Page 53 of Handful

The table went quiet for a second.

Indira looked up from her laptop. Looked at Glitch. Looked at the ceiling. She pressed her mouth together. “That’s actually good branding,” she said, like it cost her something.

Colt snorted. Holden almost smiled. Dutch looked at Glitch, looked at Indira, and nodded once.

Church ran another twenty minutes — Portland staffing, the property-line thing, formation training Saturday. Dutch banged the gavel and the room started to clear.

I stayed in my chair as the rest of my brothers filed out. The door swung shut and it was the three of us — Dutch, Indira, and me still in my seat.

“You staying for a reason?”

I stood and walked to where they were.

“I owe you both an apology.” Indira went still. “Dutch — you’ve been carrying me and I let you, and I’m sorry. That stops.” Then I made myself turn to Indira, because hers was the harder one. “Indira. I’ve been disrespecting the women around this club since before you were ever First Lady. I did it in front of you, in this room, months ago, with that joke.” I cleared my throat. “You didn’t come in here and try to make us into something we weren’t. You just tried to improve us.” I looked at her straight. “I’m sorry. For all of it. I don’t expect it to land yet. I just needed you to hear it before I asked you for something.”

“Ask,” Indira said.

“Let me run it.”

She snorted. “You.” She looked at Dutch, then back. “You’ve been a customer in places like that your whole adult life, Handful. You don’t have the first idea how to run a strip club.”

“No,” I agreed. “I don’t.”

That stopped her, because it wasn’t the move she’d braced for. She’d expected me to bluster the right words back at her. I’ve always been able to find the right words, that was never my problem.

“Here’s what I do know. I’ve been on the wrong side of a room like that for years, and that might be the one thing about me that’s worth a damn here, because I know exactly how every man who walks in is going to think — I was him. And I know the fastest way to wreck it is to come in on day one like I’ve got it solved and start moving things around to look busy. So I’m not going to. First week, I don’t touch a thing. I go in, I watch, I listen, I find out what the place actually is and what those women actually need from whoever’s running it. Then I decide. I’d rather come back to you in a week with my thoughts.”

Nobody said anything for a moment.

Indira recovered first. She picked up her laptop and held it against her chest and studied me, and let only a little of whatever she was thinking out. “That’s the smartest thing you’ve ever said,” she said. “And I still don’t believe you. Intentions are cheap, and a week of behaving yourself is the easiest thing in the world.” She didn’t soften it.

“I’ve watched you apologize before, Handful. Different words, same face. Then I watched you do it again. So no. I don’t believe you. You’ll have to show me, every week, for a long time. And the first week you don’t—”

“I get it.”

“You’ll have to live being doubted while you earn it back. There’s no shortcut through it.”

“I get that too.”

She looked at me a second longer, then at Dutch.

He gave me one nod.

“It’s yours,” he said. “On a leash. You go find out what right looks like and then you go be it, you keep me from ever having to think about it, and you start showing me my SAA instead of telling me about him.” Then the leash drew tight, exactly as far as he’d warned me an hour back. “This is the job that decides whether you keep your cut. One mistake. Not a step down. Out.”

“One mistake,” I said. “Out. Understood.”

“Good.” He set his hand at the small of Indira’s back and walked her to the door. He stopped with his hand on it, not turning around. “It’s a good apology, and a better answer, Handful.” A pause. “Don’t make me remember them as the last two decent things you said before you blew it.”

“Yes, Prez.” I touched two fingers to my temple at his back.

Chapter 15

❧

— Handful —

“I’m not changing anything the first week,” I reminded Dutch as we stood in the middle of The Dollhouse minutes after the paperwork was signed. “I’m here to watch.”