Prologue
Fenris…
The bar was hoppin’. I sometimes bounced at this cowboy bar out in Ravensdale, just north of Black Diamond. I lived out on the edge of Auburn in the Green Valley area, so it wasn’t too long of a haul for me and it was something to do on a Friday night when the club didn’t have anything going on.
It was a pretty okay gig – a flat rate of pay for the night, cash under the table, and it bought some goat or chicken feed for the farm on occasion.
Mostly, it gave me an outlet for some of my aggression when shit was otherwise calm around the club. There’s nothing like pitching some drunk frat bros or wannabe cowboys out on their ass, or better yet, their face in the gravel lot.
This was one of my pop’s first stops when he got out of the joint. His old high school buddy, Mitch, ran the place and always had a job for him when he got out. When my pops started getting up in years, after my sister died, I’d just naturally transitioned into the spot my dad had held down at the door.
He still came in and drank sometimes, taking up a stool at the end of the bar to shoot the shit with Mitch while I worked the door. Not tonight, though. Tonight, it was just me, checking IDs as the citizenry’s ladies and gents filed in.
Mitch had been making a killing ever since he’d put in the dance floor and sound system and added the mechanical bull in the corner.
He had a regular Texas-style roadhouse going on out here, and it was popular.
“Hey, Fen.” Bobby, the junior doorman, handed me an ID. I shone my flashlight on it and double-checked it for him. It was legit. I looked at the picture and up at the girl who didn’t look a fuckin’ day over sixteen.
“Try not to stay too late, darlin’. Place gets pretty nuts after eleven,” I said, handing it back to her. She smiled prettily and blushed, and it did absolutely nothing for me.
“I don’t know, Lindsay… I don’t think this is a good idea,” I heard. I looked up into a beautiful set of green eyes, taking the two rectangles of laminated whatever the fuck driver’s licenses in Washington were made of.
Lindsay was a brunette. The math told me she was twenty-eight, and she looked like a bitch. Her makeup was overdone, titties on full display – one of those types looking to hook up and ride a cowboy. She fit right in with the rest of the posers inside. Fake as shit, I had no interest in her or anyone else who came through these doors, typically.
The other license – the name, like her eyes, caught my eye for its uniqueness. Aspen. Aspen Lawson. I handed each lady their license back and let my gaze linger on Aspen.
She was beautiful in an unconventional way – thicker, with some real tits and an ass, a true hourglass figure in a thin sweater that clung to her over jeans and a pair of stylish knee-high boots. She looked cold standing out here waiting to get in. It wasn’t exactly a night for going without a jacket, but a lot of girls did. It was warm inside the bar and it was one less thing to have to try and keep track of.
She had these luxurious blonde curls that framed her face, held back by a slim glittering line of rhinestones – some kind of headband that was hidden but for the evenly spaced stones in her hair. Simple, cute, her makeup, if it was there, understated and accentuating her natural beauty.
She was tall, too. Five foot nine, maybe? Still, not too tall when it came to me. I still looked down at her from my six-foot-five height.
“Thank you,” she murmured, eyes wide when they met mine and I nodded. She plucked her license from my rough, tattooed fingers and I looked after her as she disappeared inside with her friend.
“Hey, man.” I turned back to the half-jock, half-cowboy wannabe who was next in line in his polo shirt and scowled, taking his license from him and skimming it.
“Go ahead,” I growled and let him through. I had some difficulty putting the pretty blonde out of my mind.
Hours later, the bar was closing and Mitch came to find me at the door.
“Hey, we got one that’s drunk as fuck and I can’t find her friend.”
“On it,” I growled and heaved myself off the stool at the door. It’d been a quiet fuckin’ night. One near fist fight over a girl, but they’d all been pussies, and I’d thrown them out without incident. That’d been it, so far.
I headed into the bar trailing Mitch, and I didn’t know what I would find. I can tell you, the absolute last thing I expected to find was the reluctant blonde, Aspen, drunk as fuck in a back-corner booth.
I mean, she was gone.
It was pretty impressive, actually.
I slid into the booth with her and cupped her cheek.
“Hey!” I called out. “Hey, Aspen!”
“You know her?” Mitch asked.
“No, I just remembered the name for some reason. Not one you see very often.”
“Well, she’s the last one in here. You remember if she came with a friend?”
“Yeah, a brunette, L-something,” I answered absently as Aspen groaned.
“Shit, I’ll have Becca check the ladies’ room but looks like Aspen here got ditched.”
“Don’t bother. The bitch she came with probably got drunk and fucked off with one of these wannabe cowboys. Do me a favor and call my pops, have him bring the truck.”
“You sure?” Mitch asked with an incredulous scoff.
“I’m sure,” I said.
I leaned Aspen up against me and sighed. Wouldn’t be the first time I’d brought a drunk back to mine and my pop’s place to sleep it off, but it definitely was the first time I’d be bringing a woman as pretty as she was home with me.
It took my pops a good half an hour to get there, and he wasn’t happy about it.
“What the fuck?” he demanded, and I scowled up at him.
“Shut up and get the fuckin’ doors for me, old man.”
“I am not—”
“You ain’t doing shit except driving. I’ll handle the rest.”
He growled a rumbling noise of displeasure and I ignored him. I got her up, unsteady on her feet, groaning. It so wasn’t happening. I got my arm beneath her knees and lifted her just as she passed out again. She had some weight to her, and while I wouldn’t be able to do this forever, it was a straight shot to the front door and out to my dad’s truck where he’d parked it. Thankfully, he’d had the presence of mind to keep the passenger side pointed this direction. I went out, Mitch holding the front door for me, and put her right into the truck.
My pop’s closed the door when he knew she was clear and he wouldn’t bang into her.
“Hope like hell you know what you’re doing,” he said, and I nodded.
“Just drive, I’m right behind you.”
I waved at Mitch, who waved back, and I went over to my bike, mounting up.
The ride home was brisk, and when my dad pulled up, he did it right in front of the door, passenger side pointed the right way. He got out of the truck calling something or other out, but I couldn’t hear it over the bike. I shut it off.
“What?”
“I said, you clean that shit up! I’m going to bed!”
“Fuck,” I muttered.
Sure enough, I opened up the passenger door of his truck and the woman was an absolute mess. The vomit sweet and off-smelling, and I wondered if there was more than just alcohol at play here.