Page 3 of More than Enough
“You got it.” She jotted it down and leaned back into the kitchen to shove the order ticket onto the wheel.
Quickly making the rounds of the tables in her section, she set men up with water, sodas, and coffee, good-naturedly turning down a dozen gently inappropriate requests and collecting orders as she went. It wasn’t until she hit the next-to-last table that things went awry. First, the two men had taken up a four-top, vests and helmets occupying the extra chairs at their table. That was just rude when more than a dozen men stood outside for lack of a table or seat. Then they hadn’t even looked at the menus by the time she arrived at their table, hemming and hawing over the food choices as if this were a Michelin three-star establishment.
“No, I can come back.” She held up a finger for the next table, four men who were watching with interest her failure to wrangle the two diners. “Take your time, make a choice.”
She’d just turned away when she felt the touch on her butt. A gliding caress rather than a brutal grope, but unwelcome all the same. Jenn whirled and stared at the two men, who were grinning at her, daring her to say anything. She waffled for a moment then shook her head as she backed away, decision made.Not worth it.
One long step to the side put the final table between her and the two men. When she finished with those orders, she glanced back over to find the other two were still huddled over the menus, men from a nearby table now engaged, leaning close and offering suggestions. She could tell from the colorful pictures under the laminate that they’d moved away from the sandwich section and into the dinner entrees.Great.
By the time her orders were all turned in, her first plates were coming up, and she began the cycle all over again, this time whisking armfuls of hot food to the tables.
The two men were missing, belongings gone, seats now occupied by four new patrons who all ordered burgers and fries, waters to drink. Jenn sighed with relief and kept moving. To the kitchen, back to the dining room, back to the kitchen.
“Jenn, can you run outside to the storage shed? I need towels from out there.” The cook was hustling in place, moving fast as he shook, flipped, slathered, and seasoned.
“Sure thing.” She shoved against the crash bar with her butt, opening the door with a swivel of her hips. “Be right back.”
The brilliant sunshine was a shock after the dimness of the diner, and it took a moment for Jenn’s eyes to adjust.
That was a moment too long.
Three
Blade
“You know where the FNGs went?”
Wolf looked up at his question, brow furrowing as he chewed.
Blade glanced around the diner, verifying what he already knew. The two prospects that had been a pain in the ass earlier were no longer at their table. He twisted in his seat, scanning the bikes, focusing on the groups of men still outside.Nada.
“What’s up, Blade?” Neptune’s question made him whirl around, the world doing that damned dip and sway for a breath.
“I think the FNGs bailed on the run. I don’t see their shit anywhere.” Still on a roll with his words, he held to that warm feeling in his chest. It wasn’t often he felt nearly normal. He shoved the last bite of his burger into his mouth and chewed, moved it to one side of his mouth, and said, “Gonna check outside, see if I find ’em.” Scanning the table, he didn’t see a ticket yet. “Y’all seen the waitress? I gotta pay.” Wolf shook his head, so Blade sighed and pulled his wallet out. He tried to calculate the cost but gave up. Knowing it was ample money for the entire bill, he tossed three bills to the table and told them, “You owe me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Wolf laughed. “So you say. I say you’re volunteering to buy our lunch, asshole.”
“Whatever.” Blade gave him a single-finger salute and turned, leaving his brothers laughing behind him.
Outside, the heat pressed down on him, a welcome change from the wet and chill weather they’d suffered through lately. The cicadas were active, their humming roar rising and falling in volume as the breeze gusted through the trees. The diner was an unexpected gem, an island of parking and building surrounded on three sides by forest, fronted by a well-maintained highway. Another example of why Monk was the perfect choice for the club’s road captain. He’d found the place and then planned a ride, organizing the event so this place became their meal stop.
A brief sound interrupted the cicadas, and Blade jerked around, staring into the woods. Listening intently, he heard it again and realized the acoustics of the clearing were bending the sound back around to him, but the origin wasn’t off in the woods. It was around the corner of the building.
Two strides took him to the edge, and he turned that corner to see nothing. Curious, because that sound had been somehow desperate, he walked the length of wall and rounded the corner, slapping a smile in place to defuse whatever he might be walking into. Blade rocked back on a heel, head jerking back in shock.
The prospects, those FNGs, had the waitress trapped against the wall. They weren’t touching her, not yet, but from the aggressive way they crowded in on either side, it was only a matter of time.
“Hey, hey,” he barked out the words, following with a command. “Get, get, get.” Rage boiled through him at how his body failed at this critical moment. “Get the fuck away from her.”
The two men, and fuck him if he could remember their names, stared at him—and one, the taller, the one he remembered from the last clubhouse party as being a mean drunk, licked his fucking lips and shook his head.
“We saw her first.”
“The fuck you mean? This isn’t a, a game, a game of dibs, motherfucker.” He dropped intentional pauses between his words, one of the techniques the therapist had recommended. “Get. The fuck. Away from her.” She was pressed back against the wall, head turned to the side, and he saw what looked like the outline of a hand on her neck. That was the last straw, the one that tipped him over into warrior mode, all hesitation put aside in his certainty that she needed protecting. Thatheneeded to protecther.
Blade stepped close and straight-armed a blow from the heel of his hand into the throat of the taller man. He ignored the choking sounds and kicked sideways, catching the man’s knee with the heel of his boot, taking him to the ground with a sweep of his foot. Blade pushed between the woman and the remaining FNG, powerfully shoving the man in the chest so he stumbled backwards and tripped, landing on his ass in the gravel. Blade was on him in a moment, fist rising and falling until the man stopped fighting back.
It was the work of moments to strip their prospect vests from them, and Blade didn’t give a fuck he wasn’t an officer and didn’t really have the authority to make that decision. “This is mine. My club,” he growled as he yanked the blue jean fabric down the men’s arms. “And you’re. Fouling it. With your shit. You’ll never, never be. A member. I’ll see to it.”
