Page 57 of Iron Hearts

“I mean, it’s notthatbad,” she said. “It’s not like he’s forty-two and hitting onmeat seventeen. That would be sogross!”

“Yeah, but a lot of people would look at it the same, wouldn’t they?” I asked and no, I had no idea why I was asking Meredith. She wasseventeen!If I wanted a more accurate picture, I should have asked any of the older ladies working here with us, but I just wasn’t freaking brave enough. I certainly didn’t wantWanda’sperspective on things. She was almost as bad as my grandmother on the being older and set in the ways of the past.

Judgmental and awkward is just the tip of the iceberg, and my gran came in here and shopped because everyone here knew she was my gran and to give her my employee discount. I knew Meredith would keep my secrets. Anyone else? They would let slip in a heartbeat.

They were older, they were bored, and gossip was totally their main form of entertainment.

I didn’t feel like being judged or raked over the coals for exploring things with Striker, simply because he was a biker and an older man. I could leave. I could cut contact at any time. It was something my dad hadalwaysdrilled into my head. It didn’t matter where I was or who I was with, it didn’t matter if society deemed it rude to not take the drink or to say ‘no.’ The word no was not onlyalwaysa viable option, it was also a complete sentence in most cases and I was not responsible for how the other person felt about my saying ‘no’ or extricating myself from any situation that made me uncomfortable.

Period, point blank, end of discussion.

I could leave. Call an Uber or a Lyft. Hell, even though it would be uncomfortable as hell, I could call my mom, or my grandma, but let’s be honest – I would probably call my grandpa before either of them… but that was the thing.

Striker wasn’t the one I was uncomfortable with.

Quite the opposite, actually. I felt freer to be myself with him than I did in front of Mom or Grandma and yeah, even Grandpa.

Probably my dad, too, if he were alive and I were being completely honest.

I think when my dad instilled the lesson of ‘no’ and that I could leave, he didn’t anticipate it potentially ever applying to him, Mom, but definitely figured it could and would apply to my grandma someday.

My grandpa was chill, and my grandma had her good moments, don’t get me wrong – but man could she be an overbearing pain in the ass when she wanted to be… and where Striker was concerned? She would be polite to his face and a pure savage behind his back and I didn’t want to deal with it.

Meredith screwed up her face in a grimace at my last question, about a lot of people looking at things the same way when it came to mine and Striker’s age difference and said what I knew to be true but really didn’t want to hear; “Yeah, you’re probably right… I’m sorry.”

I sighed.

“Me too, it’s why I haven’t told anyone yet – at least not really.”

“Really, I’m your first?” Meredith looked entirely too excited aboutthat. I mean, Gemma had a clue, but she wasn’t going to tell anybody, and we weren’t exactly seeing each other on the regular right now, not with the bar’s liquor license suspended.

“Yeah,” I said with a sheepish grin and she squee’d and hugged me.

“That’s so cool!” she whispered excitedly. “I swear, I won’t tell a soul. Especially around here.” She looked around us making sure no one could overhear and I laughed.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Still, you gotta tell meeverything! I wanna know what he’s like. For real, he has to be cool to get you to notice him.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, laughing.

She rolled her pretty brown eyes and said, “You arelaser focusedon your mom and brothers, to the point I wasn’t entirely sure you knew there was a whole wide world out here with you. Girl, when was the last time you had fun that didn’t involve your family?”

I thought about that and made a dour face and said, “Touché, you got me on that one.”

“Exactly, so if you got to go out, what did you guys do?” she asked.

I smiled, I couldn’t help myself, I hadn’t gotten to talk about it likeat all, with anyone, and it was nice to be able to beexcitedabout it rather than just nervously keeping everything all bottled up.

I spilled the beans, carefully, both of us clamming up when anyone else working or any customers came by, and before you knew it, our shift was ending and we were both packing it in for the night.

“Thanks for listening, Mere,” I said, and she smiled impishly at me.

“Hey, I live vicariously through you,” she said. “At least on this and for right now. Hopefully I’ll meet my dark and handsome prince someday but not around here and I sure as hell don’t think any time soon.”

“I feel you, there,” I said rolling my own eyes and sighing. “Still, stranger things have happened.”

“True, seems like you have yourself a prince charming.”

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