back for his meeting, Maureen and Joanna had been quite nice. They’d asked how she was feeling and fussed about her hurt face a little, and they’d offered her coffee and drawn her into their conversation. She still felt a little awkward, but that was her, not them. The things she had in common with them were so new to her, and they’d lived this life for years. She felt like a freshman on the first day of school, pulling up a chair at a table full of popular seniors.
But she knew the shop they were talking about, so she took a chance and offered a careful opinion. “The floor is pretty cool. It just looks—almost like weathered stone, I guess. Like old terra cotta?”
Joanna smiled and flipped her red hair over her shoulder. “Yes! It’s real nice. I’m thinking about ripping up the carpet and doing something like that at my place. Have you ever been in my shop, Willa? It’s La Luciole.”
Willa knew the shop, but she’d never been in it. It was a high-end women’s fashion boutique that stocked clothes and accessories that were both out of Willa’s league and nowhere near her taste. It surprised her, honestly. Here she sat with two women probably in their mid-ish forties, both of them shapely and attractive, both dressed in jeans and snug, dark tops, lots of jewelry, and boots with high heels. Full makeup and hair. They looked like the queens of this castle. La Luciole was more the Ladies Who Lunch kind of shop. Nothing Willa would ever go into willingly. She had a hard time picturing Joanna in there, either.
But to Joanna, she said, “Yeah, I know it. It’s nice.”
Maureen snorted. “You’ve never been in there in your life, love. Admit it.”
A glance at Joanna suggested honesty would not provoke violence. “Well, it’s not my style, really. But the window displays are always gorgeous.”
“It’s not my style, either,” Joanna laughed. “But the women who like that shit pay. The store was my mother’s. I worked there my whole life, I inherited it when she passed, and I didn’t see any reason to change up a good thing. But you should come in sometime—we have some nice things that aren’t so…obvious.”
“Okay,” Willa agreed with a smile. “I will, thanks.”
“Back to the topic at hand,” Maureen interrupted, the slight lilt of her accent becoming more pronounced in her emphasis. “The floor. I don’t want to do anything too nice here. These boys are like children the way they treat this place. They’ll just tear it all up.”
“Then why redo it?” Willa asked, not considering that the question might cause offense.
But Maureen lifted an eyebrow, and Willa knew she didn’t appreciate the challenge. “We have to be here, too, and I won’t spend time in a shitter. It’s been like this coming on ten years, because Brian keeps putting himself in my way. ‘Too much disruption to do this room,’ he says. Well, the furniture looks like they dragged it all from a dumpster, and it smells like jizz, stale beer, and White Shoulders, and I am at my end. I made him see it was time he let me at it.”
Joanna laughed. “To be a fly on that wall.”
“I don’t know what you mean. It was a perfectly civilized discussion betwixt two reasonable people.” Then she laughed. “More or less.” Setting a conspiratorial elbow on the bar, Maureen leaned close to Willa. “You’ll learn, love. Men like ours, sometimes you have to lock your knees and set your shoulders and let them crash into you before they’ll stop and listen. And sometimes you have to step aside and make way.”
“Yep,” Joanna agreed and refilled Willa’s coffee cup, pushing the cream close. “Pick your battles. Because battles you will have.”
“That one, I figured out already,” Willa said.
An arc of sunlight moved over the bar, and all three women turned to the front door as two young women walked in. With the light behind them, Willa couldn’t make out whether she knew them or not—though she hadn’t exactly socialized among the Bulls yet, she’d been introduced to a lot of them, including a few sweetbutts and hangarounds.
Sweetbutts. What a ridiculous thing to call a grown woman. But they referred to themselves and each other that way, and they seemed pleased to have the designation, so Willa kept her opinions to herself.
“Hey, cookies,” Joanna said and stood. “What’s the what?”
The door had closed, and Willa saw that she didn’t recognize either young woman. They were slim and tall, about the same height, both with long hair, one ginger and one blonde. They both had clear blue eyes and liberal dashes of summer freckles across their noses.
The redhead hugged Joanna, and Willa wasn’t surprised to hear the way she addressed Dane’s old lady. “Mom, don’t try to be down with the lingo, okay?”
“I’m cool. You don’t even know.” Joanna hugged the blonde. “Have you two met Willa yet? I don’t think so.” She turned with her arm around the blonde. “Willa, these are my daughters. This is Clara, and the one with the smart mouth is Cecily. Cissy just finished her first year at OU. Clara’s going into twelfth grade in the fall. Willa is Rad’s old lady.”
Willa shook hands with both girls, neither of whom seemed especially interested in her. But they each gave Maureen a quick hug.
Joanna settled herself back on her stool. “You’re here of your own free will, so you must want something. How much is it going to cost me?”