Page 34 of Making His Bones

“Well . . . “I was shy now that I was on the spot. “Do you happen to know, has he ever mentioned, well—“

“Does he have another girlfriend? Or boyfriend in LA?”

I exhaled with relief. “Yes!”

Unity shook a sugar packet, her mouth firm and cynical. “Can’t say’s I blame you wanting to know. I get that. He’s from LA, a reality show star, ripped . . . I’d be nervous too.”

It had never occurred to me to that extent. Should I be more on edge about it? The competition, the nubile young models so thin they vanished when they turned sideways? Oh, God! And I hadn’t exercised in ten years! “Well, yes. Is there anyone left over from the LA years? Anyone he’s still connected with? I’d seriously hate to fall for a man with his finger in another pie.”

Unity giggled. “So to speak. Well, mainly there was a chick named Blanche. You guessed it, a model. But I’d been sitting around when Gray, Knoxie, Tanner, and Ford were all pounding back beers. Gray definitely said it was over with them. He said he’s concentrating on the club now. And no, there was never a boyfriend. The club is his life.”

“Oh,” I squeaked, taken aback. I hadn’t imagined the club would ever take precedence over a woman. “Is that common? That the club rules over all else?”

I couldn’t figure out if Unity was rolling her eyes or agreeing fervently. “Love the man, love the club. That’s one thing you need to learn if you want to be an Old Lady. We work for the club. There’s a fish fry coming up, so you’ll see part of it. We’re having it out at Smoky Mountain High, a bud and breakfast by Mormon Lake. You’ll see.”

I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. “I’ll see what? I’m not used to being a part of anything.”

“Old ladies need to work hard. I’m not just a spokesmodel. I basically run the boarding and grooming op on Mescal Mesa, and I still own Doggie Style Grooming”

“Where Galileo and Tiago work?”

“Who’s Tiago? That Mexican refugee? Yeah, that’s the one. My schedule is full, let me tell you.”

I reflected. “Mine will be full once we open the new office in Flagstaff.”

“See? When Tanner has finals, sometimes I don’t see him for three whole weeks. He crashes with Fred Birdseye of the Bare Bones Tucson chapter. It’s incredibly stressful on a marriage.”

“Well,” I said, “Gray runs the archery club.”

Unity arched an eyebrow. “You trying to tell me you’re already envisioning a PROPERTY OF patch?”

“What’s that?”

Unity took her leather jacket off the back of her chair. It was way too hot to wear one, but they really seemed to be used to it, like a second skin. Sure enough, a PROPERTY OF patch was sewn onto the bodice of hers. Underneath, there was another “rocker” that declared TANNER.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I shrieked. “I thought that was just a figure of speech. Does every old lady have one of those?” I’d frankly never noticed.

“Oh, yes. Some have it tattooed on them somewhere. Maddy, Ford’s old lady, she has an even bigger rocker covering the entire back of her jacket. Says PROPERTY OF THE PREZ.”

“Who’s got it tattooed?”

“Bellamy, Knoxie’s old lady.”

That figured. He was a tattoo artist.

My mind was blown that someone would agree to be the property of a man, in today’s day and age. “Is it just rhetorical? Sort of another way of wearing a wedding ring?”

“Yes and no. A lot of us only wear it on club-related runs, fish fries and Toys for Tots runs. Maddy and Gudrun are both nurses, so obviously they don’t wear them to work. Bellamy is a wrench inside the Citadel airplane hangar, so no problem for her.”

“Yes, and I run a DNA testing facility.” I tried not to sound snippy, but cumon! I wasn’t even about to wear a plain leather jacket to work, much less one plastered with patches that proclaimed I was owned by a man!

Unity must’ve read my mind. “I can dig where you’re coming from. It was weird to me at first, too. I was abused by my stepfather, so I certainly didn’t want to make myself subservient to any man. But then I looked at it differently. This is me on a personal level trusting Tanner. Trusting him to do right by me, to never abuse me, to respect me. He’s my property, too.”

I groused. “Yeah, but he doesn’t wear a patch saying that.”

Unity pounded her heart with a fist. “He doesn’t need to. We all know it in here.”

Know it in here. That was like saying well, the DNA doesn’t match, but we know it in our hearts. It just didn’t fly. It wasn’t scientific.