by Zoey Parker
“Darren,” she hissed.
He looked to her with a grin on his face. “What, babe?”
She didn’t bother with correcting him on the use of that particular affection. Besides, it wasn’t like that bothered her. If anything, she liked it.
She nodded over to where her boss stood behind the bar. While she wasn’t even that worried about him saying something to her – he probably would, but it wasn’t like she would care if he did – she wasn’t in the mood to be dealing with something like that right now. She was coming down from her fear and anxiety and settling into something that could vaguely represent comfort, if she went ahead and framed it a certain way.
Darren looked to what she was staring at. He probably didn’t get what was going on, since she hadn’t exactly told him – but he looked at her again. And then he looked back to Marcus, and he connected the dots in his head. He was great at reading people, and it just brought out his smirk even more when he knew he was right. He was always right.
“So,” he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. He was completely sober and he was already getting touchy-feely. “How did you quit?”
“You kidnapped me.”
He laughed. “Oh. That.”
Then he looked around the room again. She did the same. She wasn’t sure what they were supposed to be looking for, but there was nothing in this room that she thought was particularly great to look at. The bar was totally different to her now, though. Although it looked the same as it had when she first walked in, there was something about the air of it that was different.
Darren hadn’t been the only one to go looking for her when she meant missing. And sure, maybe he had told them that they had to go looking for her, but they could’ve just as easily said no as they had said yes. They didn’t need to go save her. And that meant that the people who frequented this bar cared enough about her to go rescue her; it would bother them if she died, even though she was just the ex-bartender who had served here for a few months. And she had been so terribly bitchy to all of them, viewing them as lesser than her just because they were bikers. A hot blush of shame went through her body, and she made her way to a table with Darren trailing alongside her.
She was getting ready to go ahead and take a seat there when Darren elbowed her. He wanted to move somewhere else.
“You're really indecisive today,” she said, rubbing her arm and feigning a wince. “And touchy.”'
“I have reasons to be touchy.” His voice lowered.
What was he even trying to get at? It wasn’t like this was going to get any worse. They’d already made a point by rescuing her and doing God knows what else. Sure, they didn’t know if anyone was in legal trouble – which was bad – and they didn’t know if any of his friends had been hurt, which was even worse. But there was nothing they could do about it right now. If they went and tried to go poking at it, things would probably get worse, and they might even have to deal with law enforcement. Victoria wasn’t even sure how to go about thinking about that, because every time her mind wandered there the endings just got worse and worse:
Being an accomplice in murder. Having to explain to police officers in an interrogation room just how she’d gotten involved with Darren, and having them see on her face that she’d been having sex with him. Life in prison.
Getting locked in solitary confinement.
Getting sentenced to death. She wasn’t sure if their state still allowed that, but it was a very real possibility. And even if it took years for her to be put to death (or even if she never was), that would still be terrifying and horrible to go through.
She shivered.
Pushing those thoughts away, she descended from them and went back to the room. Everything was the same as it had been a few seconds ago, and Darren was still looking at her. Like he was expecting an answer. Like he was waiting for her to move.
She didn’t want to follow him. She started to lead the way, but he caught her arm with his hand again and they started drifting in the direction he wanted them to go. To her horror, she realized that they were going to a table dangerously close to the bar.
It was set up so it was almost against the wood on the far end. They were on the opposite side of where the storage room ran, so if Marcus went from there he probably wouldn’t notice them. They were right next to the shelf of liquors hanging from one end of the bar, though, so if anyone asked for a drink of that, she was done for.
She didn’t recognize anyone at the table. Well, she did, but not by names. There was the one guy who was always loud, except for when he was drunk, at which point he would become weirdly hushed; there was the guy who was always dancing around, and there was... No. Those were the only two she recognized, and she had no idea what to call either of them. In total, there were five people at the table. Those two, Darren, herself, and someone else.
Darren gestured to Dancing Guy. “Benny.”
He nodded to the other two in turn, grunting out names: Jack and Bean, which had to have been some kind of weird pun about that folk tale. Then he returned to what was more important. His gaze moved to Dancing Guy, and Victoria sat between Darren and Jack as they mumbled out some words. Their heads were so close together that she wouldn’t have been able to hear them, even if there wasn’t the din of noise circulating through the bar.
Dancing Guy – Benny – turned to look at something across the bar, and that was when Victoria noticed the fresh, ragged cut on his left cheek. It had been hastily stitched together, and Victoria felt a pang of guilt as she realized that he was probably one of the many that had worked together to go save her.
Not that she had needed to be saved.
But still.
Darren’s head turned back to Benny for a second, after making eye contact with Victoria. “Tell them.”
Jack and Bean both turned their heads to look at Darren and Benny. They’d been bent with their foreheads to their beers, but now they were entirely focused.
Her eyes looked at the table. Half-empty bottles and drained bottles filled the entire surface of the wood there, and it was clear to her that the three men had been there for a while. Someone who was definitely not a waiter – Victoria knew the place well enough to know that – walked past them. Darren raised two fingers, signaling that he wanted a couple beers.
There was no way anyone was going to listen to that.
The guys were talking, though, and Victoria realized she hadn’t been paying any attention at all to what they were saying. She tuned back into the conversation.
“…no one was hurt seriously.” Someone had been shot in the knee.
“...they weren’t there, they got out in time.”
Someone was staying at a house, with a bunch of the other guys; a couple were in the hospital with some injuries, including the guy who was shot in the knee, even though he really hated it. A few were hiding out somewhere that the guys didn’t mention; one guy hadn’t been contacted yet, but the consensus was that he was “probably just hiding out in the woods somewhere.”
None of them had answered what she wanted to know, though, so she butted in. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t technically been involved in the fight. She had been at the center of it, and she was going to say whatever she wanted to about it.
“No arrests?”
Benny looked at her with a hint of bemusement in his eyes. “Are you the one Darren wanted us to go in guns a-blazing for?”
“Like it’d be anyone else,” she muttered under her breath. It was a joke, but the thought of him even looking at another girl made her blood run cold. “Obviously.”
This got a chuckle out of Benny, and the other two men soon followed. “That makes sense. You seem clever.” The compliment rolled off of her. It was a compliment to compliment, to see how she responded in conversation, or some other stupid thing like that. She didn’t really care too much for social standards just then, so she just nodded her head back. She could deal with being polite later, even if this was one of D
arren’s closest friends.
Benny continued speaking. “Some people got arrested,” he started out sounding like he was trying to seem sad, but then that morphed into a smirk, “but we didn’t.”
“So you’re saying the Skulls got arrested?” She still wasn’t sure why exactly these people hated each other. Darren had given her a reason involving drug busts, but it sounded like the Broken Skulls and the Bloody Saints had always hated each other, just because they could.
No one had time to comment anything before Marcus came by the table, dirty apron askew with whatever it was he had been cooking with. A lot of people had been ordering food the past while when Victoria was gone, and that wasn’t working out for Marcus very well. The food splattered all over him didn’t suit him, and neither did the grumpy look on his face. Victoria prepared herself to have to snap at him for saying something really freaking rude.
He was holding two beers in his hands, just like Darren had asked for. The caps were tight-fitted and it looked like they were struggling to stay in the grips of his palms, but Marcus managed.
She had to get the first word in before he could say anything uncouth. His eyes were already on her.
“Matt,” she said.
“Vick.” She hated being called Vick. Marcus was the only one to do that, and she didn’t really worry about it much because she never saw him. But she guessed it made sense that he wasn’t going to like her now; she had pretty much just abandoned her post at this job, but she had had good reason. Someone had wanted to murder her. It wasn’t like she’d quit the job just because she decided the working conditions sucked or something. “It’s you.”
She raised her arms up above her shoulders, shrugging them and making as silly a face as she could manage. She knew she should probably be mad, but it wasn’t like she even cared. She was so past all of this. “It’s me!”
Marcus looked like he was about to say something, but the words that were at his lips dissolved into one of the most judgmental sighs she’d ever heard. He huffed, and his mouth parted just a bit as he –
Darren took the beers from Marcus without him even noticing. Setting the bottles down on the table, he rose a little from his seat and put his hand on Marcus's back. It was a small pat, and it looked like it was friendly – with the exception of the fact that it most certainly meant nothing good. “Relax. She’s with me.”
The other guys at the table shot the two of them a look. It was obvious that Victoria didn’t work here anymore, and the timing of how she’d quit working there overlapped too well with just about everything else that was going on. They didn’t ask. Actually, they all burst out laughing.
Rolling his eyes, Darren asked if they would excuse him and shot Victoria a look.
She wasn’t sure where he was going.
She came with.
Chapter Twenty-One
Victoria
They were still in a crowded bar, but somehow Darren managed to make this seem private. She’d barely even noticed this booth while she was working there, tucked into a corner of the room. It was hidden by the chaos of everything, but she could tell by the way Marcus shot them looks that it was visible if you knew it was there.
She slid onto one seat, and he quickly followed by sliding onto the seat across from her. He had a sly smile on his face, and his hand fell to one of the pockets in his jeans.
She cocked her head at him.
“What do you have in there?”
He winked at her. “You can go look in there and find it if you want.”
“I’d rather not,” she said. The truth was that she did want to. She hadn’t been with him in a while, and everything in her missed him. She just wanted to have one night with him, and to wake up after it amidst a bunch of cuddles. Not like the last time, when she woke up alone. Abandoned. “Besides, aren’t your hands kind of full right now?”
He was still juggling the beers in the hand that wasn’t playing at his pocket, and he put them on the table before pushing one to Victoria. He nodded at it, as if asking if she needed help with opening that, and she rolled her eyes to tell him she didn’t.
It was like he didn’t even know her, and it made her laugh. It was tenser, though, like one of them was about to pop the bubble that had grown from them both avoiding their feelings for each other. Placing her hand on top of the table, she reached for his, trying to bring it to her.
“Someone’s being clingy,” he argued.
She argued right back. “Someone’s pretending not to like it.”
“I’m not the one who went from telling me to fuck off to holding my hand in an open bar.” He winked at her, gripping her fingers tighter between his and bringing them closer. For a second they were just sitting there staring at each other.
Then his hand pulled away from hers, and he was opening a beer and then chugging the cool liquid. He brought his hand across the table and moved to make as if he was going to try opening her mouth.
She rolled her eyes at him, and brought her own beer to her lips. Before long, they were giggling, and she wasn’t sure exactly what was going on.
“Your laugh is ridiculous,” she said.
“Yours is ridiculous.”
She grabbed his beer bottle from him and tipped it on its side. Nothing came out of it, so she grabbed it by the neck and held it upside down. Still nothing.
She raised an eyebrow at him, mimicking his trademark move. “You drank all of this already?”
He grabbed her bottle and eyed the fact that it was still half-full. “You didn’t?”
Somehow he managed to get Marcus’s attention, throwing his fingers up to signal that he wanted two more beers brought over their way. He wasn’t telling him just what kind of beers he wanted, but he seemed to be happy with what he was getting – so it was either random and Darren just didn’t care since it was at least alcohol, or they already had an arrangement.
She took a sip of her drink. “He’s probably going to spit in those, you know.”
“He wouldn’t,” Darren laughed. “Besides, this is me we're talking about.”
“People hate you.”
“You don’t.”
She sipped her beer again and avoided answering the question, although she knew that they were going to have to talk about their feelings some time. It was going to be impossible to ignore.
They sat in silence for a while before Darren pulled a weird face, and Victoria burst out into laughter. He laughed at her, and neither of them were able to shut up.
Marcus showed up with the beers. He set them on the table, gave Victoria a look, and she and Darren both gave him a look back. He left.
Darren palmed the pocket he was looking through earlier, but he was careful to keep track of Victoria and of making sure she didn’t notice. She was intent on looking at him, though, and he felt like the ring was burning a hole in his pocket.
He always carried it with him, in the storage compartment of his bike. He’d moved it into his pocket before entering the bar. It was the ring his grandmother had given him years ago. Not that he’d thought he’d ever need it.
He looked to Victoria, looking beautiful even in the murky light of this bar.
He needed it now.
Lifting a finger, he pointed towards something at the other end of the bar. There was nothing there except for an old TV and a couch that no one was on, but from where Victoria was, she would have to tilt her head back and hunt for something, even if it wasn’t actually there. There was no way she would see what he wanted to do, and it would be a surprise. That was the goal.
“Look at that,” he tried to make himself sound as convincing as he possibly could. “That’s fucking ridiculous.”
She didn’t really believe what he was saying – the tone he was using was so unlike him. He was being kind of weird tonight in general. So she turned her head, and, looking for whatever he’d seen, missed Darren sticking the ring in her glass.
“You’re blind.”
“There was something
there,” he shrugged.
“I don’t believe you,” she rolled her eyes at him – was she always going to do that? Probably. She made to grab her glass. She brought it to her lips, and trying to chug like Darren could, drank until she felt the metal of something hit her lips.
Crinkling her eyebrows together, she put her hand in and grabbed it. It was a ring – simple, but lovely in its easy-going elegance. She gazed at it for a moment, asking, “What’s this?”
“It’s an engagement ring.” He looked at her like that was the most obvious thing in the world, with an expectant look on his face.
“You have to ask first, you know.” She grinned. Her heart was beating in her chest and she felt feelings she didn’t know she could experience – nerves, excitement, adoration. Small hints of fear of the unknown.
