Her eyes were filled with amusement when I showed up with the final keg, beating each of the men with their keg easily.
It was as I was walking back to my truck that the men finally made it to the other kegs.
When I gave her one last glance, I allowed my eyes to linger on her attire.
She was dressed in a long, flowing black gown that swirled around her toes.
Her hair was pinned up and away from her face, but small tendrils escaped the refined bun despite her best efforts to contain it. And damn, did she look good.
But as the men smiled at her, I realized that I wasn’t the only one to think so.
Getting into my truck and slamming the door, I started it up with a dull roar, and all but laughed in glee when a puff of black smoke followed behind me as I moved out of the parking lot.
Going back to work, I definitely wasn’t in a good mood. My damn mood only got darker the longer that the night went on. And, hours later, as I glanced across the street and saw all the lights off, still, at nearly nine at night.
“Hey, do you want to go grab some dinner?”
I looked over at Hunt, who’d been working on his computer in the corner of my bar for the last two hours.
“Umm,” I glanced at the clock. “There’s nothing open.”
He grinned. “Get that old man to cover for you for an hour. I have a place that’ll hook us up.”
Doing just that, I rode out on my bike two blocks away to the corner store that served the best damn burgers I’d ever had.
Only, when we got into the parking lot, I fully expected nobody to be there since they were usually closed at eight. However, there was one car that was vaguely familiar parked in the front.
And when we got inside, I knew why it was familiar.
Because I saw that car parked outside of a certain office right across the street from me.
Had seen it every day for a week since I’d moved in.
“Glad that I don’t have to pull any strings,” Hunt murmured as he walked inside.
Out of all of the men that had joined the MC with me, Hunt was by far the easiest and the hardest to get along with.
I wasn’t sure how to even explain Hunt McJimpsey.
He was the resident hacker of the group.
Tall, muscular, and perpetually pissed off. He was by far the one guy that I wouldn’t call if I was in trouble, because I wasn’t actually sure if he would come.
Not that Hunt was a ‘bad’ guy, per se, but he was unpredictable.
When I’d met him and the others that were also fresh out of federal prisons—Trouper, Absinthe, Zach—I’d fully expected things to be weird.
Only, Hunt didn’t do weird. He acted like he knew me… which, I guess he did. He could pull up information about me that I didn’t even know myself—like my credit score.
That bad score that was probably even worse now that I owned a bar and was making payments on it as well as a new motorcycle.
Whatever, though.
I was pushing mid-thirties. I needed my own place. I needed a game plan. And I needed a damn reliable vehicle.
We walked inside together, him just in front of me, and stopped right inside the door.
Hunt let his eyes roam around the room.
But the moment I walked inside, I latched onto a familiar form with laser focus and didn’t look away.
Not even when a loud ‘we’re not open’ filled the room.
“Oh, come on, darlin’,” Hunt drawled. “We just want a burger, and you already have the grill on. And you’re the only place in town that’s still open… not to mention you have the best fuckin’ burgers in a five-county radius.”
Crockett, the owner of this particular establishment known as ‘Crockett’s Corner,’ looked at Hunt like he was nuts.
“Please,” Hunt pleaded. “Please, please, please.”
My lips twitched at his use of the word ‘please’ so many times.
In all honesty, he looked quite hilarious with his tattooed fingers folded out in front of him in a praying position, batting his eyes behind his thick glasses, and practically bouncing from foot to foot.
I wouldn’t have said no, either.
“Fine,” she sighed as she flipped the still-steaming grill back on. “But just know, I’m charging you double.”
Just as she said that, the doors opened again and Zach walked in, looking annoyed as hell and hungry to boot.
“Move out of the fuckin’ doorway,” Zach, the doctor of the group, grumbled. “I’m hungry.”
Crockett, who’d been in the process of lighting the grill, froze solid at the appearance of Zach.
“Good timing,” Hunt teased as he pushed farther into the room and walked up to the only table that didn’t have the chairs up on top of it. The one where Swayze was eating a burger in her long dress and practically ignoring the rest of us. “Do you mind if we sit here, madam?”
Swayze looked up, her eyes going from me to Hunt to Zach and back, and then shook her head. “How about you fuck off.”
My lips twitched at her words.
Hunt was already halfway down into the chair before he processed Swayze’s words.
“I’m sorry, what?” Hunt asked, voice surprised.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I said ‘fuck off.’”
Hunt’s mouth dropped open as he hesitated above his chair.
I walked around the table and took the chair across the table from her.
Zach was forced to take the one beside Swayze.
She latched onto my eyes and didn’t look away.
“I guess that y’all are hard of hearing?” she snapped.
My lips were already turning into a large smile.
“What happened to you?” I asked. “Bad ball?”
“Bad ball?” Hunt asked, reaching for a package of saltine crackers in the middle of the table and ripping it open. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I was at a fundraising event tonight,” Swayze mumbled around a bite of burger. “The mean one over there delivered kegs. Which, might I add, was dropped on my foot.” She lifted her leg up to show me her foot, and I winced. It was black and blue.
“How’d that happen?” I asked, resisting the urge to reach forward and pull her foot into my hand and rub it.
“One of the men that was helping carry the kegs in dropped it. On my foot.” She went back to eating her hamburger.
Hunt tried to reach for one of her fries, and she hissed at him, spraying bits of ketchup at him in the process.
“Don’t,” she glared at him hard, “touch my fries.”
He held up his hand. “Sorry, sorry.”
“You should be,” she grumbled.
“Do you want to introduce us?” Hunt asked, looking at me for an introduction.
I shrugged. “Not necessarily.”
Swayze snorted, but didn’t comment.
“My name is Hunt McJimpsey.” Hunt placed his hand over his chest. “That” —he pointed at Zach— “is Zach Caruso. We’re all a part of the Souls Chapel Revenants MC.”
Hunt patted his chest where his patches lay. Or they would’ve lain had the cut he was wearing been right side out.
“Your vest thingy is inside out,” Swayze mumbled, looking over at me once and eyeing my chest before going back to her food.