Page 8 of Resilience

“No, dear,” Mom signed, giving Athena her ‘running out of patience’ look. She only signed ‘dear’ when she was irritated. “It’s messed up to get so wild somebody called them. I mean, seriously, both of you. That’s the club’s cabin. I can assure you that you are not the first partiers to get wild up there. But you are the first to get busted for disturbing the peace. My mind reels trying to understand how fucking out of control you had to be to get people to call law on the Bulls.” She flung her hands out in resigned disappointment. “You’re lucky you still get use of the place, but you won’t if you fuck up again.”

“It’s not my fault it got loud.” Athena pointed out.

Her mother made it clear she was not impressed by that point.

But Sam laughed. “No, it’s not, but be real, Athena. You’re the loudest person I know.”

Mom laughed too, and Athena sulked. They meant that she, apparently, slammed doors and drawers, banged pots and pans, and so on—that she was loud simply moving through the world. Maybe so, but whatever. How was she supposed to know? Okay, yes, she knew how to close a door ‘quietly,’ and she mostly tried to do so. But it seemed like the difference between quiet and loud was smaller and more nuanced than she could possibly understand. She’d been lectured about ‘slamming’ things around when she’d actually been trying to be quiet, so whatever.

Her phone flashed, and her mother glared at it. She hated having phones at the table.

Ignoring her, Athena flipped her phone over—a text from Hunter: Hey babe, want to come over? I’ll cook.

Mom waved her hand and got Athena’s attention. “You know how I feel about phones at the table.”

“It’s Hunter. He wants me to come over. Just a sec.”

She texted back: I’m eating rn with fam. So no need to cook for me, but I can come over after, be there in 30-45 mins. That work?

He sent back a single word: Sure.

That period was problematic. He was annoyed. Athena sighed, returned Okay, see you soon xoxo, and set her phone down.

Mom and Sam were looking at her like she’d disappointed them both.

“Get over yourselves,” she signed and dug back into her gai tod.

CHAPTER THREE

After dinner, Athena went to Hunter’s place, so Sam headed out when his clothes were through the laundry. He considered going to Lark’s, but he was still seriously pissed at her. Eight had just about torn his head off at the station about ‘letting’ his girlfriend (not the word Eight had used) use his burner and not taking his prospecting duties seriously. Eight shouted at the prospects all the time, and Sam knew enough to know it was about half hot air—Eight liked giving the prospects a hard time. But today he’d been truly livid. Sam was legitimately worried now that Lark’s little toilet stunt had damaged his chance for a patch.

Monty had been witness to it all and had blown off Sam’s worry while they were cleaning out the car. Monty was sure Sam was a shoo-in for a patch, being Simon’s son and all. Sam wished he was that sure.

He’d always loved the club—it made up his family, after all—but he’d never been all that interested in being a member. He’d grown up during the Perro years, and that shit had been scary as fuck. Dad had been inside for almost all of that time, and Sam, Mason, and their mom had been glad—being in a federal prison had made him safer than any Bull on the outside. Or anyone in their family.

Not that prison was a summer camp. Those years had been hard on Dad, too. He’d always been a pretty quiet guy and kind of boring for an outlaw (his big hobby was building elaborate model ships), but since he’d finished his stretch and come home, he was even quieter—and a lot older than the five years he’d been away.

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