KNOW ME (DEFIANT Motorcycle Club)(25)

just some girl taking up space in the kitchen.
“I think beer would be just as good as wine,” I finally said.
Teague laughed coarsely.  “Let’s just f*cking humor him,” he winked, talking about

Brandon.
It turned out Brandon’s idea of wine came in a box.  Or else that’s all there was to

be had in Quartzsite.  But I thanked him for the addition and he seemed pleased. 

Teague cut the bread into thin slices and Brandon pulled Rachel in from the bar to join

us.  Adele had gone home to check on her mother and Talia was still pouting so she

stayed in the bar to serve.
I had a smile on my face as I brought the steaming bowl of spaghetti to the table.  It

brought back happy memories of my girlhood among the Warlocks and I was glad.  I didn’

t want there to be only pain when I thought of them, when I thought of my father.
Brandon belched and drank a large mug of box wine like it was water.  “You throw it at

the wall?” he asked, eyeing the spaghetti.
Rachel laughed.  “Holy shit, my mother used to do that.  I don’t think she ever

really got it though.  She would just kind of stand there and watch as the noodles

bounced off the wall and then she would shrug and serve it to us crunchy.”
I mixed it all together one final time in the bowl.  “Perfect pasta is about the only

thing I know how to cook.”
It was a pleasant hour and I found myself feeling content.  The only moments I’d felt

really at ease since arriving here were in Orion’s arms and even that was bound up in

lust and emotion.  Brandon regaled us with disjointed stories about being a Marine.

Apparently it involved a lot of running and not much sleeping. The day he got out he

vowed not to cut his hair until the turn of another decade.
“You’ll want to rethink that,” Teague joked with his mouth full of pasta.  “I just

saw some shit crawling around in your beard.”
Brandon filled his mug with wine again.  “You’re a f*cking liar.  There’s no shit

crawling around in my face.”  Although before he finished speaking he’d already begun

stroking the mottled hair on his chin and after a minute he exited abruptly and ran

into the bathroom.  Teague cracked up.
“Man,” he laughed.  “It’s so f*cking easy.”
A telephone ring pierced the air and I jumped.  For a second I thought it was the phone

Orion had given me, which I’d left on the kitchen counter.
But no, it was Teague’s phone.  He glanced at the face of it and his face darkened. 

Rachel and I exchanged glances when he pushed back from the table and ran outside.
Brandon returned with a big patch of hair gone from his face.  He looked at me in

drunken confusion.  “I think I used your razor.”
“That’s okay,” I muttered, staring at the door Teague had exited from.
“Kira,” Rachel warned when I rose and followed him outside.  I didn’t listen.
Night was approaching and the wind was whipping up.  Teague was standing behind

Riverbottom smoking a cigarette.  Whatever business that call had been about was over.
“Rain will be here soon,” he said.
I inhaled.  An oddly sweet fragrance hung thick in the air.  “How can you tell?”
“That smell.  It’s desert greasewood.  Gives off this perfumy crap when it gets wet.

”
“Oh,” I said, shifting. Teague stared at me as the wind lifted my hair.  “Are they

coming back soon?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah.”  He tossed the cigarette on the ground and stepped on it.  It was a message. 

That was the only information he was going to offer.  He started to walk towards the

trailers.  “Hey, thanks for the meal.  Get the kid to wash the f*cking dishes.”
I assumed he was talking about Brandon.  “I’ll see you, Teague.”
He nodded, continuing to walk away.
Rachel was already cleaning up.  She kept removing dishes from Brandon’s drunken

clutches and he kept grabbing more and dropping them.  She wagged a finger at him. 

“You better not be thinking about riding around town tonight.  You know Orion doesn’t

have much of a sense of humor about you winding up in the drunk tank.”
“Fuck, that wasn’t me,” Brandon yawned.  “That was Maddox.”
She slapped at him with a wet dishtowel.  “Head on over to the bar and work it off or

else really get going and pass out.”
He thought about that.  “Anyone interesting over there?”
“Talia.”
Brandon grimaced underneath half a beard.  “That bitch.  Yeah, Grayson’s got to

figure that out sooner or later.”
Rachel smiled sweetly.  “Stay out of it. Gray was on lockdown for six years, right?”
Brandon nodded.  “Something like that.  Fucks with a man’s sense of what’s good and

what’s not, you know?”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
I joined Rachel at the sink and quietly began drying the motley collection of clean

dishes she set on the counter.  After a few minutes Brandon grew bored and headed over