Chapter 15
Tessa
The atmosphere in the bar changes instantly when all the club brothers go into the back where Jasper and the other club officers were meeting. One minute, they are here, partying their asses off, and the next they’re all gone, leaving the club girls to their own devices.
The bar doesn’t go silent, because the girls see this as an opportunity to use the bar for a girls-only party. If anything, it gets louder. They crank up the jukebox, start talking loudly, and someone jumps up on a table to dance.
I sit a little straighter on my stool, nursing the soda Jasper got me. The ice has mostly melted, and it’s pretty flat.
Two of the club girls strut behind the bar like they own it. They giggle, pour themselves drinks, and clink glasses loud enough to draw eyes. Nobody stops them because no one is watching the bar. One of them reaches for the top shelf, like the most expensive liquor in the house is theirs to drink.
Then a door creaks open behind me, and a prospect appears. He takes one look behind the bar and his face hardens.
“You know better than to serve yourselves,” he barks. “Silver,” he calls out. “You’re supposed to be on bar duty, not drinking on the floor with your friends.”
She just laughs and begins taking all the brothers’ leftover drinks and tipping them into her mouth. The others laugh at her shenanigans. I feel like I’m trapped with a bunch of adolescents.
The girls behind the bar rush back out to the floor, and sulk.
One mutters something under her breath as she swings around the end of the counter.
He watches them until they disappear into the hallway, then glances at me like he’s trying to decide if I’m part of the problem.
I’m not, but then again, I don’t think I’m part of the solution either.
He doesn’t say anything. He just nods to me and turns away to stock the liquor he just carried in. I return to my drink, wishing I had someone to talk to. That’s when I notice Silver watching me.
She goes from leaning against the wall, arms crossed, to shooting me an evil glare in no time. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her push herself off the wall and stride straight towards me.
She slides onto the stool next to mine without asking. If I had somewhere else to go then I’d be out of the door in a flash, but as it is, I need to wait for Jasper to return.
“I thought you left,” she says, voice light, but her mouth doesn’t smile.
I glance sideways. “I don’t know what made you think that.”
She taps one glitter-dipped nail on the bar. “Strange that he abandoned you here at the bar. Jasper doesn’t usually leave his little outsider treats sitting alone. Usually fucks them and throws them out so none of the other brothers can get sloppy seconds.”
I don’t answer. There’s no reason to engage with her. I know Jasper may have slept with a club girl or two, but the nasty things she’s saying about him don’t ring true.
She leans in, her elbow brushing mine. Her voice is just loud enough so that I can’t tune her out.
“He’s got a type when it comes to the girls from outside.
He likes them plain, simple, and willing to settle for crumbs of attention.
They all think he’s different because he pulls out chairs and remembers their names. ”
I turn my body towards her, slowly. She smiles again, but it still doesn’t reach her eyes.
“We’ve been together for years. Every time I throw him out of my bed he rages at me, doles out punishments he doesn’t enforce, and then comes crawling back to me because I’m the only one who can give him what he really wants.”
“One, you act like that’s something to be proud of. And second, you’re lying,” I tell her in a polite tone.
“Oh, honey,” she purrs, “I’m trying to do you a favor here. Trying to save you some heartache.”
She blinks once, then her voice hardens. “Don’t call me a liar. You don’t know him like I do. We’ve got history. And now that he’s sliding into that big seat his daddy’s warming up for him?” Her eyes flash with greed. “I’ve got a future too.”
And there it is. She’s finally telling the truth. Silver doesn’t want Jasper. She wants the president’s patch that he’ll soon be wearing. She wants the status of being his old lady, the illusion of power without the work behind it.
“You think he’s yours,” I say flatly.
“I know what’s mine,” she snaps, voice sharper now.
I grip the glass in front of me, pulse ticking in my neck. She has no idea the man she’s circling belongs to something bigger now.
“You don’t know what you’ve walked into,” Silver says. “This club, these men? They don’t protect softness. They use it.”
Her voice slides lower, into something that feels rehearsed and raw at the same time. “You think walking around on his arm means he cares about you? I’ve been on his arm as well, for years in fact. He always comes back to me in the end.”
“You should sit somewhere else,” I say, voice low. I know for a fact she’s lying about being with him for years, but I learned you don’t mess with women like Silver. Not unless you’re willing to go all the way.
“Or what?”
“I’m just asking you politely to sit somewhere else,” I say.
Her mouth opens, ready to snap again.
When a stern voice calls out, “Silver.”
We both turn to find Queenie standing halfway down the stairs, a drink in her hand, her face contorted in anger.
Silver freezes in place for a second and then turns, like she already knows the hammer’s about to drop.
Queenie stands near the base of the stairs in the same dark jeans and a black t-shirt she wore to dinner.
Her lowball glass catches the light, the amber liquid inside still sloshing around in glass.
She’s not shouting. She doesn’t have to.
She might not be a tall woman, but what she lacks in size she makes up for in presence.
When Silver doesn’t answer immediately, she calls her name again. “Silver,” her voice even. It’s somehow worse than yelling.
Silver shifts her weight, running her hands down her hips in a vain effort to smooth out her wrinkled clothing. She stammers, “I didn’t know who she was,” she says quickly. “I wasn’t being rude.”
“Didn’t know?” Queenie cuts in, starting her slow walk across the bar.
Silver cringes a little more with every step the older woman takes towards her.
“You mean to tell me you stood here in my bar, flapping your mouth like you own the place, and you didn’t know the woman you were threatening is carrying my grandchild? ”
Silver stiffens. She opens her mouth again, but Queenie doesn’t give her time to speak.
“Jasper told me what happened earlier with the prospects. I thought you moved past playing mind games. Guess I was mistaken. You were put on a warning. That means you don’t speak unless you’re spoken to.
You don’t flirt, you don’t linger, you don’t drink or enjoy the company of any of the brothers.
And you sure as hell don’t run your mouth to my son’s woman. ”
“She’s not…” Silver starts, but that earns her a sharp look that shuts her up mid-word.
“You think I give a damn what your opinion is?” Queenie says, stepping toe-to-toe with her now.
“You’re lucky you’re still breathing after what you pulled at your former clubhouse, your actions nearly killed my granddaughter.
I took your sorry ass in. I gave you shelter, rules, a year of clean living. And this is how you repay me?”
Silver’s gaze drops to the floor.
“I’ve got half a mind to kick you out tonight,” Queenie says.
“But I won’t because I believe that deep down inside there’s something worth saving in you.
But you will stay on a warning until I say otherwise.
And if I hear one more word about you touching a drink, bothering a brother, or opening your mouth where it doesn’t belong, I’ll make you wish you’d stayed in with your former club.
Am I making myself abundantly clear? You abide by my rules, or you go. ”
Silver’s lower lip trembles, but she nods and backs away, her posture stiff, her mouth clamped shut.
Queenie turns to me, calm like nothing happened. “Sorry about that. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, though I feel the words I really want to say are just the opposite. “Thank you, for showing up.”
Queenie nods once and moves to the stool Silver vacated, lowering herself onto it.
She sets her glass on the table. “Well. That was long overdue.”
She takes a sip of her drink, but the tension rolls off her.
I reposition myself on the stool, hands still curled around my glass of soda. After this latest round of what the hell with Silver, I’m growing more aware of what lines exist here, and who’s willing to draw blood to protect them.
She asks, “You want another drink?”
“I don’t drink,” I say after a second, lifting my glass in explanation.
Queenie raises her brows. “I wasn’t gonna get you a whiskey on the rocks, honey. Figured you might want something that isn’t half melted ice.”
I genuinely like Queenie. She’s good people.
Her whole family is. “This is fine. To be honest my taste is all off with the pregnancy, so watered down soda is good,” I take a mouthful and turn to her.
“Thanks for the offer. Thanks for everything, it’s all new being here. I hope to follow your good example.”
“You did good standing up to Silver,” she tells me. “You didn’t stoop to her level. You even let her show her ass first.”
“It wasn’t easy,” I admit quietly.
“Nothing worth doing ever is,” she replies. She lifts her glass and clinks it softly against mine. “To women who try to do the right thing,” she says.
I nod and raise mine back. “And the women who show them the way.”
Queenie doesn’t rush the conversation. She drinks like a woman who’s not in a hurry to finish her glass or her thoughts. You can tell she truly is Rock’s club queen.
I can’t help but ask, “I didn’t think women got club names. Do you mind if I ask how you came about getting yours?”