“Hey you!” she said into my hair and in my head I was screaming because immediately, the spell was broken and Christian Forker’s eyes moved away in greeting to someone at the bar. He headed that way.
Brady’s eyes were on me and they looked concerned. He hadn’t seen Christian’s face throughout that exchange as he’d been behind him, but he’d certainly seen mine. He followed Christian as Deanna continued to hug me and then drag me back to the booth where Andie and Lulu had joined the group. Two prospects added a table to our booth, and I got the end seat this time.
As I sat, Jenna had her eyes on me, and I could see they were working out what she’d just seen. She saw it. She saw it all happen and she read it loud and clear. Her vantage point likely gave her a perfect view of him as well as me. I gave her a pleading look, hoping she would keep her mouth shut for now. She looked at me questioningly for a half a second and then her expression changed, and I knew she and I would be talking later. I could read her like an open book. She wanted to know what was going on with Fork and me. And I was hoping that tonight there would be something. The looks he’d given me… they said something.
And knowing Jenna, I could recruit her into my corner. Ella? Different story. But Jenna would definitely take my back. We hadn’t been friends long, but we got tight fast and she was definitely the ride or die type. And it was because of Ella’s opinion of her cousin that Jenna was keeping her mouth shut. I saw Jenna glance at Ella, but Ella was huddled over her phone with Lulu and they were laughing at something. Good. With the arrival of Lulu, Ella probably didn’t even notice her cousin was here.
I’d made an effort to look good tonight: extra spring in my curls, a little more POP with the eye make-up, my favorite push-up bra with a sexy polka dot blouse. But it was more than appreciation in his eyes. Things were about to turn a corner; I just knew it.
I would get that look on his face back. I wanted it, I thirsted for it. Not two words of what the girls around me said penetrated and then I found a reason to go to the bar where he was standing. I saw Marlena, a girl who was seeing our VP. We were all expecting Blow to make Mar his old lady, but he was taking his sweet time.
She hadn’t been around much since she’d only recently gotten out of the hospital after the brakes failed on her car, tampered with. She was a Jackals casualty during the war, and we were lucky she survived that wreck. She was by the door so I went over, using the opportunity to get to where I might be able to clock Christian.
I saw him at the same moment as I was close enough to Mar that I needed to greet her, not get eye-locked with my dream biker again, so I embraced her.
“Oh my God, it’s so good to see you. How are you feeling? You look great.”
Marlena’s eyes darted frantically and erratically around the perimeter of the space.
“I - I’m good. Hey Jojo; hey. Is he around?”
“Blow? No idea, sister. Been here less than ten minutes and we’re in the back corner.” I gestured to the booth where me and the girls were. “If he isn’t, you wanna join us?”
“I don’t think I can,” she said distractedly, looking around.
I helped her scan the room for her man and this gave me opportunity to let my eyes wander over my man at the bar. Fork stood in dark jeans, his leather jacket, with his hair loose. He certainly stood out with how extraordinarily tall he was, not to mention just… the whole package that he was. He put his mouth to his beer bottle and drank. I let my eyes linger, watching the swallow work down his throat. He saw me, I know he did, but the indifference was back. It felt like an icepick sinking slowly into my chest. What the fuck? It was suddenly very obvious that he not only knew that I was trying to get his attention but that he was feigning indifference. Why?
Marlena moved away and then I saw she was heading toward Blow who was plucking darts out of a dartboard with a blonde hanging off his every word, looking up into his eyes while licking her lips.
And before he saw Marlena, he leaned forward, said something to her and slapped her ass with a clench at the end, then laid a hot and heavy kiss on her. Oh shit.
Marlena’s back went rod-straight and she stormed the rest of the way to him. Before Blow and the blonde’s lips detached, she was yanking the blonde back by her hair, and hauling off to punch Blow. Her punch landed on his right eye. And then she stormed off, straight out the door with, at minimum, two hundred sets of eyes on her as she did this with tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Fucking bikers,” I heard Skip’s wife Sara grumble from behind me. She stood at the bar with another woman, someone I didn’t know, but who had her eye on my brother Rider who was standing there, watching all of this with a hard expression on his face.
“Hey Jojo,” Sara said, pulling my eyes away from my brother. “Marlena got her head outta the clouds with respect to Blow, I see. I’ll go. Fuckin’ bikers.” She threw her chainmail purse straps over her shoulder and headed outside on her stiletto boots.
I watched Blow head for the door, covering his bleeding nose with a bar towel. Sara spun, pointed at him, and he ignored her and pushed past her.
Sara was gorgeous with a long dark bob and lots of curves. Sara was a veteran old lady, married to Skip for 8 years and I liked her. She’d been tight with Jet before she died. She and Skip relocated here from Sioux Falls with their two kids and she was like a resident mother hen, a glamorous biker/ soccer mom, but she was also judgy as fuck and never afraid to say what she thought. She wasn’t very nice to the bunnies and a lot of us knew it was because Skip regularly stepped out on her with them.
I wasn’t super-close with Marlena, she hadn’t been around long, but I knew her enough that if she didn’t have Blow and Sara heading out after her, I’d have followed to make sure she was okay. As they were heading that way and I had my own goals for the evening, I spun around and headed toward the bar in time to see Sara’s friend get the brush-off by Ride, who dismissed her with an annoyed be on your way type wave of his hand and a jaw clench. It was good to see that. I knew he loved Jenna and seeing that an all dolled up woman wasn’t getting the time of day from him despite her looking like she was trying… this was good news. I didn’t want any of my three brothers to do anything to fuck with their chances for a happily-ever-after with the girls they had now.
Some of the bikers I’d grown up around did whatever the fuck they wanted whether they had a woman or not. But, quite a few of them were true blue. My dad, for instance. He and my mom were off and on but when they were on, he was faithful. He swore it to me, and my dad was not a liar.
My three brothers? I knew Deacon would be true to Ella. He was the ultimate catch. Protective, handsome, and generous. I’d always known for a fact that if Spencer ever found the right girl, he would be the faithful type, too. He’d hated how Mom stepped out on Dad and had gotten in more than one tussle with standing up for wives and girlfriends against their cheating bikers. And I was pretty sure Pippa was the right girl for him. I knew it before Pippa did, seeing Spencer turn over a new leaf. Spencer was always super-protective. Pippa had herself the ultimate catch, too.
But Rider? Before Jenna, I would not have been surprised if Rider never settled down. I didn’t think he’d be the type to cheat on a woman, just never figured he’d find a reason to actually commit to anyone. He liked a good time way too much, as evidenced by his participation in that gang bang. But when I saw Jenna wear the Property of Rider shirt that first day I met her and observed the way my brother looked at her? I knew she was the one. I was glad to see she was still the one as Sara’s friend scanned the bar looking for other targets. Her eyes caught on Fork but one look at me and she reared back. Was I giving her back-off vibes? Damn straight.