Page 28 of Virago

“Then we won’t.” Gia opened the door and welcomed him into her family castoff shed.

~oOo~

Batting at the wall, she found a set of three switches and flipped them all up, wondering what they’d do. The porch light blinked on, and the light over that little kitchen island. In the living room, a lamp beside the small IKEA sectional went bright.

Cheese and Crackers were curled up together in the corner of the sofa, yin and yang. Crackers lifted his head and blinked balefully at the lamp, then buried his head under Cheese’s fluffy tail.

“This is really nice,” Zaxx said from right behind her shoulder. “This is the first time I’m seeing it finished. It looks great.”

“Thanks,” Gia said without much enthusiasm. She agreed, to an extent. If it were somebody else’s place, she’d think it was cute and a really excellent gift. But what she mostly felt was moved out. Warehoused.

That was a her problem, she was sure. Still a problem, however.

Turning his way, Gia saw Zaxx in good light for the first time tonight. He really was incredibly good looking, with those eyes and that hair and that smile. She also liked his size, the way his broad shoulders rose above her. That shielding effect was surprisingly potent.

Her father, brother, and godfather were all at least six-five. Gia had grown up thinking that was the size men should be. Moreover, with her mom five-ten and she an inch taller herself, Gia had been conditioned, like most everybody else, to expect men to be bigger than women and, unlike everybody else, to think of extra-large as medium.

The real world had been pretty disappointing on the whole size issue. Gia loved her height, and her strength, and embraced her size and power despite a world in which she was often perceived as a giant. Taller than virtually every woman she’d ever met and most of the men. A whole chorus of men had rejected her because she was ‘too tall,’ despite all the work she’d done to stop thinking of anyone six feet or less as ‘short.’ And that wasn’t accounting for the men of any size who thought she was ‘too tough.’

Zaxx was clearly attracted to her. Maybe it was simply because he was enough taller than her to be confident he was stronger, but he knew she was no weakling and didn’t seem threatened in the least. So far, in fact, he’d seemed completely comfortable when she’d taken charge. Could he really be that good? And also that good looking?

“Do you want something to drink?” she asked, mainly to cut off her own thoughts before it got awkward to be staring at him silently. She walked to her tiny, cute kitchen, where she remembered that her funky, adorable new retro fridge had been fully stocked.

Zaxx followed her. “Sure, thanks.” As she opened the fridge, he said, “Your folks really went all out. Those old-fashioned-looking fridges aren’t cheap.”

A discordant note there; Gia didn’t like talking about money. She shot him a glance but didn’t remark on the expense of the fridge. “There’s no beer or wine in here. I’ve got a BRITA pitcher of water, some Pellegrino, a six of Coke Zero, and orange juice.”

“A Coke’ll do. Thanks.”

As Gia pulled two cans of soda out and went in search of glassware, Zaxx chose to chase that discordant topic.

“It’s wild to me, how much different the OG patches’ lives are.”

“What do you mean?” Having located the glasses (they were new, bought special just for her), Gia filled two with ice. She hoped he was headed in a different direction than she suspected.

“Just ... they made bank. Your dad, Show, Len, Bart, Badge, all the guys who were one-percenters back in the day, they’re all still rolling in it, even though it’s been like twenty years. The rest of us, we’re doin’ okay, but ... you know—I rent a single-wide in a trailer park.”

Nope, he wanted to talk about money. Gross.

She understood the point he was trying to make: that the club had been financially better off during their outlaw days, the kind of wealth that held on for awhile, wealth younger patches had no access to. But he was looking at it upside down and with one eye closed.

A glowing-hot spike of uncomplicated anger soared up her spine, and it felt good—a place to put all her sour, unsettled feelings about being home but not home.

He wanted to talk money? Okey. Fucking. Dokey.

With the first glass half full, Gia set the soda can down and turned to face her guest. “That is so fucking typical.”

His expression and posture had been loose, comfortable, but Gia’s tone pushed that comfort away. “What? What d’you mean?”

“I guess, yeah, the club made more money back in those days. They also buried people they loved in those days. And my dad was gone for a huge chunk of my childhood because of the things the club did in those days.”

His handsome face lost most of its color. “Hey—I’m sor—”

“But that’s not even the most obnoxious part of what you said! My dad ended his outlaw days basically broke. He does okay now, because he gets his share of the construction business, like all the patches, like you, but he’s not ‘making bank.’ My mom is the reason my folks have money. She built the B&B from the ground up and still owns eighty percent of it. It’s the most successful fucking business in town! Shannon is the reason the Ryans are comfortable, because she runs the B&B, and Mom gave her twenty-percent ownership. Tasha is a fucking doctor! Cory co-owns Valhalla Vin with the club and runs the place! And Bart’s first wife was Riley Chase! That’s why he’s loaded. Fucking misogynist, thinking all the work women do and success they create reflects on their men. Jesus Christ.”

The thing to do now, to really drive her point home: send him away. She was angry enough to do it. But one thought in her head yanked the reins and stopped her: She didn’t want to be alone.

On this shockingly shitty day of her homecoming, she did not want to go up to her gifted loft where her childhood bed now lived and sleep in this shed by herself. So she stood and glared at Zaxx while he processed her rant. His response to it would determine whether that one thought took hold, or her nature took over and sent Zaxx back where he came from.

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