CHAPTER 3
FIVE MONTHS AGO
brIDGER
My head is pounding in time with the music, and not in a good way. I’m too fucking old for this shit. And there are far too many people at Aces tonight.
It’s not like I was expecting it to be low-key and quiet, not a place like Aces, but damn. It’s too much and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to stick around. The only saving grace is that we’ve had the VIP lounge to ourselves.
As I look around, I can’t help but admire the club. It is beautiful. It has a speakeasy vibe, but with a Victorian bend. It’s quite lush.
If I were into that sort of thing.
And had an affinity for clubs.
Carson is sitting next to me and staring into her drink with a wary look on her face. I lean closer to make sure she can hear me over the music, “I don’t think your drink is going to bite you.”
She jumps a little and presses her hand over her heart as her wide eyes snap toward me. “You scared the fuck out of me,” she hisses.
I snort a laugh and shake my head. When she glares at me, I hold my hands up in surrender. “We’ve been sitting next to each other for like half an hour, Carson,” I point out.
”We have?” Her surprise is genuine, and I wonder, not for the first time, what’s going on with her. “I mean,” she shakes her head and tries to deflect, “I know that, but we’ve been enjoying the silence and then you had to go and break it.”
“Enjoying the silence,” my tone drips with sarcasm as I motion toward the packed club. “In here? Silence?”
“I meant between us, Bridger,” she makes it sound like I’m the one being ridiculous.
“What’s been going on with you?” I tilt my head to the side and study her.
“Nothing,” she defends herself immediately and I don’t buy it for a moment.
When she sees I’m not going to budge, she lets out a sigh.
“I’m just nervous about going home for my brother’s wedding.
” She shakes her head and looks out toward the dance floor but she’s not really seeing it.
“I can’t believe he’s getting married,” she admits, her words ringing with honesty.
“And not just getting married, but he’s marrying his high school sweetheart, his childhood love, the proverbial one that got away. ”
“It took him this long to put a ring on her finger?” There’s something in her tone that makes the question spill from my lips even though I rarely like to pull information out of people.
It’s not like I’m not interested; it’s just that I’ve found that when people share things about their lives with you, they expect the same in return.
Especially when it comes to someone’s past. It’s not a subject I like to talk about and see no reason to dive back into the pit which were my formative years.
“It wasn’t like that,” Carson insists. She rolls her eyes and finishes off her drink before she explains, “They broke up after Eden went off to college while Fletcher stayed in Wintervale to, eventually, take over the ranch. Distance is hard,” she muses with a shrug of her shoulders.
“It devastated Fletcher and, from what my brothers have told me, Eden didn’t fare much better.
When she came back to Wintervale a few months ago with her son, Fletcher saw his opportunity and took it.
Not just with Eden either, he’s claimed her son as his own.
I’ve talked to him on the phone; he seems like a sweet kid.
” A soft smile lifts her lips before she admits, “My brother’s actions don’t surprise me because no matter how many times he tried to move on, he couldn’t. ”
I’m not sure if that’s sweet or incredibly horrific. He couldn’t move on from the woman after years of being apart and then when she showed back up, with a kid, he just swooped in?
“Sounds like a standup guy,” I murmur.
Even though I’m not sure I’d be able to do what he’s done, I can recognize the good in his actions.
“He is,” there’s a wistful quality to her voice which hits me right in the chest. “All my brothers are.”
“Then why are you nervous about going home?”
She looks at me, really looks at me, after I let the question slip out without even trying to hide the curiosity in my voice.
Carson is kind of a mystery and has been since she started at Vibrant Ink.
She’s been in Denver for around ten years, from what I remember.
The shop she used to work at, the same one where she apprenticed, has a pretty stellar reputation for their work.
But there are also a lot of whispers and rumors about the owner.
I met him at a convention a few years ago and was glad that I got my spot at Vibrant Ink instead of needing to hunt one down in his shop. It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on, just the vibe I got from him.
Carson hasn’t spoken badly of the guy or her time at his shop. Maybe we just haven’t pushed enough.
She’s a good person and extremely talented, but she’s been with us for less than two years. Is it possible that she still feels like an outsider when it comes to us? The thought makes me frown.
Perhaps she’s not a mystery. Maybe it’s more like we haven’t let her into the inner circle, one forged of years upon years of working side by side.
That’s on us. On me.
“It’s just been a while,” her voice is low, and I have to strain to hear her. “While I wasn’t the black sheep of the family because I was also the only girl, I always felt out of place in Wintervale. I dreamed of something more, something bigger. And I went out and found it.”
Her words might be prideful, but her tone, which is filled with sadness, isn’t. The hollowness in her words have me almost reaching out and hugging her against my chest to offer her comfort.
But she’s never been all that keen on physical contact. Neither have I, for that matter.
“They’ll be happy to see you,” I offer while hoping she can’t tell I’m only guessing.
The thought of having a family, one bound by blood, is foreign to me. Once I left behind the mother who raised me and the chaos of the life that she forced me to live within, I never looked back. I never even thought about it or inviting the misery from the past into my present.
I’m better off for it.
But I also know not everyone experienced family the way I did. Vibrant Ink has become my family, one which allows me space when I need it. They’ll obliterate that space sometimes when I’m trying to cling to it.
“And before the wedding, there’s the convention in Vegas,” I remind her, feeling the need to get off this carousel of a conversation.
Hopefully, she’ll let me off. And join me. Nothing good can come from the way she’s stewing, especially when it feels like there’s so much that she hasn’t said.
“Yeah,” Carson agrees, but it’s half-hearted at best.
With a shake of her head, she flashes me a grin and nods toward the smaller bar in the VIP area. “I’m going to grab another drink, you need one?”
And that’s one thing I’ve come to realize about Carson, when she’s done talking about something and wants to move on, she just does. While others in the shop might push, that’s not me.
“I’m good,” I tell her before looking toward the dance floor and the bar not in the VIP area. “I think I’m going to hit the bathroom.”
I think she says something before she walks away, but I catch a glimpse of a beautiful blonde woman at the bar, and the blood starts to roar in my ears as it rushes through my veins. The noise fades and the only thing I can see, even as the lights strobe, is this woman.
Who the fuck is she?
My feet move without me even realizing it. The next thing I know, I’m standing next to the woman while my palms sweat, and a feeling of panic starts to set in. I don’t know what this feeling is, and I’m not sure I like it.
What is it that I’m even feeling?
Anticipation thrums through me making it difficult to breathe. Fuck. I’m going to embarrass myself right now. I’m powerless to stop it from happening.
“Cheers,” the woman next to the blonde beauty I can’t look away from crows. Damn, I didn’t even notice someone next to the woman who caught my attention at first. “Here’s to finally getting you out with me.”
Somehow, the knowledge that this woman, whoever the hell she is, doesn’t go out much, at least not with the friend she’s with, helps to settle some of the anxiety running through me.
The smile on the blonde’s face looks forced as she eyes the drink in her hand with far too much trepidation for an Old Fashioned.
“While this isn’t exactly what I had in mind when you asked me to go out with you, I’m having fun,” the blonde tries to sound cheery.
In reality, she sounds like she’s been suffering waterboarding in some underground bunker which was retrofitted sometime during World War II. Her dark blue eyes are dull and there’s a wariness about her she couldn’t even begin to hide if she tried.
My eyes travel down her body and she’s wearing a modest black dress. It covers just as much skin as her friend’s dress shows off. Even though the dress doesn’t show much, it does hug every curve of her body deliciously. Trying to hold back the need to reach out and touch her is excruciating.
Her makeup is light, almost nonexistent. It’s a stark contrast to the dark smokey eye and red lip her friend is sporting.
Knowing that I’ve been staring too long by the way her body goes rigid, I force myself to turn toward the bar and nod at the bartender. I’ve seen her before at one of the Banks family gatherings, one I was forced to attend, but I haven’t spoken to her.
I think her name is Phoenix? The only reason I remember is because the bright red of her hair made me think of the legendary bird rising from the flames and ashes even before any introduction could have been made.
“Here you go, Bridger,” Phoenix grins as she places the Hammond whiskey down in front of me after breezing my way within moments.
I’m so damn tempted to down it in one shot to try and combat the feeling of butterflies in my gut, but I hold off. Instead, I grunt, “Thanks.”