Page 2 of Crow

My face gets hot, but not nearly as hot as the rest of me goes under my tight black tank top and my midi length denim skirt. It looks more grandma on me than epic, like Ella’s jacket does on her. The things these two give me go straight down to the toes of my red cowboy boots. Also not awesome or fashionable.

The way they’re looking at each other, it doesn’t take much imagination to envision how they’re going to end their night. Probably somewhere private, but I still imagine Raiden bending his breathtaking wife over his bike, hiking up that dress and sinking inside of her. Or her getting down on her knees, those scarlet lips parting for him to—

Holy. Shit.

Thank goodness they’re much too involved in each other to be able to read the expression and thoughts right off my face. I swear that being constantly under my parents’ control, forced into the good girl life of a minister’s daughter, actually makes one more depraved. Isn’t that true of any and all censorship? Deny someone something and they only want it more?

I can’t imagine what my dad would do if he ever found out that I read smutty romance books. Not anywhere that he could track. I’m careful to only read them online, and always delete my history on my phone. He knows the passcode, but he’s not technologically advanced enough to be able to do much more than a cursory once over of my apps every so often.

I’m in pre-med, but textbook biology doesn’t quite get a person hot the way watching it in real life does.

“The tab,” Ella repeats, grazing Raiden’s earlobe with her teeth.

My nipples tighten painfully under my bra. I’m glad that the old school rock music playing from the jukebox in the corner covers up the hiss of air that escapes between my teeth.

“It’s uh- yeah. A tab. Don’t worry about it. Someone else will settle up, or you can make good on it later,” I mumble.

“Thanks,” Ella responds, melting into Raiden’s strong arms. “Have a great night. Sorry about nearly spilling your tray and distracting you. If anyone gives you a hard time, you tell them that it’s all my fault.”

“Oh my gosh, no. It’s… nothing. Have a good night.”

She grins at me with the assured confidence of a woman who knows that she’s about to have agreatnight.

Raiden walks her straight out of there like he can’t wait another second more to be inside of her.

I know it’s twisted, but as I walk across the bar, ready to deliver my tray of drinks to the pool table at the far end, my insides clench. I feel buzzed, even though I’ve never taken a sip of alcohol before. I know that’s weird, given that I now work at a bar. I’m definitely too young for hot flashes, but I feel like I’m boiling in my skin.

I don’t just have bar shifts. I also get the diner. Patti Patterson, the woman who owns this place, runs the kitchen during the daytime, bartends at night, and has other superhuman talents that I probably don’t know about because she’s everywhere, all at once, was the one who assured my dad that nothing untoward would happen to me under her roof.

I applied here, got hired, and when I broke the news to him, he came charging down here to talk to Patti like I was fourteen and not twenty-four.Somehow, she ended up convincing him that things were all good.

He let me keep the job, but only because he’d been hounding me to get something over the summer. He said that I had too many free hours and they’d filled all the positions at the church, unlike all the years before, I wasn’t going to be able towork there as a summer student again. He didn’t want to be seen playing favorites with his daughter when other people needed work.

I’ve taken too long with these drinks, and I make sure to give the guys and their women at the pool table an extra-large smile. “Here we are. Sorry about the wait!” I set down the glasses or pass them into waiting hands. The men nod at me gruffly. A few give me token smiles of thanks.

Bullet owns the range on the other side of town. As usual, he’s standing beside a younger man named Smoke. They like to stick together, mostly so they can chat about guns. Pretty much whatever they’re doing, it’s always guns.

Pool. Guns.

Darts. Guns.

Football on the big screen TV. Guns.

Fight night. Guns.

Bullet is clean cut for a biker. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark beard, somewhere in his late thirties. He’s got a quiet, calm about him that at first surprised me because I’d thought that anyone who owned a range and talked about firearms nonstop must be gleefully violent.

He hands me a twenty, which I accept with a nod and a smile of thanks. It’s entirely for me because anyone with the club has a club tab. Whenever I get a tip, big or small, it never fails to make my face get pink. I blush far too easily—he hazards of being a redhead, though I like to call myself strawberry blonde. That’s just pride talking. There’s definitely not much blonde going on.

I grasp my tray and flit around the place, striding between pool tables, heading to the booths at the side, dodging well away from where darts are being thrown at the far side of the club. There are a few pinball machines that have a crowd gathered around them, and of course there’s the large group talking and shooting shit while eyeing up the football games on the big screen TVs.

I wipe down ledges, tables, and gather empty glasses. I pick up the discarded garbage from the beat up hardwood wherever I see it.

Once my brain is bursting full of orders, I head back to the bar and start rattling them off to Patti. She moves fast, years of bartending experience evident in her capable hands, the astoundingly fast flips of bottles, the way she never spills a drop out of those shot glasses she used for measuring.

Patti’s in her early thirties. She does everything around the place, even now that she doesn’t have to. A few years ago, the diner floundered when Patti’s now ex-husband cheated on her and skipped town. He stole a big chunk of their savings and fudged a bunch of crap on the diner’s books. Patti had no choice but to go to the one place who would give her a loan. I don’t mean the bank. They don’t like to lend to self-employed women with bad credit and scoundrel husbands. She went to the club. Tyrant, the club’s president, gave her the money. She’s told me that story before, but she’s never said more.

I suspect that the club has a stake in this bar. Part ownership.

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