“You work?” she asked.
I chuckled and nodded. “Yes, babe, I do work; otherwise, I wouldn’t have money.”
“What do you do for work?”
“The club owns a gym and a body shop.”
“I figured a body shop, but I’m kind of surprised by the gym.”
I shrugged, “We have the gym as a place we can all work out, but it is open to memberships. Mt. Pleasant isn’t the biggest town, but we have a few members. The body shop is where the club makes most of our money.”
“And where do you work?”
“Guess.”
She tipped her head to the side and smiled. “I’m going to assume the body shop because if I think about you working at a gym, I picture you in too-small shorts and walking around talking about protein powders and how bad carbs are for you.”
I busted out laughing and held up my hand. “That is not me at all, babe. I do work at the body shop. No one really works at the gym full-time. We all take turns cleaning and maintaining it, but it more runs itself.”
“Nice. So, what do you do at the body shop?”
“Hey, I thought I was telling you about my day, not playing twenty questions with you,” I protested.
She flitted her hand at me. “Fine, fine. But just know I will likely have questions when you are done.”
“I can do pretty much anything around the shop, but I tend to be the paint guy. We work on any cars, but we tend to get a lot of restorations and classics coming through the door.” The shop did its fair share of oil changes, too, but that was because there were only three shops in town. “We shut down between six and seven, and then it’s back over to the clubhouse where someone makes something for dinner, or we order in, and then we just hang out for the rest of the night.”
“So you live pretty much every man’s fantasy? You get to hang with your friends all the time and work on cars?”
Not sure it was every guy’s fantasy, but it sure as hell was mine. I loved my job, and I loved the club. There wasn’t a day when it felt like I was working. Do what you love, and you’ll never feel like you worked a day in your life.
“What about you, babe? You mentioned you work at a factory, but what do you do there?”
“Uh, well, the plant makes ice cream, and I run one of the machines in the mixing room. I’ve worked there for close to ten years.”
“Ice cream, huh?” I chuckled. “I’m surprised you wanted to stop here.”
She shrugged and glanced around. “This is nice. Now, if you wanted to tour a factory or something, I might not want to. I see the inside of a factory five, sometimes six, days a week.”
“So what do you do when you’re not working or reading?”
“Hey,” she protested, “you didn’t like when I asked questions.”
I held up my hands. “Sorry, sorry.”
She leaned back and tipped her head to the sky. “It sounds so lame when I say it out loud, but I really just work and read. Sure, I go shopping and hang out with Dove, but besides her, I don’t have many friends. Honestly, we might only be friends because we work together. Forced proximity, ya know? I’m also in a bunch of book groups on the internet, but it’s not like I see them ever. We pretty much just talk books, and that is it.”
“Seems like we both have boring lives.”
She furrowed her brow. “Yeah, sure, your life is pretty boring being in a motorcycle club. Totally the same as me.” She scoffed and shook her head.
“I don’t know if you think my life is likeSons of Anarchyor something, Sloane, but it’s not.”
She held up a finger. “You live in a clubhouse.”
I nodded.
She added another finger. “You have a president.”