The Keeper (Silent Phoenix MC #5)

Chapter 2

TWO

PIPER

Ivy & Piper’s Guide to Life Rule Number Twenty-Eight:

No woman left behind.

I stabbed my straw against the ice cubes in my cup with more force than was necessary, noisily slurping up the last remaining droplets of my third watermelon margarita—or was it my fourth?

I’d lost count somewhere between Ghost’s friends showing up sans Ghost and the ménage-in-the-making currently playing out next to me in the heated infinity pool.

Not that I was judging. I was a girl’s girl through and through, and if anyone deserved to let their hair down for the weekend, it was Ivy. Her entire life revolved around residency. Before tonight, the only Ds in her life were of the psychopathology variety—deviance, distress, dysfunction, and danger.

She tugged the Stetson off Duke’s head with a drunken grin and placed it over her icy blonde curls before swimming back over to GQ. “If you want it back, you’ll have to come in and get it.”

“There are certain rules when it comes to a man’s cowboy hat, darlin’,” he drawled in his gravelly voice.

“One, the hat always comes off for the three Ps—prayer, patriotism, and when payin’ your respects. No exceptions. I’d also recommend taking it off at church, restaurants, and inside your mama’s house unless you wanna get cuffed upside the head. I like to take it off when I meet a lady for the first time, like tonight. Two, if you can’t hang your hat, set it upside down on the crown—keeps a man’s luck from runnin’ out and maintains the shape. Three, never mess with another man’s hat. That’s a fightin’ offense.”

Duke—whose road name I could only assume was a John Wayne reference—had a whole Marlboro Man thing going on with his cleft chin, clean-shaven face, and jawline that could cut glass. The streaks of silver woven into his close-cropped brown hair weren’t hurting, either.

He looked like someone you’d find rustling cattle on the Four Sixes Ranch. He probably opened the car door on dates, helped old ladies cross the street in his spare time, and kept his hand on the small of a woman’s back when entering a room, letting every man in the room know she was his.

GQ, on the other hand, looked like the lost member of some trendy alt-rock band. Medium-length strands of dark brown hair fell in strategically messy waves over one eye. He had a nose ring, a diamond stud in his left ear, and a week’s worth of stubble dotting his jawline. He was the guy whose photo would have lined my bathroom mirror as a teen—the brooding bad boy I would have been just young and na?ve enough to imagine had a soft spot only for me.

They were a juxtaposition—complete opposites save for one exception.

Neither had said a word to me beyond introducing themselves.

The men chatted up Ivy, a few attendees who stopped by on their way to the bar, and even the hotel staff. Meanwhile, I downed one margarita after another while wishing I was literally anywhere else. Like back in the hotel room, binge-eating my way through the emergency chocolate bar stash in my purse and moping over my shitty luck with men.

But Rule Number Eight in Ivy and Piper’s Guide to Life Manual— Never leave another woman in a vulnerable situation —meant I wouldn’t be going anywhere for the foreseeable future .

“Are you challenging me to a duel, Duke?” Ivy asked, tipping the brim of the hat down low over her eyes.

He chuckled and shook his head. “Not quite. If a woman takes a man’s hat, it generally implies she’d like to take a few other things off him, too, if you catch my meanin’.”

“Wear the hat, ride the cowboy,” GQ said bluntly before taking a swig from his beer.

Sober Ivy could handle both bikers and any emotional baggage they happened to have with her eyes closed. Unfortunately, Sober Ivy had been M.I.A. for the past thirty minutes, and there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I was leaving her alone with two complete strangers, especially not when cowboy hat-related sex acts were being discussed.

“Well, in that case, I’d say it’s?—”

“Time for another round!” I exclaimed before she could finish that sentence. “My treat.”

They agreed and tossed out their drink orders before resuming their conversation, rendering me invisible once again.

Was it too much to ask for some pity small talk?

Or, at the very least, eye contact?

Curious to test a theory, I tapped Duke on the shoulder. “Remind me again, you had the Landshark, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied without turning around. I didn’t get so much as a head tip in my direction.

“Great. Be right back,” I said quietly, feeling the tears forming in my eyes as I swam over to the stairs.

“I’ll come with,” Ivy insisted, waiting until we were out of earshot before asking, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” I said, flashing her a fake smile. It was the most relaxed I’d seen her in over a year, and I didn’t want to be the one to bring it to an end.

Besides, it wasn’t her fault Ghost had, well, ghosted me.

“Really?” she asked, lifting the hat enough to serve me a healthy dose of side-eye. “That’s funny because you’re doing that squinty blinking thing you do when you’re trying not to cry.”

“It’s just—is there something on my face?”

She scanned me before shaking her head. “You look great. Why? ”

“Are you sure? There are no bats in the cave or Alice Cooper mascara thing going on?” I flared my nostrils and lifted my chin for inspection.

“Noooo,” she replied, drawing out the vowel with a giggle.

I threw my hands up. “I don’t get it! My hair and makeup are good. My swimsuit is covering all the appropriate bits. Even if it wasn’t, I can’t imagine a biker—or any man for that matter— being too prudish to enjoy a little nip slip.”

Her gaze dipped to my cleavage before returning to my face. “I think I’m missing something. Is this about Ghost?”

“Maybe… I don’t know.” I sighed. “Am I going crazy, or does it seem like Duke and GQ are trying to avoid me at all costs? And please don’t think I mean that in like a jealous way or anything, but it’s just weird to be ignored completely, you know? They said more to the bartenders than they have me, and I can’t help but think it’s got something to do with why he didn’t show up. I’ve been racking my brain, trying to figure out what I said or did that might have made him not want to come.”

“Don’t,” Ivy warned, squeezing my shoulder. “Him not coming says more about him than it does you. And for all we know, there might be a solid reason.”

“Yeah, like he met someone else at the dinner,” I grumbled, tracing a line in the pavement with my big toe.

“My money’s on a violent case of food poisoning—what?” she asked when I rolled my eyes. “He was following you around like a puppy all day, Piper. Men don’t do shit like that and then flip a switch. I think he wanted to come, but the projectile vomiting and violent diarrhea kept him in the room. It would also explain why Duke and GQ were so vague about why he wasn’t there.”

My lip curled in disgust. “Thanks so much for that visual. And they could have just been following the bro code and covering for him while he was off boning someone else. Whatever. It doesn’t matter now.”

She snorted. “Sure it doesn’t, Pinocchio.”

“Speaking of projectile vomiting,” I said, steering the conversation back to her. “Are you good, or should I cut you off?”

“All good, Officer. I’m just past the I’ve always wanted to be with two men at once stage of inebriation , but nowhere close to let’s go back to your room and try out the Eiffel Tower position.”

“You sure about that? Because from where I was sitting, it looked like you were quickly approaching the I’ve forgotten all the reasons why hot tub sex is a bad idea stage.”

After glancing back to ensure both men were still in the infinity pool, she admitted, “It’s a social experiment I’m working on. Men are typically on their best behavior on a first date, and by the time you start to see the red flags, you’re usually too far in, right? Well, I thought, why not see if I can get them to flash those warning signs up front and save some time?”

“By getting drunk?” I hissed in horror.

“By pretending to get drunk,” she corrected, tapping the side of her nose.

“Take tonight, for example. I’ve had five margaritas, but only three contained alcohol. You know when I said I needed to run to the ladies’ room? Well, I went back to the bar and instructed the bartender to make ours virgins after the third drink. With each round, they see me getting progressively less inhibited and attribute it to the alcohol. Meanwhile, I’m observing every reaction and comment, gauging what type of men they are.”

“And here I thought they were just skimping on the tequila,” I muttered dryly, used to being dragged unwillingly into Ivy’s little experiments. “Don’t keep me in suspense. What’s the verdict?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know yet, but if the hat comments and them ignoring you completely are any indication, they’ll likely fail.”

“You’re the only person I know who’s working even when she’s not working.” I shook my head and turned around, only to collide with a wall of rock-solid muscle.

The impact knocked me off balance, and I flailed my arms like a cartoon character, desperately trying to regain my footing.

Before I could bust my ass on the wet concrete, which would have been the cherry on top of an already shit sundae, a pair of strong arms locked around my waist to steady me, and I followed the well-defined curve of a bicep up to a pair of eyes that were now as dark as an abyss.

I swallowed hard. “You.”