Page 77 of Snake

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~oOo~

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After that casual breakfast, Autumn found herself caught up in the preparations for the event for which she was ostensibly a guest of honor, and she was delighted. She knew it wasn’t really any intentional gesture to make her feel like she belonged; she simply happened to be present while the club was delegating its various responsibilities, and when she offered to help, they didn’t hesitate to take her up on it.

Thus, she went out to the rental car, collected her bags, used Cox’s dorm room to change out of yesterday’s clothes, and got busy. She started off organizing and fluffing patriotic-themed decorations (garlands, bunting, balloons, and such), but then somebody came from the kitchen to complain that they were having a terrible time getting hard-boiled eggs peeled smoothly. Autumn was a pretty decent cook, as both her dads enjoyed cooking and teaching her, and one of her specialty dishes was devilled eggs with a truffle-oil glaze. She knew how to hard boil an egg. Thus, she ended up in the kitchen for most of the day.

Cox rolled up his sleeves as well, but he managed to be close by frequently, checking in with a look that asked how she was doing. Always, she sent him back a smile, because she was enjoying herself. As in the spring, when she’d helped briefly as they set up their Spring Fling, Autumn was reminded of her sorority days—and realizing that a motorcycle club, at least the Night Horde version, was more like a fraternity than a cartel.

Chase, on the other hand, sat at the bar by himself and pouted for more than an hour, stuffing his face with donuts and coffee the whole time. Autumn checked on him twice and was rebuffed both times—the second time, he’d called her a ‘fucking nag,’ so she left him to his own devices thereafter.

As the preparations were heading toward completion and the groundbreaking was less than two hours away, she noticed he wasn’t at the bar. During a halfhearted search, Izzy, the club girl who’d been with Chase last night, said she’d seen him go back to the dorm with his suitcase. Autumn assumed that meant he was freshening up for the groundbreaking and set concerns about him aside.

The pouting and stewing meant her trip back to Indianapolis would be doubly uncomfortable, at best, but she knew her boss well. Yesterday, he’d learned that he did not hold the power here in Signal Bend, so he would not put himself in another position for that point to be made clear. He would behave himself and then correct his self-confidence by putting her in her place when there was no one around to defend her.

Except herself.

With each passing moment of the morning that Chase behaved like the hyper-entitled scion of generational wealth he was, Autumn became, in steady increments, less willing to ‘manage’ the man and more skeptical that it had ever been the smart call to do so. Rather than best him at his game and make the blind spots of his prejudices and entitlements work for her, wouldn’t it have been better not to accept those prejudices and entitlements at all? Wouldn’t it have been better to demand respect than to manipulate his disrespect so it served her?

All these years that she’d been thinking herself so smart, so savvy, claiming success from the perpetual frat-boy misogynist(s) she worked for, had she really been reifying in her own career everything that disadvantaged women in corporate culture?

“Autumn?”

A hand rested on her arm, and she blinked and looked up at Candy Kohl, Double A’s wife, whose expression was half smile, half frown.

“Yeah?”

“You okay? You’ve been staring at the wall with that spoon in your hand for a few minutes, and I had to put my hand on you to get your attention.”

Autumn looked at the spoon in her hand. It was laden with devilled filling, waiting to be spooned into a piping bag—Autumn always piped the filling into her eggs. It was prettier that way.

She laughed and picked up the piping bag. “I’m fine. Just ... got trapped in a thought.”

“I get it. Happens to me all the time.” Candy rocked a hip into Autumn’s—gently, as if she wasn’t sure Autumn would appreciate a puckishly friendly touch like that. “Especially after a good night with Dub.”

What a strange experience, to have everyone around know what her night had been and to be interested in that fact. In college it had happened, sure, but she’d belonged there, been a member of her sorority, been friends with, lived with, the girls giving her the knowing smirks. A few months ago, she considered everyone in this building today an adversary.

Feeling her cheeks warm, Autumn smiled. She almost shook her head, almost told Candy that she hadn’t been thinking about Cox. At the last second, she decided to get in on the moment instead. So she gave Candy a smirk of her own and did a little head wag to convey, Yeah, what can I say, it was a good night.

Candy laughed and rocked her hip again. “Who’da thunk our Cox’d make a girl blush like that!” She gave Autumn a quick squeeze and said, “I came over to say I found these!”

Autumn looked at the stack of vintage Tupperware deviled egg trays—six of them, each with cups for sixteen eggs.

And they were true vintage Tupperware. “These are fantastic! My dad would fall over with the vapors to see these—they must be from the Seventies!”

Candy considered the harvest-gold and white trays. “I don’t know about that, but they’re old. Not even Lilli knew we had ‘em. I found ‘em in the back of the pantry. They were full of dust and first I thought we should just toss ‘em, but they washed up nice.”

“They’re excellent. Perfect for carting the eggs to the site.”

“I thought so. Need anything else?”

Autumn looked around her little sliver of workstation in the busy kitchen. “Um ... paprika? I had it here, but ...”

“WHO STOLE THE PAPRIKA?” Candy shouted over the din of several people cooking.

A pretty, delicate-looking blonde with Precious-Moments blue eyes turned around. Autumn was sure the girl was one of the Horde children, but she couldn’t quite place .... Lexi. The pretty little blonde was Lexi Elstad. Who wasn’t a child, but somewhere around twenty or so?

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