Prologue
Cassandra
The Betsy.
The notorious dive and biker bar.
I’d driven past here a dozen times. A hundred. A thousand. But tonight was the first time I’d stepped through its front door.
The smell hit me first—sweat, beer and stale cigarette smoke. Then there was the heat, like a furnace blast to the face. The music assaulted my ears, but at least I’d been expecting it. The punishing classic rock pounded so loudly that we’d heard it from the parking lot. We walked inside and were swallowed up by the sea of bodies, the noise of the crowd vibrating down to my bones.
“This place is epic!” Olive shouted above the music. Her smile—which had been firmly fixed in place since we’d started getting pretty earlier—widened. Then she threw her hands in the air. “Woohoo! To the bar.”
“Aren’t we in the bar?”
“What?” She cupped a hand behind her ear.
“I said, aren’t we in the bar?”
“What?” She leaned in close enough I could smell the cinnamon on her breath from the piece of gum she’d popped in the car.
“Nothing.” I waved her off.
“Come on.” She grabbed my wrist and pulled me through the crush, sliding sideways and sidestepping the people dancing and drinking and groping.
Olive reached the bar and squeezed between two older men, each seated on stools. Both had gray beards, one of which was so long it brushed against the bar top itself.
A bartender appeared, waving Olive closer. When she stretched up on her toes to give our order, the man’s gaze went straight to her chest.
I rolled my eyes. Did they teach that trick to men in bartending school? It was as obvious as the neon sign in the shape of a naked woman hanging above the ladies’ room. Not that Olive cared when guys admired her breasts. She was on a mission to party—meaning get laid—and I was her reluctant accomplice. It was a role I typically avoided because our roommates were more than happy to go with her to the college bars in Missoula, searching for hookups of their own. But since we were in my hometown of Clifton Forge, Montana, the only one here for her to torture was me.
Olive believed in work hard, play hard. After a week spent in class and the library, Friday and Saturday nights were for cutting loose. Drunked and fucked. That was the saying she’d coined years ago in undergrad.
Such an imbecilic statement from a woman who was arguably one of the smartest I’d ever met. But Olive excelled at hiding her intelligence from the world, especially on nights like this. Unless we were on campus, Olive rarely spoke of school. If asked by a man what she did, she’d dodge the question, never boasting that she was getting her master’s degree or that she was considered one of the brightest graduate students in our program.
Olive believed that men found intelligent women unattractive. Maybe she was right. I had no problems talking about school and it wasn’t like I had a line of men beating down my door for a date.
Though if The Betsy was where she was fishing for men, maybe the topic of school would help drive the bottom-feeders away.
A man bumped into me, his eyes glassy as he looked down. “Ssoorrry,” he slurred. He lifted an arm to steady himself, like he was going to put it on my shoulder. He missed and his fat beer belly dragged across my stomach as his equally fat hand landed on my boob.
“Don’t touch me.” I swatted him away.
He dropped his hand, his head bobbling on his too-thick neck, then he was gone, smashing into another unsuspecting female to my left.
When he grabbed her, she just laughed and gave him a hug, pinching his ruddy cheeks like they were best friends.
That woman belonged here.
I most certainly did not.
This weekend was supposed to be about studying. Olive and I had driven from Missoula to Clifton Forge just this morning, our books and laptops loaded, so we could spend a quiet weekend working away from the noise and distraction of our roommates.
My parents were off on one of their regular summer camping adventures. Starting at the end of May and lasting until late fall, they headed to the mountains as long as the weather was good. Camping was their escape from reality.
God, I’d kill for an escape at the moment. Why was I here? Why the hell had I let Olive talk me into this? I hated sweaty strangers rubbing up against me. I hated handsy men, and I hated loud, seedy bars.
The only time the girls got me to go out on a Saturday night in Missoula was when they promised it was to a local wine or martini bar. When they left to go clubbing, I called myself a cab and went home. Like Dad always said, nothing good happened after eleven o’clock.
Well, it was eleven thirteen and as per usual, Dad was right.
“Here.” Olive spun away from the bar with two bottles of beer in hand.
I took one, let her clink the rim of hers to mine, then watched with wide eyes as she chugged hers half gone.
Her smile kept getting wider. “I love this place.”
“Seriously?”
“Well, yeah. This place is fun! Loosen up, Cass. Let’s have a good time.” Her eyes darted over my head, taking it all in.
The dark walls were covered with neon beer signs. A jukebox sat in the corner, the lights blinking with the bass of the music. A set of deer antlers hung above it, the horns draped with bras.
Behind the bar were shelves upon shelves of liquor. Two bartenders, both tall, beefy men, filled drink orders. A song change came, and with the momentary respite of noise, the crack of a pool cue rang through the air.
“Let’s go look around.” Olive must have known I didn’t want to because she clamped her hand around my wrist and hauled me toward the pool table. Every step, she’d look to the bar and to the bartender who’d checked her out earlier.
If she was still with me in an hour, I’d be surprised. She’d be drunked and fucked while I got ditched. “Super fun.”
She didn’t hear me over the music.
Damn it. I really should have told her no.
Olive had come up with this brilliant plan for a night out after we’d spent only two hours studying at my parents’ dining room table. Just two hours and she’d been restless. I’d wanted to keep plugging away, then order pizza and curl up on the couch for a movie marathon. Not Olive. She wanted me to show her around Clifton Forge.
I’d indulged her, figuring after a quick drive down Central, she’d want to buckle down and work.
Wrong.
She’d spotted The Betsy on our small-town tour, then pelted me with question after question about the bar and the line of motorcycles parked out front. I should have known we’d end up here tonight. When Olive had that party gleam in her eye, there’d be no talking her out of it.
She’d worked her magic and convinced me that taking a break would actually make me more productive. I had been working hard—really hard. She’d planted words like burnout and mental block in my mind, warning me of students who never recovered.
Was I burned out? Maybe. Maybe not. But the doubt she’d planted had been enough to scare me into agreement.
So we’d stopped at a local store downtown and done some shopping. She’d bought the black, skintight halter top she was wearing. I’d found a scarlet, lace-trimmed camisole that Olive had promised made my coppery red hair look like waves of fire.