Page 65 of Stoker's Serenity

She shook her head. “It’s not that. I would love to, it’s just, when is it? I have a hard-assed manager and I would need to know at least a month in advance to get the time off, and even then it’s no guarantee I’d be able to afford to take it off or anything. She really doesn’t like me, and could drop my hours or…”

“It’s six weeks from now, Labor Day weekend.”

Serenity nodded. “I can try. Holiday weekends usually get the time-off requests filled fast, and there’s no guarantee even if I get it, that I won’t be called in last minute.”

“That’s some bullshit.” Cutter raised an eyebrow.

“That’s retail with Stalin as your manager.” She rolled her eyes.

“Tell us about him,” Hope encouraged.

“It’s a ‘her’, and I don’t know…”

“You’re among friends, baby. Get it off your chest.” Cutter took a run at getting her to open up. I kissed her shoulder, a press of lips and she sighed.

“She just took over. I don’t know what happened, but she showed up and…”

Bitch sounded like a real piece of work. Serenity got done describing this new bitch’s first day in and I wanted to punch the cunt manager in the face – woman or not.

“Should find a spot without cameras and punch her in the face the next time she talks to you that way,” Hope said decisively. “Pop her in the mouth once, they tend to watch it after that until they need a reminder down the line.”

I chuckled and Serenity blushed furiously. “I don’t know that violence is the answer,” she said, cautiously.

“Dog-eat-dog world out there, beautiful,” Cutter said, taking a pull off his bottle of beer. “We learned a long time ago the rules were made to keep us down and so we decided fuck the rules, right, boys?”

A rowdy cheer went up and I laughed; it was true. We mostly colored inside citizen lines to keep it peaceful, but we weren’t above a little mayhem or retribution for things. Depended on how high the disrespect ran, and it sounded like my little orchid was taking it in spades where she worked.

“The problem nowadays is that no one expects to get punched in the mouth for their disrespect. You don’t close it for them, they just think they can keep on keepin’ on runnin’ it.” Cutter said.

“In my experience,” Serenity countered, “the more you try to fight back or argue poor treatment, the worse it gets…” She trailed off and wouldn’t look at any of us. I gave her a light squeeze and she bit her lips together. Hope and Cutter exchanged a glance with me, and I gave a slight nod.

That was enough for now. I didn’t know, if we pushed it any farther, how she would react. I’d try getting more out of her later, but I wanted her to enjoy tonight.

“Citizen’s folly,” Cutter said, then added directly, “I think we can just leave it at that, how about you?”

“Agree to disagree?” she murmured.

“Something like that.” He winked and she smiled.

“So, you going to try and get that weekend off?” Hope asked.

My little orchid nodded. “I’ll try.”

“Excellent! We’d love to have you,” Cutter said.

“Okay,” Serenity agreed and I nipped her shoulder. She gasped and looked down at me from where she was perched on my knee. I smiled up at her and encouraged her with my eyes to kiss me.

She leaned down and did just that, and I was happy.

21

Serenity…

We drank a little too much, but we were having fun. At least, I know I was having fun. Stoker’s hand was on my waist as we stood around the pool table, laughing and talking with his club’s vice president, Marlin, and his woman, Faith.

She and I bonded a bit over our mutual anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders, but her story? Vastly more tragic than mine. It was a bit easier, opening up about mine, knowing how much worse her tale was, but I still didn’t go into great detail. I also didn’t expect her to. It was enough to know the damage was mutual, the symptoms of our disorders an almost perfect match.

It was nice to know I wasn’t alone, when I had been for so very long.

---