Chapter 5 Hello, Cactus.
Chapter five
Hello, Cactus.
Cactus
I smirked, shifting in my chair as I watched her hips sway, each step evenly measured as she headed toward the furthest register.
I suspected she wanted to run out the front door, never looking back.
If she’d slipped, we would have torn her apart emotionally.
No hesitation. We were assholes like that, but she held her own.
It made me wonder where she’d been. What she had seen.
When I lost sight of her, I turned back around. We were here for a free lunch, but the dining room was full for a weekday. No one wanted to be out in this heat, and summer was traditionally slow.
“Is that the reason you were late?” Scorpion leaned forward in his chair, staring at me.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Aces pointed his finger at Scorpion before shifting it to me, and then back to Scorp. “Eights and I towed her car.”
Huckleberry, our enforcer, grinned. “They know each other. Weren’t any of you paying attention when he called her Rox?
There’s some tension there, probably more anger though than sexual.
Both are good. Gets the blood pumping to your dick.
” He would know, considering all the love bombing he did.
We tried to tell him it wasn’t necessary when you rode a bike and wore a club cut, but the dude didn’t listen.
He’d bat his blue eyes, and rub his bald head as if he didn’t know what he was doing, and it worked every time.
I ignored them, sitting back in my chair to wait for my beer.
“I was waiting for her to rip your dick off and feed it to you, Daddy.” Flash was laughing so hard he snorted.
He’d probably journal this conversation later, rereading it over and over, until something else held his attention.
When we’d nominated him for club secretary, he’d initially told us no, but then he’d pulled a pen from his pocket.
“Do I look stupid to you?” I asked Flash, not bothering to wait for an answer.
“Found her on the side of the road, trying to get the lug nuts off the tire. It would have taken her most of the night, so I stopped, moving her ass out of the way. It’s cute she thinks she can throw a tantrum, but it would have been stupid if she’d chipped my bike when she pulled off the side of the road.
When she settles down and learns how to handle new toys, then I’ll think about letting her thank me properly. ”
“I only play well with people my age.”
She’d heard us. Starting with Huckleberry at the end of the table, she went around, laying the correct bottle next to the right brother. We’d rattled off our normal orders quickly to test her, and she’d passed with flying colors.
I felt her brush up against my shoulder, laying my bottle towards the middle of the table. None of the other brothers had gotten that treatment, just me.
“You know, so you don’t accidentally spill it in your old age. We don’t have bibs,” she whispered.
My mouth dropped open as the rest of the brothers died laughing, but she moved on, like it was no big deal. My jaw was tight as I tried to come up with a winning retort. I was going to have to be quicker than that if I was going to one-up her, and I always won.
“With an attitude like that, it’d be real pretty to watch her submit.” Aces’s eyes rolled back into his head, and my knuckles itched to knock his fucking ass out. I stayed put, flexing my hands into fists underneath the table. This wasn’t my fight.
Lulu heard him as she ran towards the kitchen. He hadn’t even finished the sentence before she smacked him in the back of the shoulder. “There are plenty of willing prospects if you would just ask. Roxy would eat you up and spit you back out.”
“Like you?” He turned in his chair, scanning her from head to toe. “You wouldn’t last fifteen minutes in my bed.”
Francene called out from behind the bar, getting Lulu’s attention.
I wasn’t surprised she had a thing for Aces, but he’d never given her the time of day.
Our executive team had agreed when Scorpion had bought this place.
We didn’t shit where we ate. There were plenty of prospects on this street if you knew where to look.
Redheads? Check the museum. Ravens? There were a few at the stunt show in the middle of the strip. Blondes? They were a dime a dozen.
I held the rim of my beer bottle against my lips, preparing for the perfect taste, when it hit me.
Fuck. As long as Roxy worked here, she’d be off limits.
I raised my eyebrows, contemplating my next move as the beer slid down my tongue.
However, the more I thought about it, the more Lulu was probably right.
Roxy gave off man-eater vibes, and I liked my dick where it was.
Comfortable silence settled around the table as we listened in on the conversations floating around us.
Someone always talked about something they shouldn’t.
One time, a kid was chatting with an older man about all the money he was going to spend on his baby mama after their delivery.
Too bad they’d forgotten to mention it to us.
By the time we took our cut of the profit, there wasn’t anything left.
It wasn’t much longer when Roxy appeared, carrying stacked plates up her arm.
“Chicken sandwich,” she said, laying the plate in her left hand in front of Eights.
Walking around the table, she stood behind Huckleberry.
“Cheeseburger with fries. I’ll grab you ketchup in a second,” she said, laying his plate in front of him with her right hand.
Roxy had spent plenty of time serving, and that made me mad.
She worked the table like a pro, dropping plates left and right, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed.
Scorpion was paying attention, and each time she set a new plate down, his eyes narrowed.
He was suspicious. As Sergeant at Arms, I was going to have to tail her to make sure she wasn’t here for us.
“Steak and eggs. Do you need sauce?” she asked Scorpion, laying his plate in front of him. He reached out and grabbed her wrist. She squeaked, but I didn’t think she was in pain, more surprised than anything else. “Let me go,” she said evenly.
“What’s your story? If you’re here to hurt Ang, I’ll just make you disappear right now, and we can forget about fixing your shitty car.” His dark eyes stared at her, his fingers flexing around her wrist.
My ass was stuck to the chair. Scorpion was unpredictable, and I didn’t need him to cause a scene in the saloon. There were too many people eating, and while we didn’t care they knew we had an affiliation, we didn’t need to show them how brutal we could be.
Roxy had earned herself a place on his watchlist. He didn’t trust her, and I didn’t need her picking up another admirer until I figured out her story. She hunched over the table, but his broad back hid his grip on her wrist, making the situation appear innocent. It was anything but.
“If you don’t let me go, I’ll stick your steak knife through your hand. I know the cops won’t help me—I’m not that stupid—but you’ll be very uncomfortable until my car is ready.”
“I won’t ask you again. What’s your story? No one carries plates like that unless they’ve been waitressing since the Dark Ages. You’re not old enough.” His lip curled as he sneered at her.
“Temporary.” She moved quicker than any of us expected.
Grabbing his steak knife with her other hand, she went to stab him.
He let her go just in time, but she was already driving the knife downward.
Scorpion laid his hand flat against the pine table, but she drove the knife in between his splayed fingers.
The handle stuck straight out of the wood.
“You shouldn’t have bet against me.” Picking up her head, she smiled at the rest of us, almost too sweet. “Who would like a refill?”
***
Roxy
I met each biker’s eyes, not willing to back down.
“Beers?” I pushed, trying to get one of these fuckers to answer so I could leave the table.
I added a smile, pretending there wasn’t a steak knife sticking straight up out of it.
A few raised their hands, as if this were a classroom.
“Great. Enjoy your lunch, and I’ll grab ketchup. ”
“Can I get a bottle, too?” This one is empty.
” The man sitting at the table behind Cactus shook the ketchup bottle as if I needed a demonstration.
I’d seen him walk into the dining room with his wife and two boys, but since I wasn’t waiting on them, I hadn’t paid too much attention.
Taking the empty with me, I told him I’d bring another.
This was a simple ask, and I didn’t mind pitching in.
Cactus’s eyes followed me as I crossed the room to the bar, keeping my head high.
I wouldn’t do anything about it. This was a job, and for once, I was taking someone else’s advice.
I wouldn’t entertain them. They probably had a million other women who would cater to their every need.
I was getting tipped to serve them. It wasn’t the same.
Placing their refill order, I grabbed two bottles of ketchup, delivering the first one to the father. The other one went to the biker at the end of the table with the bald head and blue eyes. “Here you go,” I said, syrupy sweet.
“Thanks, darling.” He winked at me. “You know, if you’re—“
“No, thanks.” I pointed at my name badge, pinned to the corset.
“Temporary, remember?” I gave him a wink in return and pivoted on my heel towards the bar.
The bottles were at the end, waiting for me.
I clutched three in one hand and reached for Cactus’s with my other.
To anyone else, this might have been awkward, but not me.
You just have to survive another twenty minutes. Thirty tops. Just think—big tip. Huge.
I walked around the table, standing behind Cactus, but before I could lay his bottle on the wood, Aces started talking to me.
“Ro-xy.” He smirked, his lips twitching, as his finger pointed at me, then Cactus, and back again.
I ignored him, brushing Cactus’s arm as I set his beer on the table, in a reasonable spot this time. I wasn’t playing around with them anymore, but that was when I felt it. The man for whom I had brought the ketchup had his hand on the back of my upper thigh—just beneath the hem of the shorts.
“I mean, if you’re not interested in an old man like him, I’d sacrifice my dick. You know, for the greater good of humanity?”
Aces was still working his angle, but I froze. My skin crawled as my stomach lurched, threatening to vomit all over their table.
“Hey, I meant nothing by it. Well, I did, but you’re looking a little pasty, and my dick shriveled. He likes to be only where he’s wanted.” Aces leaned forward in his chair.
My grip tightened around the neck of the bottle until I thought it would break in my hand.
Cactus turned in his chair, brushing against my arm that held the other three. My mouth opened to speak, but the words were stuck at the back of my throat. He hit my arm with his shoulder. The bottles tipped forward. The beer spilled down his back.
“What the fuck!” he yelled, and that was when I finally woke up. I jumped backwards, but all it did was give the man behind me a better grip as the bottles hit the floor. His grip was so tight that I couldn’t move as the glass shattered. Thank fuck no one was filming this shitshow.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Cactus roared even louder, jumping from his seat. The glass crunched underneath his boots as the beer ran off the back of his club cut.
I could have told him it was his fault that he had bumped me, but I didn’t know how he would react.
It was easier if he let out the brunt of his anger on me.
The only thing I wouldn’t tell him was the truth.
The man’s wife had excused herself to the restroom, but the boys were still at the table.
I didn’t need them to be subjected to violence because their father was a creep.
I’d thought I could survive the first day. I was wrong.