11:35AM - Joel & Demi
So far Joel considered the brunch a success. They’d made it through the mingling and the meal without any fights erupting, and now people were mingling around again, talking. He could tell some of his officers were still uncomfortable by the way their faces were drawn and pinched at the corners, but they were behaving and being civil and that’s all he’d asked of them. If it did even a fraction of what he and Nina had intended he’d consider it a win overall.
Excusing himself from one conversation, he noticed that the proprietor of The Bar, Demi Rafferty had just stepped out of her own, and Joel saw that as the best opportunity to thank her for allowing them to monopolize her business for the morning.
“Miss Rafferty,” he greeted her, a subdued smile on his face. He knew who she was, and maybe she had guessed that from his interview with Cherry, but he hated to assume. Especially when Nevada was quite a few years behind the both of them. “I wanted to thank you for the hospitality.”
Brunch had and was going very well, better than Demi could have hoped it would, actually. Not that she thought it wouldn’t go well, but she knew the volatile nature of the Hellhounds and knew that unpredictability was in fact still a thing that very much existed in Austin. Everyone was doing their parts though, talking and making an effort. If she wasn’t mistaken she had even seen Jane talking to Bishop earlier, though she hadn’t commented on that very fact once they were seated at their table -- if only because she liked the police sergeant too much to remind her of what might have been an unpleasant conversation.
And yes, the sheer fact that Demi holding a conversation with Jane didn’t classify as unpleasant was not something that went unnoticed by the former camp bitch. Jane had saved her life and apparently their shared experience had endeared the other woman to her and vice versa, a fact Demi was personally not complaining about.
Still, she knew of one person that it seemed was always around at these functions and parties and yet Demi had yet to end up face to face with him. Knowing that he knew who she was and having it confirmed by his interview had initially shaken Demi, in large part because so many people didn’t know about her past and her father. As he approached her she offered him a friendly smile. “Please call me Demi,” she started once he had given his greeting. “And there’s really no need to thank me,” Demi paused a beat as if she was unsure she should say was she was thinking. “If I’m being honest I had selfish motives in encouraging this. You see if Isaac can tolerate being in the same room as some Hellhounds, well, it makes my life a little simpler.”
Joel laughed wryly, unprepared for Demi’s transparent honesty. He’d never met the woman while she was an MC darling, had only ever stood in a room with her father once, but the cornerstones of an MC woman were apparent in her now. “Selfish or not, we appreciate your cooperation,” he returned. “There aren’t too many neutral places in the city.” He runs a hand over his hair out of habit. “And I’m sure Callahan’ll come around if he wants to.” Joel only knew the man from what Mariah had said about him, and the gossip that had filtered through the Capitol after Demi had been released from La Quinta. Joel had never put much on gossip, so he really didn’t know how to respond.
“It’s enough that a brawl hasn’t broken out yet.” Joel’s eyes had slid towards where Jane had been last, unconcerned that she would have started trouble, but he knew what kind of effort she had had to put in to attend. It was hard enough for her to sit on a council with Coldiron. “I got pepper spray though, in case it comes to that,” he joked, a hand on the canister he wore at his belt.