Page 22 of Santa's Girl
“Nah,” I said quickly. “He’s just babysitting me. Apparently he knows my Aunt Marge.”
“Marge?” Jinx’s face lit up. “We love her. She used to come around here with her old boyfriend, Steve. Hell, half the guys in the Forge probably owe her for patching them up or feeding them back in the day. McDaniels always had a thing for her but she was taken…”
I blinked. “Wait.MyAunt Margie? Crossword puzzles and beach trips Margie?ThatAunt Margie?”
Jinx chuckled. “Same one. Fun lady. Don’t let the crosswords fool you. She used to get down on the dance floor from what I’ve heard and ax throwing? She won the county contest every year.”
I sat back, burger forgotten. The mental image of my aunt sitting at this same bar, laughing with leather-clad bikers, making out with one—clashed so hard with the woman who built sandcastles with me as a kid that I almost laughed.
Small towns, I thought. They always had the best secrets.
Across the room, Bear lifted his glass in my direction before turning back to his conversation.
I didn’t know what that meant, but my pulse jumped anyway.
It felt like I’d fallen into another universe.
Not a scary one, just… sideways from the one I knew.
The noise, the heat, the smell of fried food and oil—it was all too much and yet kind of hypnotic. The men here were nothing like the ones back in Charlotte who ordered top-shelf gin and used too much product in their hair. These guys weremassive.Every new one through the door seemed to add another inch of beard and another twenty pounds of muscle. They slapped each other’s backs hard enough to shake the walls. Their laughter came from the gut, not the throat.
And the women? Forget the sleek black dresses and stiletto heels I was used to seeing in Uptown bars. Here it was faux-fur boots—huge ones, the kind that could double as small dogs. Skinny, shiny pleather pants. Hoop earrings so big you could toss a football through them.
The more sparkle, the better. Rhinestones on jeans, jackets, phone cases. If it didn’t glitter, it didn’t belong.
It was wild.
Raw.
Weirdly… real.
I sat back in the booth, watching as another group of women came laughing through the door, shaking snow out of their hair, stomping their boots, hugging men twice their size. The place throbbed with music and life. I felt like I’d walked into a TV show—some offbeat mix betweenSons of Anarchyand a Christmas special that forgot it was supposed to be festive.
I turned to Jinx. “You know what this place needs?”
He glanced over, chewing on a fry. “What’s that?”
“Some holiday cheer. A Christmas tree, lights, tinsel—something. How come there’s no decorations?”
The conversation around us hiccupped. Two guys at the next table froze mid-drink. Even the bartender’s head lifted.
Jinx snorted softly. “Yeah… about that. We had decorations. Last week. Bear went off on Christmas.”
I blinked. “Went off as in…?”
“As in anything that jingles, sparkles, or fa-la-las got banned from the Forge. On his orders.” He shrugged, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “Guy gets weird around the holidays.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Of course he does. Guess that explains the Grinch vibes.”
He grinned. “You said it, not me.”
Before I could ask what Bear had against Christmas, the band on the low stage kicked up.
Drums first—heavy, steady—then a bass that vibrated through the floor. A guitar slid in smooth, followed by a voice that sliced clean through the noise.
The lead singer was a woman—tall, dark hair, silver mic catching the light. She wasn’t pretty in a safe, magazine way; she was beautiful like a match being struck. Every man in the room turned toward her the second she opened her mouth. The air seemed to tilt in her direction.
I leaned toward Jinx, raising my voice over the beat. “You guys have your own band?”
