Page 44 of Broken Discipline
“I don’t have any medium bikinis. Only smalls,” she said. I groaned, but I had figured as much. The smalls were basically an optical illusion, making Bunny’s chest even bigger, like she was practically spilling out of the fabric. “Upstairs. Dresser. Bottom drawer.”
I put a hand over my stomach, covering myself. “I can’t show everything.”
Bunny’s eyes flicked to the stairs as she had pieced it together.
“You’d be surprised,” she said. “Some guys are into stretch marks.”
My stomach surged with warmth. I didn’t know if Finn wasintostretch marks, or if he was intome.But he wasn’t here, and the patrons of The Raw wouldn’t be as nice as him.
“Please, Bunny,” I said. “I can’t.”
“Do what you gotta do,” she said. “There are fishnets and hoodies up there. You’ll find something.”
I scurried to the upper floor. I rifled through her drawers until I found a pink bikini that was a little more stretched out than the others. I didn’t have much up top, but my areolas were big, and luckily, the fabric covered them completely. Next, I found a gray zip-up hoodie. That way, I could show off my top while still covering my stomach.
As I opened the door, joining the bar floor, Blister swung around the barstool, his long ponytail swishing behind his back.
“Kylie,” Blister winked, “I always knew you’d come back.”
And it was like I slid back into my old life, where I was Kylie again, and not Ramona. My neck twitched. The scent of soap and cloves drifted in the air.
“What’s up, Blister?” I asked cautiously. I had no idea what he knew about his dead men, Bulky and Ponytail.
“Not a damn thing,” he said. “Always good to see an old friend.”
I relaxed my shoulders. He was acting like nothing had happened. Maybe he thought his men had skipped town on their own, and that it had nothing to do with me.
“No shit, that’s Kylie?” another customer asked. “We thought you died. Like Hyde or something.”
“Well, shit,” Bunny said. “There’s a name I haven’t heard in forever.”
A tension ran through me, seizing my nerves. Hyde had left Oakmont and never came back. Part of agreeing to the arranged marriage and becomingRamonawas so that I could forget about him.
“Did he die?” the customer asked. I shrugged. “You hear from him these days?”
“Not since he left,” I said.
“That’s too bad. He was a good guy. Fucking crazy though.”
After an hour, I slid back into my old habits. I ignored the staring, didn’t flinch when a hand wrapped around my waist, and smiled whenever I took an order. The tips piled in because no matter what you looked like, customers enjoyed seeing a new face, and the customers who remembered me from years ago wereespeciallyhappy that I was back. I pretended I remembered everyone by calling all of them ‘stud’ or ‘darling.’ In reality, I couldn’t remember my old regulars’ names; damn bad memory. But that didn’t really matter in the long run. The tips still came in, and everyone was happy.
I considered working at The Raw full-time again. I would be workingfora woman, which was always a plus, and for me, it was a double plus, since Bunny was my best friend. But as the customers ogled me like a fresh carcass in a butcher’s window, I sank inside of myself. I had gotten used to our life in Opulent Gates. Even if I enrolled the kids into a cheaper, local private school, there was no way we’d be able to pay the tuition on a cocktail waitress’s income, even if we moved in with Bunny.
Once I got a break, I put the kids to bed on the pull-out sofa. And as soon as I returned to the bar, things started picking up. A customer smacked my ass, but I ignored him, taking his drink order instead.
The door swung open, the handle smacking against the wall. The footsteps cracked on the floor, breaking up the noisy conversation. Everyone gawked at the newcomer.
Finn’s presence was massive, his shoulders bulky. His blue eyes landed on me. My cheeks twitched, unsure of how to react.
What the hell was he doing here?
Why did I feel relieved?
No. I wasn’t supposed to feel anything like that.Thiswas intrusive. I had left him so that I wouldn’t have to deal with crap like this.
The crowd parted. Even the customer I was helping leaned back, away from me, knowing that this strange, barrel of a man was there for me. Finn’s coffee scent surrounded me, his natural masculinity swallowing me whole.
“Get the kids,” he said in a low voice, “and let’s go.”
