I was sitting in my office, Kellie across from me, and I’d just told her that part of that day’s agenda was meeting Logan and his ex-wife for lunch.
Kellie was at my studio because Kellie was currently taking a sabbatical from work, that being, she quit her job so the sabbatical was actually from employment.
She did this with relative frequency. I didn’t know how she did it. I just knew she did.
She’d had a variety of jobs, everything from waitress to bartender to data entry to office manager of a thriving medical practice (her last job). She was a certified nurse’s assistant and she could type faster than anyone I’d ever seen.
She also had a one-room condo she bought ages ago, fixed it up rock ’n’ roll (like she liked it), and left it at that. She didn’t move on up. She did trade out cars like some women traded out handbags but she did this in ways I didn’t ask about either since they were all used cars, but nice cars; she got them on the cheap and not from a lot.
Further, she would often get a man. She’d keep that man. She’d then dump that man. After dumping, she’d have fun. Then, when she got sick of waking up alone or doing it facing some hookup she barely knew, she’d find a man and keep him awhile only to eventually dump him.
In other words, Kellie did what Kellie wanted to do.
And part of what Kellie wanted to do was live life and to get that, she worked to live, not the other way around.
I’d always worried about her living her life this way. In fact, Dottie, Justine and Veronica, and I had had a variety of conversations over the years because we’d all worried about her.
But looking at her now, off work, fresh manicure, fresh highlights in her ash blonde hair, relaxed and kicking back with her girl, I wondered if I shouldn’t have paid more attention, quit worrying, and seen that Kellie was actually living the life I’d once had.
Instead of living to work, working to live and then living it up.
“Logan and Deb don’t have an acrimonious relationship,” I told her.
“Shit like that happens, it’s rare, but it does. Lunch with the ex is still cray-cray,” she replied.
“Logan feels that if Deb and I get along, and the girls see that, we’ll move forward with solving our problems with Zadie,” I shared, and Kellie knew all about Zadie. I kept all the girls up-to-date, including my new Chaos sisters.
“And that’s not a bad idea,” she returned. “So meet, shake hands, commit to the cause, and adios. Not sittin’ down for a full lunch with the woman. One word: awkward.”
“She only gets an hour for lunch and part of that will be taken up with getting to the restaurant,” I informed her. “It won’t last that long.”
She just shook her head.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I assured.
“I hope you’re right,” she replied. “But this is what I know. You’re hot. You’ve always been hot. You’re sweet too. And Low is seriously hot for all that’s you. He’s into you and he doesn’t hide that. None of it. Never did. Haven’t seen him with you since he’s been back but I’m seein’ you right now and what I’m seein’ is my girl’s recently been laid so I’m thinkin’ that shit hasn’t changed.”
She was right.
I didn’t get the chance to confirm. She kept talking.
“They might have split because it was just time and now it’s all good. But no woman, no matter what went on with her man, would be thrilled to sit down to lunch across from him and the woman that lights up his life. It’s just not gonna happen. So brace, sister, and be cool with her on that. Logan’s a dude so he’s not gonna have any clue about this if he thinks they’ve both moved on. So that shit’s gonna be up to you.”
I thought this was good advice, so I nodded.
“Now, is his girl still being a brat?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’ve only seen them once since the kitty incident. Deb let Low have them on Saturday and I met them at the Compound for lunch. It was fast food. We ate it fast; then I got outta there so he could have time with his girls. He picked them up from dance last night and took them out to dinner before he took them home. He did that last week, too, and neither time I was involved. I’ve convinced him to slow things down. Give them time with their dad. Only inject me into the scene on occasion so they can take their time to get used to me.”
“Welp, that shit’s out the window come Friday,” she declared.
She was right.
It was Wednesday, almost a full week after the kitty incident. Logan had set up lunch the first day Deb could get away, so that day, we were having lunch.
And the coming weekend, even though I still felt it was too soon, the girls were coming to stay.
According to Logan, Deb was all in to help and once she’d learned what Zadie had done (which was the very next day when Logan called her), scaring me about Chief, she’d laid into her daughter.
I’d worried this would make Zadie hate me even more.
But lunch at the Compound was another ingenious Logan move.
He’d told me Deb had never been one with the biker life. She rarely came on Chaos or participated in any of the things they did with old ladies and families.
But she didn’t stop the girls from doing it and Logan also told me they loved their Chaos family, enjoyed hanging at the Compound with their dad, his brothers, their women and kids.
Even though our time having lunch there was short, Logan’s message to his daughters being that I was still around and not going anywhere, for the girls, it was also a revelation.
I didn’t know how the Chaos brothers and their families had treated Deb, but after our lunch, I had a clue.
This was because there were a lot of wide eyes from Cleo and Zadie about how they treated me. Along with the Chaos family giving that to the girls (and obviously Logan), to me they were welcoming, affectionate, loving, teasing. Even the new brothers, Shy, Snapper, Roscoe, and Speck were all over meeting me and getting to know me in a way it was obvious they were opening their arms along with the rest of Chaos.