Page 19 of Snake

As Badger nodded, Autumn had an idea. “Can I do anything to help?”

Adrienne considered her—and Autumn was relieved not to see anything negative in her regard. “How are you with paper flowers?”

Autumn grinned. “I was in charge of Homecoming events for three years in a row at my sorority. I’m an expert at paper flowers.”

Adrienne’s expression opened wide. “Excellent! Come with me!” She glanced at her husband as she made the invitation, and Badger answered with an ushering sweep of his arm.

It was so obvious Autumn could have slapped herself for missing it all this time. The women! That was how she changed the Horde’s attitude—and their perception. Get in good with their women.

Still smiling, she followed Adrienne to make paper flowers.

Chapter Five

The Horde had several generators, and all of them were gas powered. Battery-operated generators existed, of course; just about the whole world was actively trying to end combustion power itself, so robust battery options were available for most kinds of motors. Cox understood why; from extracting the oil to running the engines, the use of fossil fuels had fucked the globe to Hell and back. But the batteries required to power all these new electric motors weren’t without their serious environmental issues, either.

As a mechanic, he’d be out of a job when combustion engines finally went the way of the horse-drawn buggy, so Cox was in no rush to make the switch himself. Electric shit was like the shit Apple made—all of it sealed up and locked down so users couldn’t modify or repair it on their own. He resented the fuck out of products like that.

The generator the club used for fairs and rallies and shit was their largest portable, and it was pushing sixty years old. At this point, the thing was the Ship of Theseus a couple times over. Despite Cox’s best efforts, parts were harder and harder to find. He was going to have to start machining his own routinely, and that would be a huge pain in his ass. Eventually, he’d have to stop getting in the way of Badger buying an electric model.

But today was not that day.

With the generator finally rumbling, powering the lights that pushed back the falling dark, Cox put his tools away. Badger came up beside him as he closed the latch on the toolbox.

“One of these days, even you won’t get this fucker running.”

The president sounded like he meant to raise the topic of an electric genny again. Though Cox had been thinking along those lines himself, he was not in the mood for a discussion. “Maybe. Today is not that day.”

Badger only chuckled. While Cox dug up some hand sanitizer and did what he could to clean his hands with it, Badger followed and added, “You can take the night off. I’ll put Kel on Snake Watch for the rest of the night.”

Wiping his hands, Cox thought about that. Playing tour guide, or prison guard, or whatever the fuck with Autumn Rooney had not been a highlight event in his life. Interacting with that woman was a bizarre mental soup of irritation, impatience, and guilt, with a maddening itch of attraction, and he’d been counting the minutes until it was over. He also thought Badger was out of his gourd for thinking the woman was trouble enough to require somebody at her heels every second. The damage she could do had already been done.

However, Kellen was constantly on the make. Cox didn’t generally give a shit what any of his brothers did, so long as it didn’t affect him, but he obviously noticed, and he judged. Kellen Frey was a true-blue asshole. Now he’d feel responsible if he handed Autumn off to a guy like that and he did something shitty to her. Since she was a club adversary as well as a beautiful woman without a man in his way, odds were high Kellen would do something shitty to her.

Badger, of course, knew all this. So by suggesting that Kellen would take over, he was saying he wanted Autumn to have the kind of night Kellen would give her.

Cox thought that was pretty shitty as well—and it gave him some insight into why Badger wanted her covered so closely. Not because she was such a threat, but because he was trying to make her miserable.

The club president was being a schoolyard bully.

“Nah,” Cox said. “I got her.”

Badger’s forehead folded up. “Yeah? You sure?”

“Yeah.” He tossed the used paper towels in the plastic bin and headed off to find his assignment for the rest of the night.

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~oOo~

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The women were set up in front of the town hall, under a large canopy with a sign reading STAGING AREA clipped to the edge. Great mounds of tissue puffs in rainbow colors lay in drifts over tables and spilled out of bags, and several teens ran back and forth, delivering all that puffery wherever it was meant to go.

Autumn stood under the canopy, behind a table where she, Adrienne, Adrienne and Badger’s daughter Megan, and Candy were shoving wads of that colorful paper into chicken wire or winding long lengths of pipe cleaner around it. They were laughing and chatting like old friends. Autumn’s cheeks glowed rosy bright, and her copper ponytail swung pertly as she tossed her head back to laugh at something Adrienne said.

Cox had a sudden flash of nostalgia, an ancient memory of his mom as a young woman, all her friends over, laughing like loons while they crafted or scrapbooked together. In the long-ago days when she’d been happy and had a full, vibrant life. Before his father went to war and their world went to hell.

He shook the memory away before it could draw blood.

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