“Hell,” Phoenix said, “if that’s a determining factor, more than one of us would be in trouble.” His comment met with more laughter, and Dare was glad to see the guy joking around.
“Let’s put it to a vote,” Dare said. The yays won the question, eighteen to six. “Let him know, Mav.” Sitting at Dare’s right, his cousin nodded. “Anything else?” Dare asked. When no one said anything, the meeting adjourned.
Guys spilled out of the meeting room at the back of the clubhouse and made their way into the rec room and front lounge to play pool or shoot the shit.
Bunny found Rodeo hanging at the bar in the rec room and gave him a kiss on the cheek. With his deep dimples, Rodeo always looked like he was about to break into a grin, but never more than when he was in Bunny’s presence. The two had been together for the better part of fifteen years. Dare couldn’t imagine what that kind of commitment would be like, and was more and more sure he wouldn’t be finding out, either.
“Hey, Sugar. What’s up?” Rodeo asked.
She put her arm around her man’s waist. “I have something you all are really gonna like,” she said, looking from Rodeo and Doc to Dare and Maverick, all gathered around the bar with glasses of whiskey in their hands.
“I know you do,” Rodeo said with a wicked grin. “But I hope you don’t think you’re sharing it with these sorry fuckers.”
Bunny elbowed him in the side, and Maverick shook his head at the older couple’s antics just like he always did. He’d long ago given up on being embarrassed by his mother and Rodeo’s public displays of affection. He was too happy that she’d escaped from his abusive prick of a father to begrudge her any happiness now. “Trust me,” she said, nodding her head and encouraging them to follow her.
Rodeo shrugged, and they all followed her through the lounge and into the mess hall—where one of the tables was covered with four big trays of cookies. “Well, hell, Bunny. You’re outdoing yourself lately,” Rodeo said, grabbing a big chocolate chip cookie.
“Yeah,” Doc said. “What’s with all the treats? You trying to sweeten us up for something?” The question met with laughter as more guys caught word that there was food and made their way into the mess hall.
“Can’t a woman just do something nice for the men in her life?” she asked, looking way too innocent.
A loud, collective “no” followed by a round of raucous laughter filled the room. God, it felt good to laugh. And Dare really liked seeing his brothers have a reason to laugh, too.
“Well, screw y’all, then,” she said, grabbing one of the trays and making like she’d take it back into the kitchen.
Dare got in front of his great-aunt—the only mother figure Dare had known since the day he fled his house—and lifted it out of her hands. She gave him plenty of shit, and he loved her for it. “That won’t be necessary, Bunny,” he said with a wink. “You know we’re just giving you hell.”
“I know you are,” she said. “And you know I know what a giant sweet tooth you have, Dare Kenyon. So you better be nice to me.”
Grinning, Dare nodded and returned the tray to the table. Peanut butter cookies with peanut butter chips, complete with the lines caused by mashing a fork into the top before baking. Shit if that didn’t resurrect a long-buried memory.
Him and Kyle and Mom in their kitchen back in Arizona, making Christmas cookies. Dare couldn’t have been more than six or seven. And not only had they made his mom’s famous iced sugar cookies for the Diablos’ big party, but she’d made a batch of peanut butter cookies—with chips like these had—just for Dare. Because they were his favorite. As he took a bite, the rich salty-sweet of the peanut butter flavor sucked him back to the moment when she’d surprised him with the dough and then let him have the fun of rolling it into balls and mashing the fork tines into it to make the design.
Stupid fucking thing to remember, wasn’t it? Getting all sentimental over a goddamned cookie. Dare finished the one in his hand.
Fucking good cookie, though. And he wasn’t the only one who thought so, judging by how fast they were flying off the trays. If it was one thing they could do in this club, it was pack away some food. A crazy big part of their monthly expenses went to food bills for the clubhouse—not that Dare minded. Sitting down to meals together made them feel even more like a family, and some of the guys didn’t really have anyone to be going home to at dinnertime anyway.
Like, for example, you, Kenyon?
For fuck’s sake.
Shaking away the thought, Dare elbowed his way to the table. “Y’all are a bunch of goddamned vultures,” he said, diving in for another and taking two more for good measure.
“Asshole!” Maverick yelled to another round of laughter and name calling and cookie grabbing. Put a tray of cookies out and the Ravens were like a bunch of eight-year-olds, not a clubhouse full of hard-ass bikers.
But Dare liked seeing his brothers like this—happy and just kicking back. What did he need with a family of his own to go home to, when he had these motherfuckers to hang with and worry about?
He didn’t. Not at all. Dare had everything he needed.
CHAPTER 6