Starting Over by Mia Malone

Chapter Three

Party

Rosie

The evening after my closet purge, I was at Addie’s house for another meeting with the book club, and it suddenly hit me.

I didn’t feel out of place and didn’t worry about what to say. No one was judging me, and the loud laughter and even louder arguments around the room were soothing.

It felt as if I belonged.

My eyes suddenly burned a little, so I blinked a few times.

“Something wrong?” Addie asked quietly.

Her eyes were kind, and I suddenly wanted to tell her how lonely I’d been for so long, but it would only make me seem pathetic, so I smiled and shook my head slightly.

Then I widened my smile and raised my voice.

“So, there’s a party this weekend, I hear?”

Eirik, who I really should start calling Eye, and his very handsome brother Dagger had shown up at my doorstep that afternoon to invite me to the event. I protested at first since I barely knew anyone and wasn’t sure why I had even been asked, but Eirik had looked at me with eyes so sad I almost caved in and accepted. In the end, I collected myself and told them I needed to think about it and would let them know, which they reluctantly accepted.

The book club ladies were all going, except Joanna, who shared sourly that she was working a night shift and couldn’t be there.

“Please come,” Addie said. “It’ll be fun.”

“The bigger parties are usually lots of booze, lots of food, lots of music...” Momo chimed in. She wiggled her brows a little, which could mean anything, and added, “And yeah. Lots and lots of fun.”

How could I say no to lots and lots of fun when seven women I loved hanging out with looked at me expectantly? It would be a big gathering, so I might not even see Tony-the-jerk sauntering around, and I had no doubt that he would saunter.

Or swagger.

I hadn’t been to a party in so long, and I suddenly wanted to go.

“Just text Eye and tell him you’re coming,” Momo said firmly.

Yeah, I decided. I would do just that. I wanted to get a little tipsy and maybe even dance if that was done at biker festivities, which I did not know since I’d never been to one.

So, I sent the text and got one with two thumbs up-emojis back immediately.

Right, I thought and grinned at Addie.

I was apparently going to a party.

***

Tony

“I hate that fucking asshole so much,” Tony muttered and stared at the papers Coop had placed on the table in front of them.

The former President of Cascadia MC had been in prison for the past fifteen years but was now out on parole and had found himself a pretty shady lawyer who claimed that part of the Cascadia businesses belonged to their former President.

“Does he have a case?” Finn asked.

“Nope,” Coop said firmly. “Talked to our lawyers earlier today, and when they stopped laughing, they said just that. Nope.”

“Then what the hell is he angling for?” Tony mumbled.

“Who the fuck knows,” Finn snorted out and added with a sigh. “Dickhead.”

“He might come for you,” Tony said.

“Or you,” Coop cut in. “Or...”

“Yeah. Mom,” Tony said with a sigh. “I know. I’ve talked to both her and,” he winced, “Milo.”

“Daddy-o,” Coop said with a snort of laughter, which made Tony wince again.

He knew his mother was a grownup and that she’d been in relationships over the years, but they had been casual, so this was different, and she was his mother, for fuck’s sake.

“I like Milo,” Finn said. “Don’t want to fucking think about what they do when we’re not around, and Emma is scarred for life, but apart from that, I like him. He’s good for her, and he would take a bullet for her without hesitating.”

“I know,” Tony said, but then Finn’s words registered. “What’s wrong with Em?”

His sister hadn’t said anything when they met a couple days earlier before she went on a trip to visit friends down in Arizona.

“She went to Katie’s house to say goodbye before she left. It was early in the morning, she walked in through the kitchen and met Milo.”

“Okay?”

“Au naturel.”

“Au –” Tony couldn’t stop a surprised snort of laughter. “Jesus.”

“Yup. In the actual fucking buff, making coffee.”

“Bet that went down well,” Coop said with a chuckle.

“He covered himself with a kitchen towel and moved out of there sideways,” Finn said laconically. “Emma said she almost felt sorry for him.” He grinned and added, “Said his butt didn’t sag as much as she expected for a man his age.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Tony muttered, but since he could totally hear his sister saying something like that, he just shook his head slowly. “Don’t want to hear more about that, but you’re right. Milo would take a bullet for mom, and he’s a wily old coot. He knows exactly what might come their way, and it actually feels good to have him with her.”

“Yeah.” Finn sighed. “I’ll kill the fucking bastard this time, see if I don’t.”

“Let’s hold back for a while and keep an eye on him,” Coop suggested. “Emma is away for weeks, Milo is covering Katie in more ways than you boys want to think about,” he grinned and wiggled his brows stupidly, “We have a party this weekend, and I don’t think he’ll try something just yet, so let’s take a look at the situation again next week.”

Coop made a lot of sense as usual, and Tony nodded slowly.

If the former president of Cascadia MC, who unfortunately also happened to be his goddamned father, decided to try any shit, it wouldn’t happen this fast. The man was older now, and he’d just been released from prison. Anything he had planned would probably take some time to kick off, so Coop was right. They could wait a while and see what happened.

“Agree,” he said. “That’s what we do.”

Then he pulled a hand through his hair and wondered if it looked as weird as it felt. Finn nodded his agreement, but a sly look suddenly crept into his eyes.

“Looking forward to the party?” he drawled.

Right.

They hadn’t said anything about his slightly shorter beard or how the goddamned hairdresser had refused to trim that beard unless the sneaky man also got to cut the split ends off his hair. Tony hadn’t been aware that cutting off split ends meant chopping the whole thing off just above his shoulders in the back and even shorter around his ears.

“Yeah,” he said, hoping that he sounded dismissive enough.

Quick steps approached, and when he saw how Finn’s eyes softened, Tony couldn’t help but smile. It felt good to see them together.

“Holy shit,” Addie said as greeting and stared at him in a way that made his mushy feelings vanish immediately.

“The fuck?” he muttered.

“You look fantastic, Tony,” she said, still staring at him. “Like aqu –”

“If you say that I look like fucking Aquaman, I will start screaming,” Tony growled.

He’d heard that comparison way too many times over the years as it was, and even the goddamned barber had pointed it out. If that fucking actor vanished, never to be seen again, he would not be missed. At least not by Tony.

“I won’t,” Addie said with a small smile. “You have shorter hair anyway, and sweetie...” She leaned in closer and said with a smirk, “You’re older than him.”

“The fuck?”

“You were around first, so you don’t look like him. He looks like you.”

Finn burst out laughing, and Tony rolled his eyes but couldn’t hold a small chuckle back.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“I’m sure all the women at the party will agree with me,” Addie said with a wink.

Tony grinned at her then, silently hoping that she was right since Rosie would be there, and it wasn’t as if he was primping like a fucking teenager because of her.

He had a bit of an uphill battle with Rosalind Watts, though, so it wouldn’t hurt at all if Addie was right.

***

Rosie

“Heeeeeelp! What do you wear to a biker party?”

I pressed send and threw the phone on my bed.

Why the hell hadn’t I obsessed over this a little bit earlier than half an hour before I’d hop into my car and go to Hark Falls?

“Clothes :)”

“Whatever you feel good in.”

“I’m gonna wear something I don’t know what. And a Harley tee.”

The messages lit up my phone immediately, and they weren’t exactly helpful to my dilemma, but I still smiled. Then the phone buzzed again.

“Depends on why you go to the party.”

Momo.

“Huh?”I asked.

“To get laid then tight, short dress showing most of your boobs. To hang out with friends, then jeans and a tee. Just go with the ripped ones you had the other night and a top that shows a little cleavage. Plenty of makeup and curl your hair, if you haven’t already.”

Incidentally, I had done that already.

“You’re the best!”I told her.

“That’s what Chao says too, LOL”

I chuckled and went to rifle through my drawer to find a top that showed cleavage, and had found an old, turquoise tee from Jackson Hole with a sufficiently deep V-neck when my phone buzzed again.

“Sorry, was in the shower. Clothes sorted?”Addie asked.

“Yes! Jeans. Tee. Cleavage.”

“Exactly :) We’re leaving in fifteen. Text me when you get there, and we’ll come out to meet you. No fun walking into a party alone.”

God, that was so sweet, and she was right. I had worried a little about walking into a big biker-gathering all on my own. What if I didn’t find any of the very people I knew and ended up... I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d feared I’d end up doing, exactly, but now I didn’t have to find out.

***

I’d assumed I wouldn’t see Tony in the crowd, but that had been a miscalculation because he was the first thing I noticed when I stepped out of the house and onto their enormous patio.

On one side, there were a couple of grills bigger than I’d ever seen before, and on the other side, there was something I would have called a gazebo if it hadn’t been so big, and also filled with men whose outfits were more than fifty percent made of leather.

In the middle, there was a bar, and by that bar stood a tall man with his arms crossed over a broad chest. He was wearing jeans and an open, dark blue flannel over a tee that wasn’t tight exactly but still showed off what I suspected was a pretty spectacular torso.

My breath stumbled on its way down my throat, and I pushed out a soft, slightly embarrassing cough.

Because he’d cut his hair.

It wasn’t short by any means, and it reached his shoulders at the back, so I suspected he could still pull it into a stubby ponytail, or almost anyway.

And he’d done something to his beard too.

It wasn’t a slick goatee or fake three-day stubble, but it looked a lot nicer than the scraggly mess I remembered from our encounter at the Roadhouse.

Our gazes locked, and I heard Addie say something but didn’t register what because there was a distracting, soft buzz in my ears.

“What?” I mumbled and heard both her and Finn laugh. This snapped me out of my daze, so I turned and repeated with as much haughtiness I could muster, “What?”

“Nothing,” Finn mumbled, but I heard the laughter in his voice and was about to figure out something to say that would cover up my slight Tony-induced stupor when I was saved by a loud squeal.

“Rosieeee!”

Momo came walking from the grill, and a few women from the book club were next to her, carrying glasses and smiling widely.

Then I was caught up in a whirlwind of hugs and cheers and introductions. Someone put a glass of wine in my hand, and when things settled down a little, I was pushed gently toward the grills where I got a plate and was told to grab what I wanted before they ran out of food.

Considering the mountains of grilled meat, large containers of potato salad, and all the other side dishes, I didn’t think that they were in any danger for that. Still, there were a lot of people milling around, and some looked like they thoroughly enjoyed their food, so perhaps they were.

“Chicken, burgers, steak?” an older guy called Joe asked and raised a big fork.

“No thanks,” I said with a sweet smile. “I’m a vegetarian.”

The sounds around me stilled, and Joe froze with the fork in the air.

“You’re a...” He cleared his throat. “Vegetarian?”

He said it like it was completely unheard of to eschew meat, and the look on his face was one of complete astonishment.

For a brief second, I thought I’d manage to pull it off, but then he must have seen the humor in my eyes because his softened and the skin around them crinkled.

“Fuck no,” I said. “Just joking. Give me a burger, please.”

“Shit,” he drawled and wiped off fake sweat from his brow. “You got me there for a second.”

Laughter boomed around us in a way I found slightly over the top because my small joke hadn’t been that hilarious. I had also only joked partially. I loved a good burger and even more a perfectly cooked steak, but in reality, I ate mostly vegetarian food because I liked it and didn’t see the need to add animal proteins to every meal.

The burger was nice. Someone had made a pretty fantastic coleslaw. There were fried mushrooms with garlic and parsley, which I recognized as Addie’s because she’d made them for one of the book club evenings.

And the potato salad was divine.

“Jesus, this is good,” I mumbled around another huge forkful and dug in for more. “Best I’ve ever had, and I’ve had plenty.”

“Thank you,” a woman said behind me, and I turned. “I spent a lot of years refining the recipe.”

My brows went high on my forehead, and I mumbled, “Okay,” inanely, mentally kicking myself because someone would, of course, had made it. I just hadn’t expected it to be someone looking like her. She was clearly quite a few years older than me but also absolutely stunning.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, clearly noticing my surprise.

I tried frantically to come up with something to say that wouldn’t sound stupid, but she narrowed her eyes, and they had sharpened, so I shrugged and tried to smile.

“I’m sorry for staring, and you must have heard it before, but you are very good-looking.” I winced because that had sounded just as idiotic as I feared. “It surprised me a little.”

“Oh,” she said, and happiness lit up her eyes. “Thank you, and I don’t hear it nearly as much as my ego would like.”

She was laughing, so I did too, although partially out of relief.

“Then the people around here are stupid,” I declared with a grin. “Your potato salad really is fantastic, by the way. I’m not a fantastic cook, so I won’t ask for the recipe, but I will grab some more.”

We chatted while the woman who was called Katie filled her plate, and we were both laughing as we turned to face Tony-the-jerk, who was suddenly standing there.

He could have waited ten minutes, and I would have finished my plate and moved away, I thought sourly.

“Tony,” Katie said. “Have you met Rosie?”

“We’ve met,” I said and looked for a table where I could put my plate down.

Pretending an urgent need to visit the bathroom seemed like a good plan.

“You look different,” Tony said as a greeting which was about as rude as mine and also slightly true.

I’d changed my hair from the darker brown I’d had for years to something my new hairdresser called a balayage, which meant I had highlights in the newly cut layers. According to the same hairdresser, the old hairstyle had added ten years to my age, and covering the gray with a darker color was apparently old-fashioned.

I loved the soft lengths and since my hair was naturally wavy, adding a bit of curl to it was suddenly not that hard.

So I looked different, but I didn’t want to stand there and discuss my appearance with a man who last time we met had pointed out my age, the size of my clothes, and his perception of my sluttiness, and none of it in flattering terms.

“It could be since I have sturdier undergarments compared to last time we met,” I said, but added with a hint of acidity in my voice, “I wouldn’t want to offend anyone by wiggling around uncontrollably, you know?”

“What?” Katie asked, and then she added sternly, “Tony. What have you done?”

I blinked and turned to stare at her.

She sounded just like a –

“Mom,” Tony said.

Yes. That was exactly what she had sounded like, but it was still surprising.

“He called her an overaged groupie and told her to leave the Roadhouse,” Addie cut in quietly.

“Adeline,” Finn said. “There’s no need –” That got him a glare which made him pause, and then he turned to Katie. “Rosie held her own, and he has apologized.”

I closed my eyes briefly and started to inch my way backward, hoping that I could somehow disappear before they noticed.

“Don’t even think about leaving,” Tony murmured, suddenly standing next to me. “We will clear the air about this once and for all, but I guess Mom will want to yell some at me first, so it’ll have to be later.”

“But –”

“Eat your food, Rosalind. Have a few drinks. We’ll talk later, okay?”

I was about to tell him that, no. That was not okay, mostly because it wasn’t necessary at all. I hadn’t come to the party to talk to him at all, and I might have been a little stunned from discovering that he was hotter than I’d remembered, but there still wasn’t any need to discuss anything.

“Anthony,” Katie said, and I recognized the way she sounded from how I’d talked to my own kids plenty of times over the years.

My lips twitched suddenly, and I tried to hide it, but Tony noticed, and his eyes softened. I tried to ignore how they suddenly looked like sweet chocolate and raised my chin.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I know. Later, babe.”

“Let’s go,” Katie snapped but turned to me and said softly, “Please ignore whatever my idiot son might have said.”

“Okay,” I mumbled, but I did that to thin air since she was marching across the patio, and then I tried to look as if I wasn’t watching them.

I hadn’t known that a fifty-something man, and especially not a biker president looking like Tony Ryan, could get lectured by his mother.

It was kind of hilarious, and it also warmed my heart.

“She’s something, our Katie,” Finn murmured. “Tony usually isn’t that much of a dick, and he really is sorry. I know he apologized already, but you should probably listen to what he has to say.”

I had wondered if I should perhaps try to sneak away, but when I glanced up at Finn, he was smiling, and it felt cowardly to just disappear.

“More wine,” Momo squealed suddenly. “Pronto!”

“I could probably have one more glass,” I said, although mostly to myself.

If hashing through the rude things we’d both said was needed for us to move on from the whole debacle, then a glass of wine would fortify me for that discussion.