Page 10 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies
Everyone joins to be kind.
I feel my shoulders settle away from my ears and realize I have been braced against my own expectations since noon.
Around ten, when the band breaks down and the men start collapsing the tents with the hunched efficiency of people who have done this in the rain before, I gather my trays and let the lodge kitchen pull me in.
The room is warmer than the tents and loud in a different way.
Pots talk to each other in soft taps.
Pans make the music of usefulness.
The hearth throws a steady heat that feels like a promise held for later.
The chalkboard on the far wall bears a shopping list written in three hands and half a dozen different moods.
There are bullet casings on the shelf beside the cookbooks.
A rosary hangs from a nail.
A dish towel has been folded into quarters with the kind of precision that speaks a love language.
I set the last tray on a table and flex my hands.
Sugar sticks to my fingers, a dusting of victory and stubbornness.
Citrus oils perfume my wrists.
My feet ache in a clean way that reminds me of lines of service passed back and forth between women in kitchens. I tell myself I will wash the piping bags and go. I tell myself I will not linger in a room that is starting to feel like a choice.
I wash my hands because I need something to do.
The water runs warm.
Sugar melts and slides away.
I watch it go and try not to think about how easy it is to lose something fine when you stop paying attention.
The kitchen does what kitchens do.
It welcomes motion.
It forgives hesitation.
I stack the last clean tray.
I wrap two tubs of frosting for later and tuck a knife into its place behind the flour tins.
The room breathes around me as if it recognizes a person who will feed it back.
The door opens and the party spills through in a burst.
The last of the band hauls in a case that has seen more towns than I have.
A man with a garland crown and a new respect for fire thumbs through a stack of paper plates like a dealer.
Cruz steps in backward with a crate of glasses balanced against his chest, eyes on the corridor as if he is carrying something once broken that he will not break again.
He sees me and the look he gives me is so warm I consider stepping into it.
