by Josie Kerr
Brad whistled long and low. “LottieLou, you have outdone yourself. You’ll have men crawling all over you tonight.”
Charlotte grunted. Brad said that every time they went out, but the swarming mass of admirers never appeared.
“Oh, you need to have a better attitude than that, my dear birthday girl. You look fabulous; I look handsome. We’re going to eat, drink, and be merry on this most joyous day.”
“God, you’re doing community theater again, aren’t you?”
“How can you tell?” Brad cackled, and Charlotte could not help but grin at her best friend in the world. She and Brad met on the first day of kindergarten and were instant friends, each sensing that the other wasn’t quite like the rest of the students in their exclusive private school.
“Okay, fess up, chicklet. What’s got you chewing your cherry-red lip? Hm?”
“You ever feel like you’ve just missed something exciting?”
“All the time, Lottie, all the freaking time . . .”
“I’m being serious, Brad.”
Brad laughed. “You’re always serious, Charlotte; you’ve always been serious.” Her friend grinned at her but then stopped his teasing when he saw the wistful look on her face. “Aw, Lottie, what’s going on?”
Charlotte gave Brad a quick overview of the night before—from the time that she got to the pub up to her inclusion in the after-party.
“You’re leaving the most important part out, Lottie.”
“What?”
“The fighters. You mean to tell me you were surrounded by testosterone-laden man meat, and you did not get a single picture of these guys? You’re letting your best friend down.”
Charlotte laughed.
“And besides, Daryl and I need some new role-playing material.” Brad wiggled his eyebrows.
“Oh, man, I knew I should have kept my big mouth shut,” Charlotte muttered. “They’re all really young, Brad. Like babies.”
“So? When’s that ever stopped you?”
“I haven’t had just a pickup in a long time, and I don’t think I ever want to go back to that, you know?”
“Yeah, sweetie, I know. But this Bailey sounds like she’s a responsible adult—what about her? You need to expand your horizons beyond the fratty douches that your daddy tries to force on you.”
“Ugh. Don’t mention David. He’s expecting me to go to a luncheon with some of his investors tomorrow. . . .”
“You have got to be kidding me. On your birthday? Your birthday? That’s ridiculous.”
“Yes, it is, but I don’t want to listen to him if I don’t go.”
“You have got to put your foot down. He doesn’t own you, and you do not owe him a thing.”
Charlotte sat in the passenger seat and looked out the window, knowing Brad was right but not wanting to think about her father and his expectations on a night when they were supposed to be having fun.
She clapped her hands together. “All right, Bradley. Moratorium on all things David Markham for the next twenty-four hours: no David, no Angelique, no nothing at all that has to do remotely with either of them. Deal?”
“That is a deal I can agree to. So, on to more important subjects: small plates or entrees? You are the birthday girl, you decide, LottieLou.”
*****
“That was so good, but I’m way too full. I think I need a nap.”
“You are not getting out of dancing. You look too good tonight. Hell, you look too good every time you step out of the house. I guess that’s one thing that Angelique was good for.”
Charlotte looked at Brad sternly and tutted him. “No Markham talk, remember.”
“Oops.” He winked at her.
Brad pulled into the steep parking lot behind the converted bank, parked, and turned to Charlotte.
“Ready, Freddy?”
Charlotte nodded, getting excited to listen to some live music and do some dancing. She squeezed Brad’s hand, and they started making their way up the hill to the bar.
“I really can’t believe you could walk up that hill in those things,” Brad said as they waited in line. “Or in that tight skirt.”
“It’s called a wiggle dress for a reason,” Charlotte said, giving a little shimmy. “It’s got a lot more give than it looks like it should.”
“Well, you look kind of like a slutty Snow White, and I approve.”
“Thanks, I think.” Charlotte sighed but then smiled when Brad bumped her with his hip.
Charlotte looked at the crowd as they waited in line, and made a mental comparison with the crowd of when she first started coming to the bar to hear live music in the late 1990s. The crowd wasn’t all that different, maybe more piercings and visible tattoos, but in general, it was the same rockabilly crowd that had been frequenting the venue for almost twenty years.
What the hell? Twenty years?
Brad burst out a laugh. “What is that look on your face? You realizing that we’re old enough to legitimately talk about Little Five Points ‘back in the day’?”
“God, yes.”
“Well, snap out of it, okay? Okay. Good, now that that’s decided, you want to pick, or will you allow me to pick?”
Charlotte groaned. They had been playing this game for years now—or, more accurately— they had been until a year and a half ago when Brad met Mister Right and settled down to a life of domestic bliss. His Mister Right was out of town on business, so Brad was her only date for the evening, and she was glad. Charlotte did not think she could stand two matchmakers tonight.
“Let’s play it by ear, okay?”
“Hmph. Well, I owe you, or you owe me, or something.”
“You owe me for eighteen months of nausea and jealousy from watching you two lovebirds moon over each other,” Charlotte said with a grin.
Brad paid for Charlotte’s cover (“It’s your birthday, woman. Let me buy you something.”), and they made their way into the small bar.
“Okay, let’s get you a rockabilly boy!” Brad shouted with obvious glee.
Charlotte huffed a sigh and smiled weakly. Sure, let’s get me a rockabilly boy.
“You realize this isn’t a country bar, right?” Dig eyed Tig’s boots, belt buckle, and cowboy hat as they walked across the street to the bar.
“You said it was rockabilly night, right?”
“Yeah, but you’re looking really billy and not really rock.”
“Middle Georgia is not hillbilly territory. If you’re going to marginalize me, ‘cracker’ would be the correct pejorative term.”
Silence.
“I’ll be fine,” Tig said with a laugh.
Dig surveyed the patrons as they walked down the block to the end of the line. “Yeah, you will.” He whistled low. “I am liking the look of the women. . . .”
“You like the look of all the women everywhere we go.”
Tig shook his head, thinking about the woman he saw at the pub party after the fight, the woman who was with Bailey. When he got back inside the pub from talking with his mother, she was deep in conversation with Bailey and Sheila Doyle, the wife of the patriarch of the fight club, Paddy Doyle, and Tig could not figure out a way to approach the women in a subtle manner. So he did not.
And he regretted it.
“You still thinking about Pink Suit, huh?”
“What?”
Dig grinned at Tig but wondered about his friend’s about face regarding going out. Earlier, Tig had said that he was spending all weekend at his family’s farm, but that afternoon, Tig actually agreed to go out when Dig caught him rolling in, boots and jeans caked in mud. Ten minutes and the guy was ready to go, smile on his face and bouncing on the balls of his feet even with his boots on.
“Wow, this place is hopping,” Tig mused, looking around the bar at the milling crowd and pointedly not answering Dig’s question. “I’m gonna get a drink before the bar gets too backed up. You want one?”
“Sure,” Dig said and reached for his wallet, but Tig waved him off.
“You get the next round; I’m buying this one for once, okay?”
“You sure?”
“Most definitely.”
Tig leaned on the bar, held his hand up to flag the bartender, and left it up while his eyes roamed over the crowd. Guys with slicked-up pompadours and girls in dresses with full skirts were the norm, but Tig saw a few fancy western shirts and some Freddie’s of Pinewood on the dance floor where there did not seem to be a lot of dancing going on.
Tig loved to dance. His mother taught him the basics of jive and swing dancing when he was in elementary school, mainly because she loved to dance, but also as a means of burning off his excess energy that wore her out and drove his stepfather crazy. Soon, he was doing advanced moves and flips, and he and his mother were entering contests at fairs, much to his stepfather’s dismay. Tig even taught his stepbrother, older by six years, to dance.
But then Tig discovered judo, and Floyd seemed to be relieved. Still, the dancing helped with all his martial arts and then with the cheerleading, another activity that Floyd frowned upon, but Tig did not care by that point because cheering let him bounce and tumble and had the added bonus of putting him in contact with girls.
Girls.
Girls, not women. Girls that were happy to roll around in the barn or under the bleachers or in the back of Tig’s little truck. Girls that married first-string football players or ended up as college women who married lawyers and accountants, not struggling peanut farmers or wannabe MMA fighters.
Tig shook his head, determined not to stay in it all night. Tonight, he was going to do something for himself and only himself. He might have ended up punching his frustration out the last night, but he was damned if he was going to do that a second night.
Tig got their beers—PBR, cold and cheap and just right—and made his way back to Dig, who was eyeing a woman in a tight skirt and a pair of flat shoes. He handed a beer to Dig, saying “I thought you didn’t dance.”
Dig snorted. “I don’t.”
“Well you might as well kiss your chances with that one goodbye; she’s here to dance.”
“How can you tell?”
“Flat shoes, though I have no idea how she’s going to be able to dance in that tight skirt.”
“So, what you’re saying is that I need to aim for someone like that?” Dig gestured with his beer. Tig took one look at the woman in question and nodded. “Yep. High heels, tight skirt. She’s not here to dance. Hell, she must have gotten dropped off because there’s no way she made it up that hill in those heels. She’s just here to look good.”
And boy did she ever look good—at least from the back. She was wearing what his mother called a wiggle dress, the hem narrower than the hips, which made the wearer keep their legs close together and causing them to wiggle when they walked. Those heels would just accentuate that wiggle.
Maybe Tig would ask her to dance if there was a slow song—that is, if Dig did not stake his claim.
The band took the stage and blasted into “Rocket 88,” which surprised, delighted, and impressed Tig.
“Looks like you misjudged that one,” Dig leaned over to tell Tig in his ear. “Flats isn’t moving, and Tight Skirt is getting her groove, or whatever you call that, on.”
And Tight Skirt was indeed getting her jive on. The skirt allowed a lot more movement than Tig imagined because Skirt was doing an advanced East Coast Swing with a big guy that was throwing her around like a rag doll.
Damn.
Tig looked over to say something to Dig but discovered his friend over by Flats, leaning over and flexing his arm on the bar. Tig shook his head, and Dig subtly winked at him as Flats laid her hand on his flexed bicep.
Double damn.
Tig sighed and took a big pull on his beer. The crowd had obscured his view of Tight Skirt, which made him both happy and sad. Happy that he would not be tortured with the vision of her curvy hips undulating under that tight skirt, and sad that he had maybe missed his opportunity to ask her to dance.
“Looks like we’re tied nothing to nothing, Tiggyman.”
Tig looked at Dig in confusion. “What happened?”
“She was looking for a third. . . .”
“What the hell, man? You were just talking about being up for that.”
“To join her and her boyfriend.”
Tig laughed long and loud. “Oh boy, I guess not. Sorry, buddy.”
Dig shrugged. “There’s a lot of other women here.”
“Yep, there are.”
But Tig still had his gaze glued to the woman in the tight red dress. No, not tight. Tight implied the dress was too small, and this dress fit the woman’s ample curves like a glove. Tig let out a little whimper when the she turned her back to him so he could see the way her rump moved in the dress and the fact that her stockings were seamed.
Holy fuck, this woman was sexy.
“What in the hell have you gotten me into, Dig?” Tig’s head snapped around at Junior’s voice, and he bleated out a laugh.
“Junior. Welcome to the South, baby,” Tig laughed and then laughed harder at Junior’s obvious horror at both the now lukewarm PBR that Dig shoved into his hand and the music that filled the bar.
“Dig, this is the last time I let you talk me into going someplace at the last minute,” Junior grumbled. “Christ, I’m old enough to be most of these idiots’ father.”
Junior took a drink and gagged. “I’ve got to get something else,” he said and headed to the bar.
“Man, it’s going to take him forever.” Dig shook his head.
“Are you kidding? He’ll be back in ten minutes. He’ll turn on the El Galán charm and get served in no time.”
And sure enough, Junior was back with a mixed drink in less than seven minutes.
Junior and Dig had a yelled conversation over the band, but Tig continued watching Tight Skirt until Junior tapped him on the shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“You realize that’s Bailey’s friend, right?”
“What?”
“The woman in the red dress? That’s the woman that was at Foley’s last night.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“No, I’m not. I’m sure it is. Her hair is just different, and she has her going-out face on.”
Tig looked hard at the woman, and, sure enough, Junior was right: it was her.
“Okay, Mashburn, you have to talk to her tonight. No farting around, talking to your Mama.”
Tig perked but then slumped. The woman and man were like a well-oiled machine with their dancing. They had obviously been partners for years.
Junior read his mind. “Tig, the dude she’s dancing with? Gay.”
“How do you know?”
Junior shot Tig a withering look.
Tig swallowed hard. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
And then the music stopped, and the band took a break.
Charlotte stood at the bar for a moment, running the cold bottle of water over her neck and cheeks, not caring at this point what the moisture was doing to her makeup.
She gulped half the bottle down, blew out a breath, and turned around to return to Brad, who had managed to snag one of the few tables in the bar.
And ran face first into the hard chest of a Stetson-wearing fighter.
He caught her when she almost lost her balance, his hands firm on her upper arms, and when Charlotte looked up at his face, he treated her to a charmingly crooked smile.
“Oh. Hi.”
“Hey there,” he said, still grinning. “You in a hurry?”
“I was just headed back to join my friend. . . .” Charlotte motioned her head toward the table. The cowboy’s grin faded as he glanced over at the table.
“Oh, sweet Mary,” she heard him mutter under his breath. “He cannot fucking help himself, can he?”
Charlotte looked at the fighter and then looked back at the table to see Brad sitting stiffly as a man with a shaved head—Junior, she thought
, was his name—leaned against the table.
“You know Brad?”
“No, I don’t, but I’m thinking that Junior might.”
“Oh boy,” Charlotte muttered. This night just got very interesting. She cleared her throat and made her way purposefully across the room, the wiry fighter trailing behind her.
“Hey, Brad,” Charlotte said brightly. “Here’s your water.” She looked at Junior, who still leaned against the table, but now wore a thoughtful expression. “Junior, right? You work with Bailey’s . . . Colin.”
Junior laughed and grasped Charlotte’s outstretched hand. “Yeah, I’m Colin’s trainer, or was, when he was still an active fighter. Nice to see you again, Charlotte. And I see you ran into Tig.” The big bald man grinned over Charlotte’s head at the fighter standing behind her.
Tig. His name was Tig.
“Hello, Tig.”
“Hello, Charlotte. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Yeah.”
Tig grinned that goofy, sexy, crooked grin again, and Charlotte wondered how old he was. When she first saw him at Foley’s, she thought he was very young, maybe in his early twenties at the oldest; now, she wasn’t so sure.
Charlotte heard someone clear his throat and saw Tig roll his eyes. “And that’s Dig,” he said.
“Hey,” the very muscular, bearded fighter said with a broad grin on his face.
“Tig . . . and Dig?” Charlotte said with amusement as she looked between the two men.
Those two might have rhyming names, but they could not have been more different. They both towered over her, which, at barely five feet tall, was not hard at all, but where Tig was towheaded, lean, and wiry, Dig was dark haired, bulky, and thickly muscled.
Junior barked a laugh. “They’re not quite Mutt and Jeff, but close enough.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet all of you.” Charlotte spoke to all of them, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of Tig.
They stood there, looking at each other and grinning, and the band started back up. Tig leaned close to whisper in her ear.
“Please give me a dance, Charlotte. You’ve got some moves, woman.”
Charlotte smiled shyly at him but reached for his hand.
