Page 22 of Havoc

“Okay, let’s see—our last conversation was about you accidentally triggering the fire suppressant system here at the clubhouse.”

“Yeah, we had a nice long talk that led to nowhere,” I grumbled.

Her eyes lifted to mine. She pointed at the notes section of her planner. “That wasn’t my takeaway from the situation. I thought we decided that operating outside your area of expertise, poor communication, and starting work without a clear plan of action contributed to that situation.”

I was taken aback—but not by much. I remembered us discussing those points, though not quite so succinctly during our conversation. “Yeah, we talked about that. To be honest, Storm, Celt, and I talked about it the night of the incident, so it wasn’t new information.”

She nodded. “Whether the information is new or not, it’s still valuable. But only if you use it to inform your future decision-making.”

I held up my beer, and the bartender gave me a thumbs up. I put my glass back down with a hollow thunk and asked Riley, “Can you please speak fuckin’ English?”

“Remember not to make those mistakes again.”

“Got it,” I told her. I honestly felt like this meeting was getting off to a bad start. “That’s the problem I’m having in a nutshell. It’s easy to look back and see what went wrong and even easier to remember not to do that again. The problem is, there’s always some new situation that pops up—and a new lesson to be learned. Do ya get what I’m laying down?”

Her face lit up and she said excitedly, “The problem is extrapolating lessons learned from one situation to another.”

Thankfully, the prospect tending bar brought my drink. I grabbed it and sucked down half of it in one drink. “Sure, that sounds about right,” I said, assuming her pompous turn of phrase just meant taking the lessons I’d learned and applying them to new situations. Gawd, this woman could be annoying at times. “Truth be told, I’m fucking tired of talking about the watery mess I made of the clubhouse. Maybe we could talk about something else for a while.”

She froze for a second and then shifted gears. “Of course. Tell me about the goals you came up with.” She had a smile on her pretty face, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Why don’t we take a break for a bit? Maybe you could grab yourself a drink while I knock back another.”

Her body relaxed. Until I saw her shoulders sag, I hadn’t realized how much tension she’d been carrying. I felt guilty for being difficult.

She immediately agreed. “Sure. We can take a break and regroup.”

Since the beer I drank didn’t get me drunk, I decided to have another. A quick signal to the prospect behind the bar was all it took for him to start pulling me another near beer from the tap. I watched Riley make her way to the bar. If I was being honest, she looked a little defeated. Guilt burned in my gut because she was just a good woman trying to do the job she was hired to do. It’s a shame that she wound up with an idiot like me for a client. The more I paid attention to how she moved and interacted, the more I could tell that being pretentious wasn’t an act. Riley probably wasn’t trying to be superior. Like I’d told Storm, she justwassuperior to the rest of us mortals who walked, talked, and fucked up sometimes. Maybe that was what my real problem was—I didn’t like feeling inferior.

Zoe came up to her at the bar and they had an animated conversation, with Riley waving her arms around and then gesturing towards me. Zoe looked over at me and rolled her eyes. Then she grabbed my new life coach by the arm and dragged her upstairs.

I guessed that was the end of the whole ‘unfuck Havoc’ project that Storm and his old lady had concocted. It was a shame that a nice woman like Riley had to get steamrolled in the process, but I was gonna call this a win for Team Havoc. I was a smart guy. Now that I knew how seriously my club was taking this issue, I’d just double down and fix it myself.

I swirled the last sip of near beer around in the bottom of my glass and drank it up because I saw the bartender coming with my refill. Charlotte intercepted him, took the beer from him, and headed straight for my table with a big smile on her face. I was much less enthusiastic about this latest turn of events.

When she got to my table, she set the beer down in front of me with a flourish. “Where did your new friend go?”

“She went upstairs with our club president’s wife. Didn’t you see?”

She shoved her hands into the front pocket of her jeans and wiggled her body slightly, showing off her curves. I swore these club girls never gave up. Charlotte was wearing a belly shirt that showed off her belly button piercing. Clearly, she was trying to draw my attention to it.

She told me, “I knew she wasn’t gonna be able to handle a rough and ready biker like you. The girls from the outside never can. If you want an old lady, you should be looking inside the club. Outsiders never understand the brothers.”

Staring up at Charlotte, I realized she was saying all the stupid things I’d been thinking. It pissed me off because it drove home how ridiculous my internal dialogue had been. Sure, it would be nice if Riley was serious about learning more about my world, but if I cooperated with her, we’d get the job done without her having to go that far. I got lost in trying to figure out exactly why that had been so important to me.

It slowly dawned on me—it was because Iwantedher in my world. I wanted Riley at my side, looking up at me with those big green eyes, maybe enjoying my company. My eagerness to get to know her better was overruling every other consideration right now.

Charlotte’s voice got louder, and I became vaguely aware that she was still standing there vying for my attention. “Hey, I was talking to you, Havoc.”

My head snapped around and up to look at her. Before I could speak, she did. “Aren’t you gonna thank me for bringing your beer?” Gesturing towards the extra chair, she added, “Maybe, ask me to have a seat and keep you company?”

I was shaking my head before she even finished her sentence because this woman didn’t interest me—not at all. “Thanks for walking my beer the fifteen feet from the bar to my table, but I don’t want your company tonight.”

Her hands balled into fists at her sides, and she asked, “Well, why not? You’re all alone. I’m surely better than no one.”

Just then I saw Riley walking back down the steps with Zoe. My mouth dropped open and my eyes lit up when I realized she’d traded out her cute business suit for black frilly mini-skirt and a black biker t-shirt that hugged every curve like she’d been sewn into it. My gaze traveled from her glorious red hair down to the black knee boots and high-thigh black stockings she was wearing. Gone were the pearls, and her hair had been thrown up into a messy updo. My mouth went dry, and my heart skipped a beat as I watched her walk to the bar, that pretty skirt swaying back and forth. She picked up her own drink and came back to me.

Maybe I hadn’t driven her away after all. She was dressed formyworld, and I liked that mark of respect way more than I should. My head filled with all sorts of inappropriate thoughts—especially since she was here to help me, not for any kind of shenanigans.

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