Page 82 of Handful

Glitch considered this, then tipped his beer at me, conceding the point. “Blunt. Picture’s worth a thousand words. Fine. I taught you well.” He wandered off. “She’s still going to give you hell for the second text though,” he muttered over his shoulder.

She was. I knew she was. That wasn’t what had me pacing.

What had me pacing was the velvet box behind the bar, sitting where she wouldn’t clock it when she walked in. Three weeks I’d waited for Leather & Lace to finish it.

“Handful.” Indira appeared at my elbow. “I set the two of you up. Deliberately. And it worked, because I was right, as usual.” She straightened my collar. “Stop pacing. There—listen.”

I heard tires on the gravel and then Austen appeared. She came in the side door in jeans and a soft grey thing, no fuss, her hair down. She clocked me from across the room—pacing, wired, a grown man and an officer of this club coming apart over her—and she did not hurry one step.

“You’re late,” I said, when she got to me.

“Only fifteen minutes.” She kissed me, unbothered. “You send me a photo of our bed mid-shift, one of your filthy little acronyms under it. Took me three seconds to crack it. Come home—for, you know. That.” She fanned herself. “Phew. Got me all worked up behind the bar. And then, before I’d cooled an inch—stop at the clubhouse first. The whiplash, Tyler. I nearly didn’t survive it.”

“I had a reason for the order of operations.”

“I’m sure you did. You always have a reason.” She pulled back and really looked at me then, the way she reads a room she’s working, and stopped cold. Her smile dropped. “You’re a wreck. Look at you. What’s gotten into you?”

“You did,” I said. “Come here. I’ve got something for you. Been planning something and it all came together today. If I have to sit on it one more minute I’m going to lose my mind.”

Dutch whistled the room quiet, then nodded at me.

I lifted the velvet box out from behind the bar, opened the lid, and drew the cut out, shaking it open so the back faced her. AUSTEN. PROPERTY OF HANDFUL.

She clocked it. Read it once. Then her eyes came back to mine and stayed there, level, waiting.

“You know everything,” I said, just to her. “The bad version of me and all the rest. You know more than anyone in this room. So.” I held it open. “You still want it?”

“Obviously I want it.” Loud, for the whole room, not a flicker of hesitation—like I’d asked a stupid question. “Now put it on me before you pass out, Sergeant.”

“CALLED IT,” Colt bellowed from somewhere near the bar, and everyone laughed.

The room went crazy. Not a polite clubhouse clap. Boots stamping the floorboards, glasses banging the bar, the whole place chanting her name—Austen, Austen, Austen—loud enough to rattle the windows.

She turned her back to me and waited. I settled the cut onto her shoulders, my name riding between her shoulder blades, and stepped back.

She ran a hand down the front of the leather. Her chin came up. She wore it proud.

Across the room Indira gave her a single nod. Lilac, beside her, did the same.

Then Austen turned back around to me.

And I froze. “Hang on,” I said. “One more thing.”

I shrugged out of the cut I had on. Glitch—who’d helped me keep the whole thing from the others—came through the crowd with the second velvet box. I flipped the lid and lifted the new one out.

“Had Leather & Lace do me a fresh one,” I said, pulling it on. “Figured if I’m squaring everything else away, might as well do it properly.”

Then I turned around.

I didn’t get to see a single face as they read it, which was the great tragedy of my life. But Austen was right there at my shoulder, close enough that I didn’t need to see her. I heard the sharp little catch of her breath the second she read it.

Three lines, the club’s own lettering, same as hers.

HANDFUL.

SERGEANT-AT-ARMS.

PROPERTY OF AUSTEN.