kellyroyce

[kellyroyce]

"We're gonna take that knife away from her, right?"

[kellyroyce]

"You'll thank me when you're not wastin' away." Somebody had to look out for Jay after the bullshit as of late. They were all angry for their own reasons, some interlinked in the loss experienced by one of their own and others zoomed out to the larger picture at hand. Kelly waffled between both lenses. "Of all the animals..." She exhaled with a shake of her head. "Yeah, I know." The weight of obligation was there even if Tommy never outright asked. It's what loyalty meant in the club. "You talked to him recently?"

"Alright, alright. I'm eatin', I'm eatin', shit." Jason grumbled and his scowl deepened on principle alone, sparing a rogue piece of red meat no mercy as he stabbed it with his fork and choked it down. His real hunger had been focused elsewhere, stewing in the pit of his gut since the night of the fire. "Not this again, Kells— I told ya, it felt like a shit ton." It wasn't, more like 4 or 5, yet Jason shrugged anyway, shaking his head as he finished chewing his food. "And they're Tommy's, so ya know." He added, the rest of the sentence implied, figuring the weight of his name alone could supply the words Jason didn't. That he just had to do something.

[kellyroyce]

A cackle rang out into their living room as Kelly squirmed, goading the brunette on with words alone. "She's awful actually," her smile wide, unrelenting and unwilling to admit defeat. "So bad they had to promote her to politician." A taunt without teeth when they both knew Kelly had never been anything except proud of Breslin for her accomplishments. Only when the playful assault let up did she slip a hand around the nape of her wife’s neck and draw her in close for a kiss. Long, lingering. This was her eternal safe place.

"Nothing better than mess when you're not involved." Or only involved tangentially, she also enjoyed hearing about acquaintances or strangers with a couple degrees of separation between them. Loading up the first episode, she turned away from last season’s recap to consider her wife fully. Work talk was usually tabled on date night, but something about her tone and word choice made Kelly push that line aside. "Guessing it's pretty bad right now after that Barone girl got off?"

Eyebrows lifted and beer bottle pressed to her lips, hummed a note as she looped an arm around her wife and allowed her fingertips to dance pointedly around a ticklish spot she'd discovered years ago. "I'll say it was a confession made under duress," she teased, the set her bottle aside and pressed a kiss to the side of her head as she continued to try to pry a reaction out of her by finding another sensitive spot along her ribs. "And California is a two-party consent state. Your lawyer-wife must be terrible." It was then she relented with a soft laugh, releasing Kelly to allow her to settle as she pleased. This was what she missed--the ease, the quiet--while trying to wrangle the circus of media and underworld that trailed her office to home every day.

"God, I love other people's drama," she sighed, pleased with the selection. Though she'd need to be waterboarded to admit it, sometimes the nonsense she found herself privy to as a public defender two decades ago was better than reality tv. She would, however, take reality television on her couch to occasionally catching strays over her assigned case in the court system any day, however. "Though admittedly, sometimes just going to work feels like an episode of Parks and Rec. I'm not sure which is messier."

[kellyroyce]

"Thought your butter fingers had a tighter grip," she retorted without missing a beat, albeit smiling fondly as she did so. "Well it was devastating, so.” A bit of a dramatization, but for two broke dancers way back when, it meant she hadn’t eaten the rest of the night. Nothing new though, Kelly wasn’t a stranger to going without on occasion at that point in her life.

A nod. "Missoula," she confirmed. Well, to the best of her ability at least. After all this was a shoddy rumor across several rounds of the world’s longest game of telephone. "Pretty sure you gotta be a virgin to be a saint." She absolutely did not know that for a fact, but it sounded right didn’t it? Her fingers picked around Nellie into the basket before she lifted a fry in mock toast. "Blessed Be The Fruit or whatever the fuck."

Her eyes followed the other woman’s before snorting in response. "Nah, no strokes here. If a decimal goes missing, I know exactly who to shake down to find it." There had been a modicum of truth to her old friend’s previous accusation however. Kelly was a cheap bitch. “I take it you’re not visiting to ask me about the books though.”

Nellie snorted, deep and unrepentant, then leaned back like she owned the goddamn place. “I told you to double bag those burgers, you cheap bitch,” she fired back, lips curling with the memory. “Swear to God, I still think about that animal-style fry massacre every time I’m on the 101. A crime scene.” She reached across the table, snatching a fry for herself without asking—of course—and popped it in her mouth, chewing like it owed her money.

At the mention of Ruby, she cocked a brow. “Missoula?” she echoed, almost laughing. “That girl used to cry if a guy called her sweetheart too mean. I’m shocked she didn’t marry a priest and ascend into sainthood.” She paused, thoughtful. “Though I guess a pastor’s just a priest with better branding.” Another fry disappeared between her fingers. “Well, good for her. Hope Jesus is tipping well.”

Her gaze flicked toward the paperwork Kelly had been working on. “Tell me you’re not about to have a stroke over a missed decimal again. I swear, if you’re balancing bar receipts like you're runnin’ a Fortune 500, I’m gonna need another drink before I hear about it.”

[kellyroyce]

As her eyes rake over the financials, comparing receipts and cash flow in a way that only someone who'd needed to be meticulous with her paychecks once upon a time could, Kelly nearly misses her old friend's entrance. Not an easy feat considering the general aura of confidence and steel that accompany Nellie like a permanent crown upon her golden hair. When her gaze snaps up at the other woman's unceremonious takeover of the opposing seat, it's amusement that finds her instead of wariness.

"Nellie Walker, as I live and breathe." Immediately the paperwork is forgotten, set off to the side for later when she isn't being haunted by one of her favorite phantoms. If she squints, maybe even closes one eye, Kelly can imagine the pair of them twenty years younger covered in glitter and the throes of survival. Look at how far they'd come now. "Baby we ain't been even since October of oh-seven when our In-n-Out burgers somehow jumped off the overpass on your watch." The 101 to be specific, which practically added insult to injury.

She chuckles at the request. "You remember Ruby? She danced with us for, what... A year maybe? Give or take six months, she didn't last long." Too emotional for the job really. Kelly distinctly recalled her getting attached to some of the more pathetic clientele and blurry lines made for bad business, at least back then. "Heard she married a pastor and plays Little House on the Prairie in Missoula now." Plucking another fry from the basket, she raises her brows to punctuate the rumor. "Imagine that."

who: @kellyroyce where: outlaws clubhouse

It smelled the same—beer, grease, and testosterone. Like sweat and sin soaked into the walls so deep not even fire could burn it out. Nellie lit a cigarette just outside the threshold, letting the smoke coat her lungs before stepping through the door. She didn’t visit often. Didn’t need the ghosts that clung to the walls trying to pull her back into who she used to be.But tonight? She needed a drink, a laugh, and someone who’d known her before the lipstick and business license.

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered, eyes scanning the room. “This place hasn’t changed a bit. Still smells like dick and engine oil.”

And then—there she was. In the corner booth head bowed over the club's finances, exactly how Nellie had expected. Her hair looked a little longer, maybe. Or maybe Nellie just forgot how good Kelly looked when she wasn't trying. She headed over without a word, dropped into the seat across from her, and stole a fry off her plate like it was still 2009 and they were splitting a basket on break between lap dances.

“You got older,” Nellie said, deadpan, popping the fry in her mouth. “And yet somehow your tits still look better than mine at their best. I’d say it’s unfair, but you’ve seen mine at their worst, so I figure we’re even.”

She leaned back, arm draped lazily over the booth like she hadn’t just walked into a den of ghosts. Like the cut hanging behind the bar didn’t still have her dead husband’s name on it. Like she didn’t feel eyes on her the second she crossed the threshold. But with Kelly? Nellie could pretend none of that shit mattered. “Tell me something good. Or something terrible. Just make it juicy.”

[kellyroyce]

who: @jmacavoy where: sunset grill

"You gonna eat that or just scowl at it?" Kelly's brows gestured to the unfinished plate in front of Jason before her hands even needed to leave the table. Not questioning for her own benefit, she didn't fuckin' want his leftovers, but out of faint concern masked behind some blasé attitude. A dark cloud hung around the MC and most of Los Angeles as of late, the least she could do was play temporary umbrella for him. "We also need to come back around to the chicken topic. I have questions. Namely how many and what the fuck? In that order."

[kellyroyce]

"Mhm." On the contrary, she thought Breslin dared quite a lot, but that's precisely what drew her in like a moth to begin with. Kelly never denied the allure of messy things. Her life had long since been a smattering of questionable decisions and colorful outcomes, but sometimes it felt as though her marriage was the only semi-reasonable plan she'd ever laid. The only one that made sense from tip to toe. "Oh I should record this declaration for hard evidence, it's the only kind that counts according to my wife. She's a lawyer, did you know?" Former, whatever. She still looked damn good in a courtroom.

Tilting the beer to her lips, she began scrolling through Hulu without even a pause. "Season two of those little Mormon bitches in Utah." They were all caught up on Below Deck and Kelly enjoyed the first season so thoroughly that it seemed a no-brainer to go for the latest. Would she inevitably end up finishing alone? Probably, but if Breslin couldn't at least somewhat understand her references then they were lost. "I heard it's a mess. Can MomTok survive it this time?"

Guilt over taking Kelly to the damned yacht party still pressed at the most inopportune of times, which meant Breslin coped with idle hands worse than usual. Restlessness put her phone back in her hands after a promise to put it away when her wife made a quick trip to the kitchen to retrieve drinks and a snack, and by the time she returned, was curled over her phone, glasses on and bottom lip between her teeth. The admonishment came as a surprise, and she peered over her glasses sheepishly before she set her phone on the coffee table, then her glasses with it.

"I wouldn't dare," she replied after a beat. Date nights like this one, spent in shorts and a UCLA sweatshirt worn soft and faded with age with a mini-marathon of their current show of choice, quickly became of paramount importance. She unfolded her legs from where she'd tucked them under herself and leaned forwards to tug Kelly onto the couch with her. "You could smash the router anyway and I wouldn't complain, however," she teased as she grabbed the beers, then pressed one into her wife's hand. "What are we watching? I will try very hard not to fall asleep one episode in this time."

[kellyroyce]

Yaya DaCosta photographed by Thais Aquino for Soul Portraits (2021)

[kellyroyce]

Who: @lcststops Where: Their house

In the narrow span of time between slipping out of their living room and returning with popcorn and two identical glass bottles, it seemed Breslin had fallen victim to the lure of her device. Kelly firmly refused to nag without reason, she knew from the moment her spouse was elected that urgent notices came with the mayoral territory, but that didn't mean she had to accept it every evening. Setting the beers onto the coffee table, she righted herself only to settle both hands onto her pajama-clad hips. "Now I know my beautiful, considerate, overworked wife isn't answering emails on date night." Their lowkey, unglamorous version of such a thing; still special and sacred. "Because if she is, I'm gonna take a mallet to the wifi router."

[kellyroyce]

{ yaya dacosta, cis woman, she/her } Is that KELLY ROYCE? I heard the FORTY-TWO year old belongs to the OUTLAWS MC as a TREASURER. I’d stay away from them if I were you. I heard they were CAGEY, but they can also be CHARMING, so proceed at your own risk.

SUMMARY

TBA.

TLDR;

Kelly Robinson transplanted to Los Angeles just over 20 years ago to find work as a model, however it didn't happen as quickly as portrayed on TV. By day she stood in front of talent scouts and slung drinks during her shifts at Sunset Grill, by night she secretly worked as a midnight ballerina just trying to make rent. She fell in with the Outlaws first by means of survival and familiarity with biker gangs back home, but love and loyalty blossomed naturally. She became content with her less than glamorous life until one day, miraculously, Kelly was plucked out of obscurity at the local Pavilions. After a steady stream of modeling gigs, she met Breslin Royce at some fundraiser and the rest is history. They've been married for 10 glorious years, her wife is now the mayor, and her world as Kelly Royce is picture perfect from the outside.

Minus one small detail: Kelly is still with the MC and Breslin has absolutely no idea.

[kellyroyce]

THE WHITE LOTUS S03E06

[kellyroyce]

Yaya Dacosta