Not long after I began my contemplation of the ceiling tiles, Dad’s voice sounded in my ear. “Lanie, honey, what’s this about an infestation?”

I moved my eyes to my shrimp. “It isn’t as bad as it sounds, Dad. I just can’t have visitors next weekend.”

“That’s outrageous,” he declared pompously. “That brownstone is in an excellent neighborhood, sound construction, premier carpentry. How on earth did this happen?”

He would know all that. He’d insisted I accept the healthy down payment that made my mortgage affordable on a home I would never have been able to afford on my own.

No way his daughter was residing in anything but the absolute best.

With bad timing, this brought to mind the fact that I had also allowed Elliott to take the unprecedented stand that we were going to pay for our wedding. He knew how I felt about Dad’s guilty generosity so he put his foot down that we were going to have the wedding we wanted and we were going to pay for it.

This had a variety of disastrous results. The first being Dad, who had no respect for Elliott, getting some.

“Didn’t know the boy had it in him,” Dad had mumbled with surprised admiration.

It also meant that when Elliott made a bad investment and lost everything, he had to turn to the Russian Mob to give me the wedding of my dreams.

On me.

That was on me.

Everything was fucking on me.

“Well, it’s good we’re coming out then,” Dad stated and I blinked. With my mind jumping all over the place, I was not keeping up and I was also wondering how anything was good. “I’ll talk to the Roths. They have a condo in Vail. I’ll see if it’s open this weekend.”

“Dad—” I began but it was like I didn’t speak.

“We’ll arrange a limo to come get you, bring you to the airport. I’ll rent an SUV and we’ll drive up. That way the Lexus can stay safe in your garage.”

“Dad—” I tried again.

“We get in Friday afternoon and leave Sunday evening, last flight out. A nice long visit.”

“Dad—”

“I’ll have my secretary email you the details.”

“Dad!” I called.

Again, he did not hear me or chose not to.

“Now, your mother says you’re at work so we’ll leave you be. You’ll get an email Monday. See you next weekend, honey.”

“Dad, I can’t—”

“I’ll tell your mother you said good-bye. Love you, Lanie.”

Then he was gone.

As you can see, this was precisely how I never managed to manage my parents.

I stared at my phone screen, which announced the call had ended.

I put it down and stared at Hop.

Then I asked accusatorily, “Why didn’t you do something?”

His brows shot up as he asked back, “Come again?”

“Throw my computer through the window. Trip the fire alarm. Something!”

My voice was rising and, yes, it was with hysteria, but my parents were coming for the weekend.

He studied me and his lips curved up. “I’m sensing you’re not close with your parents.”

“Wrong!” I snapped. “I am. I just don’t want to be.”

His lip curve faded and he continued studying me, but now with his warm intensity and he also ordered, “Talk to me.”

In the throes of a drama, I didn’t hesitate.

In the throes of a drama, I never hesitated.

This was one thing, amongst many, that I really needed to work on.

I just had no intention of doing it right then.

“I’m spending next weekend with my mom and dad in Vail while my house is not getting fumigated.”

“And this is bad because…?” he prompted when I said no more.

I held his eyes.

Then I socked it to him.

“This is bad because my mother is an alcoholic.”

His warm, intent eyes got soft as he drew in a quiet breath.

Then he let it out, murmuring, “Lady.”

“It’ll be okay. Totally fine. She’ll drink wine with dinner. More than Dad and me but she won’t get hammered. No, she’ll say she’s going to bed with a book, having sneaked a bottle or two or four up to their room. Dad will stay with me and we’ll both ignore the fact she’s up there reading at the same time getting sloshed, and I’ll go to bed knowing Dad is staying up later, waiting for her to finish up by passing out. This means the entire weekend will be a lie. This means all of us will spend it dancing around the dysfunction, something we always do, something I find seriously un-fun at the same time emotionally exhausting. They’ll leave. I’ll call my sister Elissa to vent. She’ll lecture me on how I should cut them out of my life like she has because this is insanity. Even though she is absolutely right, I won’t listen to her like I never do, and then it starts up all over again because now they only have one daughter and thus only one daughter’s life to make a misery.”

To that, instantly, Hop decreed, “Me and the kids are coming up to Vail next weekend.”

I felt my eyes bug out as my lungs seized.

Was he crazy?

I knew he had two kids and I knew his kids. They came to the Compound all the time.

Molly, his eleven-year-old daughter, was the female epitome of her dad. Black hair. Gray eyes. Long, lean body. Easy, bright smile. She was a good kid. Funny, sweet. A little weirdly watchful, though very loving, of her dad, but I figured kids from broken homes could be that way.

Cody, his nine-year-old son, was not the epitome of his dad, and I always found that strange. Hop had clearly dominant traits that not only personality-wise but scientifically should naturally come out on top hereditarily. But Cody was sandy-haired, blue-eyed, and although he was tall and lean, his body somehow didn’t fit the shape of his dad’s. He was gangly in a way you knew he’d never stop being gangly. Hop was not at all gangly.

He was also a good kid, funny and sweet and loving of his dad.

They were all tight and, if I would admit it to myself (which I wouldn’t), I’d always loved watching him with his kids. They were loving of him and he returned it in spades.

But Cody, maybe being younger, maybe being a boy and not as sensitive, didn’t seem watchful of his dad like Molly was.

Cody also didn’t look like Mitzi, Hop’s ex. Or maybe he did since she had platinum hair that was not handed to her by God but she also had green eyes, a tough demeanor that didn’t invite approach and she was buxom but petite.

Paying attention to Hop over the years, although I was not around when they were together or when they fell apart. There was always talk amongst family. Chaos was family, so I heard this talk. Further, since they shared kids, I’d seen her at the Compound. She didn’t come to party or hang out but she sometimes came there to pick up her kids.

I knew she was not well-liked by the brothers. I also knew that their break was ugly, as in extremely ugly, though I didn’t know the details. I just knew she didn’t get a lot of love when she showed. Even Sheila, who was really sweet, didn’t have anything good to say about her. The murmurings were there, the detail wasn’t, and if I pressed for it I feared it would expose my interest in Hop so I hadn’t.

Hop declaring he and his kids would meet me in Vail when I was with my parents could not happen for so many reasons that it was impossible to relay them all.

It just couldn’t happen.

“That isn’t going to happen,” I told him.

“It is,” he told me.

Here we go again.

I leaned toward him. “Hop, that isn’t going to happen.”

He leaned toward me. “Lanie, it is.” I opened my mouth to say something but he beat me to it. “I’m not talkin’ about showin’ and broadcasting to my kids or your folks how we tear each other up. I’m talkin’ about givin’ my kids a good weekend in the mountains. They love the mountains. They know you. They like you. And us bein’ there and wrangling a meet gives you a break from that shit with your parents.”

Under normal circumstances, this would be nice and I’d latch onto it like a sucker fish to the side of an aquarium.

Obviously, in these abnormal circumstances, it wasn’t.

“Hop, no offense and you know I don’t share these sentiments, but my father’s the president of a bank that has forty branches. My mother is a banker’s wife. They live in Connecticut. They belong to a country club. They own a fabulous condominium on the beach in Florida. They vote Republican. My dad has pictures of him shaking hands with Senators and Congressmen on the wall in his den. My mother owns nothing that contains even a hint of synthetic fibers. She also has seventeen pearl necklaces and two drawers filled with scarves. In other words, they are not biker friendly.”

“Lady, to live the life I chose, I can’t spend it giving a fuck who is and who is not biker friendly,” Hop returned immediately. “They got a problem with my lifestyle, it’s theirs. Not mine.”

“I understand that,” I shot back. “But can you understand, you show up, how that would be my problem?”

“You’re with me, you gotta learn to make it not yours, either.”

God! Seriously?

I threw up my hands. “Hop, I’m not with you!” I cried.

“I broke into your office fifteen minutes ago, baby. Did you call the cops?” he asked.

“Of course not, you’re Chaos. You’re family,” I snapped. It just came out and it was true but it was stupid and I knew that when his eyes warmed on me again.

“You kissed me last night. You remember that?” he asked, his voice quieter and gentler.

I sighed.

I remembered.

I did it to shut him up but I chose kissing him, not pushing him away, not screaming bloody murder, not kicking him in the shin.

I kissed him and even I couldn’t deny or shove in the back of my head why I did.

“Cody, Molly and me’ll be up in Vail next weekend,” Hop concluded our discussion.

His words were still gentle but also very firm.

Too firm.

I didn’t have it in me to butt up against his firm.

So I gave up.

“Whatever,” I muttered, rolling toward my desk and, more importantly, my food.

“Now, babe, where we spendin’ the night tonight?”

I ripped the paper off my chopsticks, eyes on my food, mouth stupidly moving. “Hotel Monaco.”

“Class,” he murmured and I lifted my eyes to him. “Nice,” he finished.

I looked back at my food and shoved the chopsticks in, repeating on a mutter, “Whatever.”

I successfully clamped down on a big, juicy, butterflied shrimp and brought it to my mouth.

Miraculously, it was still warm and, as usual, delicious.

“Lady.” Automatically, my eyes moved to Hop at his soft call. “Next weekend, it starts.”

I didn’t want to know.

My mouth did. I knew this when it swallowed and then asked, “What?”

“You gettin’ to know your shield.”

My breath caught, my throat closed, and my heart started beating hard.

Hop wasn’t done.

“Nothin’ fucks with you, even your parents. You take a chance on me, you’ll learn, starting next weekend, you breathe easy.”

“You don’t know them,” I told him softly.

“I don’t care about them. I care about you.”

At that, my heart accelerated so much I felt it beat in my neck.

“Hop—” I whispered.

“Eat,” he ordered, dipping his head to my food. “Do it closin’ down your machine and gettin’ ready to leave. My lady’s tired. Gotta get her somewhere she can relax.”

I felt the pulse pounding in my neck and it took the rest of the minimal amount of energy I had left to beat back tears.

I won the fight and bent back to my food.

Tomorrow, I’d fight again. Tomorrow, I’d form a plan.

I swallowed delicious kung pao shrimp, my favorite, my favorite that Hop had made an effort to discover was my favorite, buy and bring to me.

I shoved those thoughts into the back of my head and snatched up another shrimp thinking, tonight…

Whatever.

* * *

I was doing all the work.

My choice, I climbed on top.

But I was doing it slowly, taking my time, gliding up, sliding down, my head tipped to his, my eyes locked to his, not him making me, me taking him in every way I knew how.

My hands were at his head, pulling back his hair, my thumbs sliding along the sides of his mustache, bending slightly to touch my mouth to his or the tip of my tongue to his.

Taking him in.

“Faster, baby,” he murmured against my lips.