Chapter 4 #2
“Moving forward, when you’re hungry, you tell me or one of the prospects. We’ll make you something right away. Ain’t nobody going hungry at the Dark Slayers clubhouse.”
I meant to sound reassuring, but it must have just come off as weird because she said, “Okkaay. Whatever you say.”
It was clear I had zero credibility with this woman.
I brought her back downstairs and kept close enough that she wouldn’t feel abandoned in a room full of strangers.
Every set of eyes in the room followed her.
Club girls paused mid conversation, and prospects stole glances in her direction.
Her back went ramrod straight and she seemed relieved when I stopped at a table in a quiet corner of the room.
“You can sit here,” I told her quietly, pulling the chair out just enough that she could slide into it. She lowered herself into the seat and folded her hands in her lap.
Rosie called out, “What are you drinking, Fuse?”
I asked Winter, “Do you have a drink preference?”
“I’ll just have water.”
“Water? Sure you can do better than that,” I said. Though thinking about it, she was in a strange place so maybe she didn’t want to drink alcohol.
“I’ll have a beer then.”
“Great. I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “Do you want grilled chicken or steak?”
She stared up at me, surprised by another question. “Chicken,” she said decisively.
“Alright. I’ll be right back,” I assured her.
After giving Rosie our drink orders, I began walking towards the back patio where the prospects were grilling.
The only thing on my mind at the moment was the big juicy steak waiting on me.
Right before I walked through the back door, something in my gut made me look back and check on Winter.
What I saw riled me up like nobody’s business.
One of the club girls slid off her barstool and drifted towards Winter’s table with a martini in her hand.
This was honestly my least favorite club girl, Charity.
She was new and brazen as hell. I recognized her smirk and the tilt of her chin immediately.
It was some kind of fucked up territorial instinct mixed with pettiness and insecurity.
I changed direction without thinking and headed straight back to our table. What I heard along the way made me want to jerk a knot in her ass.
“I heard all about you,” Charity cooed, stopping beside the table. Her voice carried easily because she was puttin’ on a show for everyone. “Word travels fast around here.”
Winter didn’t answer. She sat perfectly still, her hands tightening together in her lap.
The girl leaned closer, lowering her voice just enough to make it personal. “Be careful. Bought girls like you don’t last long around here.”
Rosie appeared at Winter’s side a second later, setting down a glass of something clear and bubbly with a bunch of cherries floating inside, along with my beer.
She straightened and fixed Charity with a look that meant business.
“Mind your mouth,” Rosie stated sternly before strolling away.
“You’ve been around long enough to know better than to get catty with our guests. ”
The girl let out a forced laugh. “I was just joking around. Don’t be such a buzzkill.”
Then she leaned down and lowered her voice, just as I came up behind her.
“Don’t get comfortable,” she added, her voice dripping with contempt. “Trash like you gets passed around and then sold to the highest bidder. But you already know that don’t ya?”
Charity spun around on her heel to make a dramatic exit and ran right into me. Her shitty smile disappeared so fast it would have been comical if I weren’t already furious with her.
I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t need to. “You’re done for the weekend,” I told her. “Get the hell out of the clubhouse and don’t come back until next week.”
She blinked. “Fuse, I was just making conversation.”
“Shut it. I heard every damn word you said. You’re banned until Monday,” I repeated calmly. “You step foot back in here before then, I’ll turn it into a ten-day ban.”
Her tone became defensive and annoyed. “You can’t be serious right now?”
“You know better,” I said. “You’ve got no right to trash talk a guest, especially one under my protection. When you disrespect her, you disrespect me. Get out now.”
She finally scoffed and walked away, with as much dignity as she could manage.
Winter just stared up at me with a confused expression. “Um, wow. That was a lot,” she murmured just before taking a sip of her beer.
“Charity’s new but she knows better than to mess with guests,” I responded as I waited for her to walk out the door. “And that comment about being sold to the highest bidder. We don’t do that kind of shit. Back at the rally was about getting you out of that situation.”
I left her to think that over while I went to fetch our food.
By the time we were three bites in, most of the tension had evaporated between us, or maybe it just seemed that way because we were concentrating on our food.
Winter ate carefully at first. She took small bites.
Her eyes still flitted around the room but eventually hunger won out and she focused on the food instead of what was going on around her.
I took a drink of my beer and ate a few more bites before bringing up the job. Celt’s words about giving her something to do were stuck in my mind. She needed this so I pushed the words out.
“Have you ever tended bar before?”
She glanced up, cautious. “What? No. I’ve hung around some sports pubs and watched the bartender mix drinks, but I’ve never mixed anything before.”
“That’s alright,” I said. “It’s not that hard to pick up. We’ve been short staffed. Rosie helps out when she can, but she and Thunder own a bar in town. She can’t be in two places at once.”
She squinted at me, evidently confused. “Why are you telling me this?”
“The club is lookin’ to hire a new bartender. I thought it might be a nice job for you. You’d have a way to earn your own money.”
“Is this how I pay you back?” she asked.
“No!” I exclaimed. “Maybe I should have started out with an offer. I know you’re probably gonna be with us for a bit, and I thought that if you had something to do it might make it less boring. No obligation. If it ain’t for you, just say.”
Her expression went from guarded to bewildered. “You’re offering me a job? One that pays money I can keep?”
“Yeah. Like I said, it’s not all that complicated. You’d mostly be pulling draft beers and making simple mixed drinks. There’s a drink mixing book behind the counter. If you can read and measure, you’ll be fine.”
She stared at me, obviously not expecting to be offered work.
I leaned back in my chair, pulling my elbows off the table. “The job does have a couple of perks.”
“Like what kind of perks?” she asked, bringing her drink to her lips again.
“For starters, you get to keep your suite upstairs.” Then I joked, “and you also get to have lunch with me every day. That’s the real prize.”
A half smile flitted across her face. “You want to have lunch with me?” Her voice was steady but there was some emotion lurking beneath the surface that I couldn’t quite identify.
“Well now, if that’s not enough incentive, this job puts you squarely in control of the booze. If any of the club girls give you a hard time, you can just refuse to serve them. Most of them would fuckin’ wither away and die if they didn’t have a steady amount of alcohol in their system.”
She gave me a faint smile. Then her hand immediately went up to tenderly touch the side of her lip that was split. I hated that smiling at my stupid joke caused her pain.
She mumbled, “They’d probably just help themselves.”
I shook my head vehemently. “They wouldn’t dare. Club girls or prospects helping themselves to alcohol is an instant permaban. Nobody here touches the alcohol unless the bartender serves it. Everyone knows how that works.”
She absorbed that little nugget of information as her hand came down from her lip.
“It’s steady work,” I added. “The pay is decent.”
“How decent?” she asked cautiously.
“It’s about twice minimum wage.”
She froze with her fork halfway to her mouth. Her eyes searched mine.
“Is this a real offer?” she asked. “You’re not just playing around with me, right?”
Her voice held fragile hope under the suspicion she was trying to mask. This woman didn’t trust easily for good reason.
“It’s real,” I assured her. “We need a bartender and you need a job. It’s as simple as that. You’d get paid the same as anyone else.”
She stared at me another second, trying to decide if I was lying to her. I didn’t rush her because part of taking back control of her life was making decisions for herself.
A shadow fell across the table. We looked up to see Celt standing there.
His expression looked a bit conspiratorial.
I hoped that meant he was here to help me support her.
If I was being honest, I’d always looked up to Celt.
Even though he was a bit hot headed, he was the club officer I saw eye to eye with most often.
“I had a chin wag with Ace,” he said, his accent curling around the words. “He and Cassandra are on their way to have a look at yer lassie.”
Winter stiffened immediately, her eyes jumping from me to him and back again.
Celt added, “I thought it best to have yer girl looked over. She’s been through feckin’ hell and back the last few days.”
I leaned forward slightly and touched her hand to keep her from panicking. “Cassandra is Ace’s old lady. She’s also a doctor who runs a women’s clinic here in Griffinsford. We just want to make sure you’re alright after Viper had his hand on you.”
Relief flooded her face.
“I don’t want any men in the room,” she said tightly.
“They won’t be,” I assured her. “Ace is her husband, not her nurse.”
Winter nodded slowly. “I guess it can’t hurt to be seen by a doctor.”
Celt told me, “I also spoke with Storm. If she wants the bar job, it’s hers. He said Rosie can stay for a few days and train her.”