Craving Rose (The Aces' Sons)

by Nicole Jacquelyn

  Which was why me and Kara were gathering supplies at the drugstore, instead of at home barbequing the steaks I’d had marinating all day.

  “Can I get a candy bar?” Kara asked, bouncing on her toes. “I’m starving.”

  I looked at my daughter and I couldn’t help but grin. The braids she’d put in her hair that morning were a tangled mess, and she had a streak of dirt on her neck from God knew what. Sometimes it was easy to forget how young she really was. Twelve seemed to be right in the middle of little girl shit and teenager shit. So, she may have been wearing makeup when we left the house that morning, but by the time I’d picked her up, she was covered in dirt and had proudly showed off a long scratch on her knee that she’d got riding bikes with the kids.

  “Sure,” I said, laughing as she did a little dance. “Grab me one, too.”

  I watched the clock as we headed home. It was still a few hours before Rose left for work, so we had some time. I wasn’t positive that she’d be bartending tonight, but there was a pretty good chance. I’d noticed that she worked a lot. Unless there was something going on at the club or her family had plans, by seven o’clock, she was slinging drinks somewhere. Last time I’d counted, she had two regular jobs and another where she picked up shifts when someone called in sick.

  After a whole lot of grumbling, Kara went up to shower off the day’s sweat and sunblock while I put dinner on the grill. God, I loved summer. Even when I worked a full eight hours, we still always had at least a few hours of light when we got home to hang outside or go do something fun. Plus, it was nice to grill when it wasn’t raining—not like a little rain had ever stopped me.

  My phone rang as I was flipping a couple of corncobs, so I answered, holding it with my shoulder as I continued what I was doing.

  “Hey, Ma.”

  “Cubby,” my mom said fondly, using my childhood nickname as an endearment. “How are you and my granddaughter doing?”

  “We’re good,” I replied, glancing over my shoulder as Kara came outside in her pajamas and headed straight to the swing hanging from an old oak tree in our back yard. “Working like always and soaking up this sun when we can.”

  “How’s Kara enjoying her summer? Does she have anything fun planned?”

  “She’s lovin’ havin’ no school,” I replied making my mom laugh. “But she’s not too happy that she still has to get up before noon.”

  “It’s good that she’s got somewhere to spend her days while you’re at work,” my mom said, a tinge of remorse lacing her tone.

  “You and Dad did the best you could,” I said. “I just got lucky with the friends I’ve got. She’s got somewhere to hang with kids her age, and Trix doesn’t mind having extra monsters running through her house all day.”

  “That’s awesome,” she replied.

  “And she’s got camp coming up, too. She’s pretty psyched for that.”

  “The sleep-away camp she was so excited about?”

  “Yep. Did some side jobs so I’d be able to swing it. It’s next month.”

  “Only twenty-seven days!” Kara yelled from the swing with a whoop.

  “Twenty-seven days,” I repeated to my mom, making her chuckle.

  “But who’s counting?” she said dryly.

  “How are you and Dad doing? Still enjoying tripping all over each other?” My parents never had any extra cash while I was growing up, but the plant my dad had worked for had a hell of a pension. When he retired, they’d sold the little house I’d grown up in and bought a tiny RV outright, and they’d been travelling ever since. They always made it home for Christmas and Kara’s birthday in January, but during the winter months, they were usually somewhere down south, making their way north in the summer. They stopped where they wanted, left when they wanted, and generally had the time of their lives. I couldn’t have been happier for them.

  “The RV had a water leak,” she griped. “So we’ve been stuck in this little town in Iowa for a week, but I think your dad finally figured out the problem, so we should be hitting the road soon.”

  “Why didn’t he just take it into a shop?” I asked, going inside to get the steaks.

  “You know your dad, he wasn’t going to waste money taking it to someone else if he could do it for free.”

  “Understandable,” I replied, grabbing the meat out of the fridge. “But you guys have the cash now. Don’t scrimp when you don’t have to.”

  “I know, I know,” she mumbled. “But letting your dad do his thing is easier than arguing about it. I pick my battles.”

  “Since when?” I teased.

  “Since we started tripping all over each other, as you put it.”

  I laughed.

  “Fighting with someone in a space this small is worse than getting a root canal,” she said, a smile in her voice. “There’s nowhere to escape.”

  “Sounds terrible,” I said in mock seriousness.

  “Ha!” she laughed. “You’d be right here with us if you could.”

  “Damn straight,” I replied instantly.

  I was pretty sure that my love of the road came from my parents. My dad’s hips were too bad to ride for any length of time, but when I was a kid, he and my mom used to take off for hours on his old, piece of shit Harley. Knowing what I knew now, I had no idea how he’d kept the thing running—but he had. It was the only escape they’d had when times were tough.

  “Well, I was just calling to check in,” she said. “We miss you guys.”

  “We miss you, too. Be careful on the road.”

  “We always are. Love you.”

  “Love you, too. Tell Dad I love him.”

  Holding the phone out, I called for Kara. “Your nana’s on the phone.”

  Mom always took the time to have a one-on-one conversation with Kara when she called. I knew they hated missing out on their only grandchild’s life, but they made a concerted effort to stay close with her.

  As Kara walked away, talking a mile a minute, I threw the steaks on. They only took a couple minutes, so I went straight in to get plates and silverware. When it was nice, we always ate outside. Why bother to be cooped up in the house if you didn’t have to be?

  “Gram said to tell you she loved you and she’ll call again soon,” Kara said as she came out to the patio table and handed back my phone. “What do you want to drink?”

  “Ice water, please,” I replied, hurrying over to flip the steaks. “Before you ask, yes, you can have a soda.”

  “Sweet,” she sang, skipping into the house.

  Life was hard sometimes. It threw curveballs and knocked you on your ass. But nights like this, when it was just me and my girl, grilling, relaxing, and creating a little mayhem after dinner, made every shitty day worth the effort.

  Chapter 3

  Rose

  “You don’t pay me to shake my ass,” I called to my boss, Matt, as I lifted a tub of dirty glasses onto the counter. “You pay me to tend bar.”

  “I’m just saying, if you wore something…”

  “Careful what you say,” I warned, pointing at him. “Sexual harassment will get you sued.” I grinned as the patrons of the bar ooohed. “Besides, you tell me to wear anything but this comfortable shirt and jeans, my brothers will serve you your own nuts on a platter.”

  “Now, why would you say something like that?” he grimaced, pausing what he was doing so he could drop his hands to cover his junk.

  “You know it’s true,” I said as I poured a couple of beers for some regulars I could see walking in the door.

  “Yeah,” Matt said as he walked closer with his arms full of tequila and whiskey. “Your brothers already gave me the speech.”

  I laughed. “It pissed me off the first time they did it,” I confessed. “But I couldn’t stop them, so…” I shrugged.

  “Barkeeeeeeeep!” my brother Tommy yelled from the front door.

  “Speak of the devil,” I muttered.

  “You can wear whatever you goddamn want,” Matt said quickly as Tommy
strode toward us, his arm slung over Heather’s shoulders.

  “Good to know,” I said out the side of my mouth.

  “Did I ever tell you that I love the fact that you have to pour my drinks when you’re working?” Tommy asked as he and Heather slid onto a couple bar stools.

  “About a hundred times,” I muttered back. “What do you want?”

  “Damn,” Tommy replied, wrinkling his nose. He looked at Matt. “You really need better service.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Matt said, raising his hands out in front of him. “I just sign the checks, you know she runs the place.”

  “And I’m damn good at it, too!” I said loudly, making everyone on the bar stools cheer.

  “Beer. You know what I like,” Tommy replied. “What do you want, baby?”

  “Vodka cran, please,” Heather said, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the bar top.

  “Ew,” I said, quickly. “Don’t do that.”

  Grabbing a wet rag, I wiped it over the bar top. “There, now you won’t stick to it, at least.”

  “Thanks,” she said, leaning forward again and propping her chin on her hands. “Go heavy on the vodka, I had a shit day at work.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I said, handing Tommy his beer and starting on Heather’s drink. “What happened?”

  “My boss is an asshole.”

  “Her boss is an asshole.”

  “Jinx,” Tommy said, saluting Heather with his beer.

  “I’ve had plenty of those,” I replied, handing Heather her drink.

  “Who?” Tommy said darkly.

  “No one around here,” I replied, rolling my eyes.

  “It’s fine,” Heather said. “Someday, I’ll be the boss and I’ll eat douchebags like him for lunch.”

  “Hell, yeah, you will,” Tommy said, kissing the side of her head.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” I replied as I moved down the counter to pour a beer for someone who was waving at me. “I couldn’t sit at a desk all day. I’d go nuts.”

  “Same, little sister,” Tommy said.

  “I like the work,” Heather grumbled. “It’s the people I work with that suck.”

  My brother and Heather wandered toward the pool tables as we got busier, and the night flew by, like it always did. I loved my job, even when I had to deal with drunk idiots and shitty tippers. I knew it wasn’t for everyone. Hell, my parents had been on me for years to go to college and get a higher paying job—but I just couldn’t make myself do it. There was something about the energy in a bar that called to me. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but I liked making drinks for other people. I liked watching their lives play out one snippet at a time. First dates, groups of friends shooting the shit, old timers watching the TV along the wall with a beer in their hand—all of it. Plus, I was on my feet, and I got to visit with people all night long, but I still had time during the day to do whatever I wanted. It was a win-win as far as I was concerned.

  By the time last call was announced, I’d already cleaned up behind the bar and I only had to wait for a few stragglers to leave before I could. Matt usually locked up and walked me to my car, but I was surprised to see Tommy and Heather waiting for me after I’d grabbed my jacket and purse from the back office.

  “What are you guys still doing here? I thought you left.”

  “We had a quickie in the parking lot,” Tommy said easily.

  As I cringed, Heather reached over and pinched him.

  “Why don’t you have a filter?” I asked as I led the way outside. “Seriously. No one else in our family is as disgusting as you.”

  “Because all of you are prudes?” Tommy asked. He’d parked his bike right next to my Jeep, and my Spidey senses started tingling.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, looking at them suspiciously.

  “What?” Heather looked confused, so I relaxed.

  “I’ll see you guys later,” I said, opening my door. “Is there still a party at the club on Friday?”

  “Yep,” Tommy said, climbing on his bike. “Just like every other Friday at the club.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “Love you,” he called as I started up the Jeep.

  “Love you, too,” I called back.

  The ride home didn’t take long, and as we got closer to my apartment, I started to wonder what the hell was going on. Tommy and Heather’s place was clear across town, but they still followed me all the way to my parking lot. It wasn’t unheard of for one of my brothers to follow me home if we were both on the road at the same time, but it something seemed off about tonight.

  When they drove on past the apartment complex, I relaxed a little. If there was something I needed to know, someone would have told me. My dad and brothers didn’t lead the safest lives as part of a motorcycle club, but it had been a long time since any of their shit had affected me.

  I wasn’t paying close attention to my door when I reached it, because I’d been taught—rightly so—to be hyper aware of my surroundings. So when my hand slid off the doorknob, it startled me. What the hell?

  I touched the doorknob again and pulled my hand away to stare at it. Then I looked at the door as a whole.

  Someone had covered the entire door, from top to bottom, with Vaseline. There wasn’t a single inch that wasn’t coated with the stuff. I gritted my teeth as I shoved the key into the lock, and my hand slipped at least four times before I could grip it hard enough to turn it and let myself inside.

  I was going to kill Mack.

  When my phone started ringing in my purse, I nearly threw it across the room, I was so irritated. How did you even clean that shit off a door? It was so greasy.

  I locked up behind me and went to the kitchen to wash my hands, ignoring my ringing phone. By the time I was done, I’d heard the text message alert twice. When I pulled the phone out of my purse, I saw that it was Tommy trying to reach me.

  Don’t clean it tonight.

  Wait until the morning.

  I knew there was something off about him following me home. Had they parked and snuck back to watch my reaction? If there was a video of me making some dumb face, I was going to throw his phone in a toilet.

  You’re a fucking TRAITOR, I texted back.

  Love you too.

  I tossed my phone onto the couch and growled. I really wanted to open the door and see how bad the damage was, hoping it wasn’t as bad as it had seemed at first—but I knew Tommy was right. It wasn’t smart for me to be hanging outside with my door wide open at one in the morning, no matter how irritated and ready to kill I was. That was just asking for trouble that I didn’t need.

  I stomped toward the stairs, then felt like shit because I had downstairs neighbors and walked normally again. It wasn’t their fault that Mack actually had the balls to keep this little prank war going. For a minute, I wondered if Mack was actually mad about the pudding in his boots—a spectacular prank, if I did say so myself—but I was pretty sure he wasn’t. If he was angry, he would have called and said so, not kept the war going.

  I peeled off my clothes and hopped in the shower, wondering what I should do to pay him back. There were tons of pranks that sounded good, but I had to be careful. I didn’t want Kara caught in the crossfire—I may need her to help me get her dad later.

  By the time I’d climbed in bed with a book and a glass of ice water, I still wasn’t any closer to finding the perfect way to pay Mack back for the slimy door, but I had figured out how to clean it. Apparently, it was going to take a lot of paper towels and some dish soap.

  I had to admit, his prank was pretty good—even better than mine since I’d actually ruined a pair of his shoes. I was kind of embarrassed about that, actually. I’d seen how ratty his boots were getting, so it had seemed like the perfect opportunity for him to get some new ones. I’d even gotten him a gift certificate to get a new pair. I would’ve done the same thing to my brothers, complete with the gift—it wasn’t unusual for us. One time, Will had taken my makeup and thrown
it all in the toilet so I’d had to fish it out, but he’d gotten me a huge gift certificate to replace it. The ruined makeup hadn’t been the prank—fishing it out of the toilet had been. It was the same with Mack’s boots. I’d wanted him to stick his foot into a boot full of pudding, but ruining the boots had just been a casualty of war.

  Now, I was wondering if paying for new ones made me look like a lunatic.

  I wished I could text Lily to get her opinion, but it was way past her bedtime. She’d be up at the ass crack of dawn with Gray, and she’d be working from home all day doing the accounting books for like five different companies. Yet another person who loved sitting at a desk all day, even if her desk was at home and she got to pick her hours.

  I sighed and opened my book. Maybe if I stopped thinking about it, the perfect payback would come to me.

  * * *

  Cleaning off the door hadn’t been as bad as I’d expected, but it had taken forever, so I’d still bitched about it to anyone who could hear me. This wasn’t my first rodeo, after all. Smugly declaring that someone’s prank was weak was just asking for them to up their game, and I wasn’t about to egg Mack on. By Friday, I still hadn’t figured out what I was going to do to pay him back, but I wasn’t worried about it. I was known for taking my time before I struck, and the longer I waited, the more nervous my opponent usually got. It worked out perfectly.

  When I showed up at the club, I was glad to see that they’d decided to barbecue. Sometimes it was strictly booze and whatever snacks you could pilfer from the kitchen, but usually during the summer, all the old ladies got together and made a huge meal. I was starving. I’d spent the afternoon cleaning my house from top to bottom, trying to ignore the nervous anticipation that I absolutely refused to acknowledge.

  I’d partied with Mack a hundred times. We were cool. Friendly. Tonight wasn’t any different from any other party, even if we were in the middle of a prank war. Nothing had changed. Nothing was going to change.