Chapter 18 Kya
KYA
The Saturday evening crowd at Devil’s is steady but manageable. I’m behind the bar, trying not to watch the door every five minutes like some lovesick teenager.
Lee walks in just after seven, and my traitorous heart does a stupid skip. I smile but it slowly fades as I take him in. He looks tense, his jaw tight as he approaches the bar.
“Hey,” I say, already reaching for his usual beer.
“Hey.” He glances around, noting the crowd, then leans across the bar. “We need to talk. Can you take a break?”
My stomach drops. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just... come here for a sec?”
I follow him to the back office, anxiety building. He closes the door and immediately pulls me into his arms.
“I have to go out of town,” he says against my hair. “Tonight. I’ve got to follow up on some Summit leads.”
I pull back to look at him. “When will you be back?”
“Tomorrow night, late probably.” His thumb strokes my cheek. “I’m sorry. I know tomorrow’s your day off. I was planning to spend the whole day with you.” The disappointment must show on my face because he kisses me softly. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“It’s fine. This is important.” I force a smile. “Besides, I should probably catch up on paperwork anyway.”
A knock on the door interrupts us. Ginger pokes her head in, Tank visible behind her.
“Sorry to interrupt the goodbye kisses,” she says, not looking sorry at all. “But Lee, the boys are ready to roll.”
Lee sighs, pressing his forehead to mine. “I gotta go.”
“Be safe,” I whisper.
He kisses me once more, deep and promising, then heads out. Tank follows, but Ginger lingers, watching me.
“You look like someone just canceled Christmas,” she observes.
“It’s nothing. It’s just that we had plans for tomorrow.” I force a smile. “But it’s fine. This is important.”
“It is,” she agrees, then her eyes light up dangerously. “Wait! This is perfect! Girls’ night!”
“Ginger, I don’t think—“
“No thinking! Just fun!” She pulls out her phone, already texting. “Tomorrow night, we’re going out. And I mean OUT out. Not to some dive bar in Stoneheart where everyone knows us.”
“I’m the only dive bar in Stoneheart,” I point out dryly.
“Which is exactly why Steel’s going to be our driver.” She grins wickedly. “Poor boy owes me for making him help with Tank’s surprise party planning. He’ll drive us to Millbrook. We’ll make a night of it.”
Mercy appears from the stockroom. “Did I hear someone say girls’ night?”
“Tomorrow,” Ginger announces. “Millbrook. Dancing. Drinks. Debauchery.”
“I’m in,” Mercy says immediately. “God, I need to get laid. Or at least grind on someone who isn’t wearing a wedding ring.”
I look between them. “This is a terrible idea.”
“The best ones always are,” Ginger winks as she slides her phone back in her pocket. “Andi and Poppy are already confirmed. Steel will pick everyone up at seven.”
“How did you—”
“I’m very efficient.” She heads for the door. “Wear something slutty!”
I glance at Mercy. “You know this is a terrible idea, right?”
She laughs, slapping me on the shoulder. “Can’t wait.”
At 7pm on the dot, Steel parks a large SUV in my drive. He looks like he’s heading to his own execution, while Ginger, who’s in the passenger seat, is practically bouncing with excitement.
“Get in, losers! We’re going shopping!” she yells out the window.
“That’s not how the quote goes,” Poppy says, sliding in and shuffling over. She’s glowing in a flowy blue top that accommodates her small bump.
“Just get in,” Ginger retorts.
Andi claims the back row with Mercy, who’s wearing a black dress so short I’m concerned about her getting a misdemeanour for public indecency.
“Looking to catch someone tonight?” I tease.
“Looking to catch something,” Mercy mutters. “It’s been months. MONTHS! My vagina is growing cobwebs”
“TMI,” Steel groans from the driver’s seat.
“Oh honey,” Ginger turns to him with a wicked grin. “It’s only going to get worse. Now drive! Millbrook awaits!”
The hour-long drive is chaos. Ginger controls the playlist, cycling through everything from 90s hip-hop to current pop. Mercy keeps making increasingly inappropriate comments about what she wants to do to the first hot guy she sees, while Andi and Poppy share embarrassing stories about their men.
“Did I ever tell you about the time Hawk got stuck in the playground equipment?” Andi asks.
“No!” we all scream in unison.
“He was showing off for the twins, tried to go down the slide, and his shoulders got wedged. Steel had to cut him out.”
“You didn’t tell me!” Poppy yells at him.
He hunches his shoulders, staring stubbornly out the windscreen at the road.
“Please tell me there are photos,” Ginger begs.
“Oh, there’s video.”
“I should have stayed home,” Steel mutters as we shriek with laughter.
“And miss all this female bonding?” Ginger pats his arm. “Besides, Tank specifically volunteered you.”
“Tank threw me under the bus,” Steel corrects.
The Green Room is everything Devil’s isn’t. Neon lights pulse in time with the bass, the air thick with perfume and possibility. The crowd is young, dressed to impress, and blissfully unaware of who we are.
“First round’s on me!” Ginger announces, dragging us to the bar. The bartender, a twenty-something with too much gel in his hair, openly stares at her cleavage.
“Eyes up here, junior,” she says, snapping her fingers. “Five tequila shots and...” she glances at Steel, “one water for our designated driver.”
The bartender slides our drinks across and we all reach for our glass.
“Good boy,” she pinches Steel’s cheek after he accepts the water.
“To girls’ night!” Poppy raises her mocktail.
“To getting laid!” Mercy adds.
“To new friends!” Andi chimes in.
“To not overthinking everything!” I contribute.
“TO STEEL FOR DRIVING!” Ginger shouts.
We down the shots (except Steel and Poppy), and immediately hit the dance floor. The music is some remix I don’t recognize, but it doesn’t matter. Ginger grabs my hands, spinning me around while Andi, Mercy and Poppy follow, laughing.
“This is what you needed!” Ginger yells over the music. “To remember you’re young and hot and alive!”
She’s not wrong. For the first time in weeks, I’m not thinking about the bar, or bills, or Summit. I’m just dancing with my friends, letting the music move through me.
Mercy disappears for a song, returning with her lipstick smudged.
“Already?” Andi asks, impressed.
“What can I say? When you know, you know.” She grins. “He’s got a friend if you know anyone who might be interested.”
“Pass,” I laugh. “I’m taken.”
“Disgustingly taken,” Ginger agrees. “She and Lee are nauseating.”
“Says the woman who made us all watch while Tank fed her strawberries at her birthday,” Poppy points out.
“It was romantic!”
“It was soft-core porn!”
When we tire of dancing, Ginger drags us down the street to a second stop. This one is quieter, more upscale. Exposed brick walls, Edison bulbs, and bartenders in suspenders.
“I need food,” Poppy declares as we claim a corner booth.
“Nachos!” Ginger points at the menu. “Steel, order us nachos! And those little slider things. And mozzarella sticks!”
“Why do I have to—”
“Because you’re sober and we love you,” she says, patting his head like a puppy.
Steel sighs. “How is this my life?”
“You joined an MC,” I remind him, more than a little tipsy. “Isn’t this is what you signed up for?”
“No one mentioned I’d be babysitting for drunk women.”
“We’re not drunk!” Ginger protests, then immediately knocks over her water glass. “That was the table’s fault.”
While Steel orders, Mercy regales us with stories from her bartending days before Devil’s.
“There was this guy who came in every Thursday, ordered milk. MILK. In a bar!”
“Maybe he had ulcers,” Poppy suggests.
“Maybe he was a serial killer,” Andi counters.
“He was definitely a serial killer,” Ginger agrees. “Steel, are you writing this down? This is important information we should pass on to Lee for Kya’s safety.”
“I’m not your secretary,” Steel says, but he’s fighting a smile.
The food arrives and we attack it like we haven’t eaten in days. Ginger steals everyone’s pickles, Andi and Poppy share the mozzarella sticks, and Mercy keeps checking her phone.
“Supply closet guy?” I ask.
“His name is Derek. He wants to meet up again later.”
“Derek!” Ginger shouts, causing the entire bar to turn. “Absolutely not! I’m not letting you sleep with a man called Derek!”
“Inside voice,” Steel pleads.
“I don’t have an inside voice! I have a Ginger voice and a LOUDER GINGER VOICE!”
An older woman at the next table leans over. “You girls having a bachelorette party?”
“No,” Ginger says seriously. “We’re having a ‘Lee’s out of town and Kya needs to remember she’s a bad bitch’ party.”
The woman laughs. “In that case, next round’s on me.”
Somehow she and her friends end up in our gang for the night as we drag Steel from one place to another.
The clubs begin to blur together until I’m lost in the chaos. Wherever we are has three floors with different music on each level, and more people than the entire population of Stoneheart.
“I love this place!” Ginger screams, dragging us to the middle floor where they’re playing early 2000s hits.
Poor Steel has positioned himself by the wall, looking like a bodyguard. Several women have tried to approach him, but he just points to us and shakes his head.
“You know what your problem is?” Ginger says, slinging an arm around me as we take a break from dancing.
“I have a problem?”
“You think too much.” She cups my face, her eyes serious despite the glitter someone threw that’s now stuck to her cheeks. “Lee loves you. You love him. Stop worrying about all the what-ifs and just BE HAPPY.”
“Ginger, it’s not like that. We already—”
“It is EXACTLY like that.” She spins me around to face the dance floor. “Look at Andi. She overthought everything with Hawk and almost lost him. Now look at her!”
Andi is indeed dancing like no one’s watching, laughing as Poppy attempts to twerk with her baby belly.
“That boy would burn down the world for you,” Ginger continues. “And you’d do the same for him.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you get the same look Tank gets when someone threatens me.” She smiles, softer now. “Like you’d kill anyone who hurt him.”
“I already told him I love him, and he said the same.”
She blinks then laughs. “So my speech was unnecessary?”
“Yes.” Impulsively, I hug her. “But thank you anyway.”
We stay until the lights come on at 2 AM, Ginger somehow convincing the DJ to play “Closing Time” as we gather our things.
“I need nuggets,” Mercy announces as we stumble drunkenly down the sidewalk to Steel’s SUV.
“Nuggets!” Ginger agrees. “Steel, we need nuggets!”
“There’s food at home—“
“NUGGETS, STEEL.”
The poor drive-through worker looks overwhelmed as four drunk women and one pregnant one shout orders from the car.
“Twenty nuggets!”
“No, forty!”
“And fries!”
“Large fries!”
“Apple pies!”
“Do they still have those?”
“STEEL, ASK IF THEY HAVE APPLE PIES!”
Steel turns to the speaker with a defeated expression. “Can I get sixty nuggets, five large fries, and however many apple pies you have? Add six bottles of water to that as well.”
“I got it!” Ginger waves her credit card. “Tank gave me his card!”
“That’s Tank’s?” I ask.
“He’ll never notice. I bought a motorcycle last month and he didn’t say anything.”
“You bought a—”
“NUGGETS ARE READY!” Steel shouts tossing takeout bags into the back of the vehicle like we’re wild animals.
To be fair to him, we act like it as we rip the bags open, shoving food into our mouths like we haven’t been fed in five years.
We’re all significantly quieter now, full of nuggets and exhausted from dancing. Mercy’s the first to pass out against the window. Poppy’s dozing, humming something off-key as she closes her eyes, a hand over her belly. Meanwhile, Andi’s braiding Ginger’s hair.
“Steel,” Ginger says seriously, nugget crumbs on her dress. “You’re a good prospect.”
“Thanks?”
“I mean it. You took care of us tonight. You didn’t complain. Well, not much. That’s what family does.”
He glances at her in the rearview mirror. “You ladies aren’t so bad.”
“We’re amazing,” she corrects.
As we drive through the night, I can’t help but smile. These women, this strange found family–it’s more than I ever expected when I came back to Stoneheart.
“Hey Kya,” Ginger says sleepily. “Lee’s probably already home.”
My pulse quickens. “You think?”
“I know. Tank texted. They got back an hour ago.”
We stop at Andi’s first, Hawk coming out to carry her inside. Then Poppy’s, where Axel is waiting on the porch. Mercy gets dropped at her apartment. Steel half-carries her inside as she yells at us how much she can’t wait until the next one.
Finally, it’s just me, Ginger, and Steel.
“I’m putting in a good word with Stone about you,” Ginger tells Steel as we pull up to her and Tank’s house.
“Thanks, Ginger.”
She leans over and kisses his cheek, leaving a red lipstick mark. “You’re gonna be a great brother someday soon.”
Tank appears, scooping his drunk wife into his arms. “Have fun, baby?”
“The best! Steel was amazing! Can we keep him?”
“He’s not a puppy,” Tank laughs, nodding at Steel. “Thanks for keeping them safe.”
By the time Steel pulls up to my cottage, I’m mostly sober, the cool night air having cleared my head during the drive.
“Thanks, Steel. For everything tonight.”
He gives me a rare full smile. “Lee’s bike is here.”
I look, and sure enough, there it is parked by my door.
“Get some sleep, Steel.”
I exit the vehicle as Lee opens my door. He leans against it, arms crossed, one leg folded over the other as he smirks at me.
I wanna ride that man like a stripper pole.
“Yes ma’am,” Steel says. “And Kya?”
I glance back at him.
“Have fun.”
He drives off with a knowing smirk, leaving me standing in my driveway, heart racing with anticipation. The night is quiet except for the distant sound of Steel’s car fading away.
I watch Lee watching me, a shiver of desire snaking down my back.
Time to rock his world.