Chapter 9
Dixie
I’ve been living in Penn’s guest room for a few months now, and I’m slowly beginning to feel like there’s permanence in my situation. Well, temporary permanence. It’s all just temporary, after all.
The bar is relatively quiet for a Thursday night, and the wind has picked up outside. Penn’s away on a run, and I worry about him on his bike in this wind. I’ve never been on a motorcycle before, but I can’t imagine inclement weather makes it easy to ride.
Before he left, he’d told me to stay put and let his brothers look out for me. Then he kissed my forehead like it was the most natural thing in the world. Something he does before leaving on every run, and I still don’t know what to think about it.
Even now, as I stand wiping the same spot on the counter that isn’t really that dirty, I feel the kiss on my forehead. His warm lips on my skin. The way his short beard felt brushing against my skin. The warm hand on the back of my head as he pulled us together.
It’s making me second-guess every single defense mechanism.
“You’re going to wear a hole through the counter if you keep that up,” Lainey says, leaning onto the counter with her elbows.
She stands there chewing gum in the way I hate. The way she knows I hate and still does it anyway. And it’s peppermint, not spearmint, which makes my stomach churn a bit.
There’s a knowing smirk that appears as she tracks my movements with her eyes. The sharp, knowing look she always gets when she thinks she’s figured someone out.
I stop, realizing I’m not really helping myself if I continue to do what she just called me out on. If anything, it gives her a reason to believe whatever crazy idea she already has. And considering she’s fucking the son of her father’s rival club, I’d say Lainey’s the craziest person alive.
“Just trying to keep busy. If I sit still for too long, my brain starts running laps.”
“Penn?”
“What?” I say, giving a very unconvincing laugh that even makes me cringe internally. “I’m pregnant, homeless, and a bartender. I have a thousand things on my mind at any given time.”
Smacking her gum, she narrows her eyes. “Yeah, okay. Sure.”
“Lainey, I’m serious.”
“He’s been gone thirty-six hours, and you already look like a ghost. It’s how you always look when he’s gone, by the way. That pining gaze.”
I feel a hot flush creep up my neck, and I turn my back to her, reaching for a new bottle of vodka to replace the nearly empty one under the bar. “I’m not pining. I’m pregnant, tired, and my house is a pile of ashes. I have more to worry about than a six-foot biker with too many tattoos.”
“Sure. Keep telling yourself that,” she says, smacking her gum again and making me want to smack her.
“You chew that gum like a cow, you know that, right?” I snap.
A wide smile appears, and it confirms my suspicion. She’s doing it on purpose. “If you say so.”
“I do. It’s really unattractive.”
“Let me tell you something about Penn Calloway.”
Shaking my head, I move to the other side of the bar. “No, thank you.”
Lainey walks around behind the bar and corners me by the register. “Dixie, listen to me. That man has a heart of gold that he keeps locked up in a vault. He’ll never admit it, but he’s been looking for someone to love for a long time.”
“Lainey—”
“He’s been hurt, Dixie,” she says.
There’s a serious tone that makes me stop fighting. I’ve assumed. And it would make sense that he always wants what he can’t have because it avoids being hurt.
Damn it. Now I want to know everything she knows.
“Hurt how, exactly?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I don’t know the specifics. All I know is that whatever happened fucked him up pretty good. He was never the biker type until his heart was shattered into a million pieces. I think he’s scared to trust someone enough to let them in.”
“He doesn’t seem like he struggles to trust.”
No, that’s me. That’s one hundred percent me.
“He hides it well beneath that cocky attitude of his. He’s got walls built so damn high, but by the way he looks at you, I think he’d be willing to dismantle them brick by brick.”
“Really?”
“Just make sure if he does, you’re not going to break his heart again. The next time he builds that wall up, it’s never coming back down. For anyone.”
My chest tightens with a strange mixture of warmth and terror. A broken man is a dangerous thing. They either cling to you like a lifeline, or they push you away the second you get too close. And I know all about broken. I see it on Mom’s face every time I visit her.
I don’t know if I have it in me to fix someone. Considering the state of the people in my life, I’m not sure I’m actually any good at it.
The heavy front door swings open, and the still-hot night air blows in with Zeppelin and Kannon. The two sent to watch over me.
They look big, dangerous, and completely at home in the Seven Crows bar. I was a bit intimidated at the thought of bikers being in the bar and having to serve them. Especially rival biker clubs, but they’re all really nice.
Except Butch. I don’t like anything about that man. Thankfully, he’s not in here often.
“Evening, ladies,” Zep says with a wide grin. “And Lainey.”
“Fuck you,” Lainey says, giving her sort-of stepbrother the bird.
“Love you, too.”
Kannon sits down beside Zep, and I pour him his usual whiskey without needing to ask.
Kannon always orders whiskey when he’s in the bar.
There are times I don’t understand how he could drive his motorcycle after downing nearly an entire bottle himself, but Nancy assures me he’s fine. To keep serving him.
“What can I get you, Zep? Beer? Whiskey?”
“Soda. I need to stay sober just in case the old lady goes into labor.”
I don’t know Misty well, but I know she’s got a high-risk pregnancy and is confined to bed rest. “Should you be home with her?”
“She told me, and I quote, ‘I’m annoyed by your breathing. You need to leave for a while.’ Such a beautiful confession of love, don’t you think?”
“I can about imagine how crazy she’s going,” I say, pouring him a soda and handing him the glass. “There’s only so much television you can watch.”
“Plus, Penn would skin us alive if we let anything happen to you because we were being sloppy.”
“I can take care of myself,” I say, my tone a bit harsher than I mean it. “But I appreciate the consideration.”
I wipe down the counter again, just to keep my hands moving. What I feel for Penn still isn’t clear to me yet, but I don’t need anyone thinking I’m some special pet project he has. Like taking the classroom pet home for the weekend, seeing if the kids will keep it alive or not.
Kannon lifts his glass to his nose and sniffs it before taking a sip like some whiskey connoisseur. Considering how much whiskey he drinks, some might think he is, but I’ve seen him drink an entire bottle of bottom-shelf whiskey, claiming the taste was no different.
It is different.
When he looks at me after finishing the glass and sliding it towards me for a refill, I notice how dark his eyes look in the dim light.
Not necessarily black but devoid of light.
Like he’s already dead inside, and a chill runs down my spine.
“You’re Penn’s girl now, Dixie. That makes you club business. We don’t let our own get hurt.”
Penn’s girl.
The title makes my heart flip in a weird erratic dance.
Unable to keep eye contact, I look down at my hands on the counter, and I stare at my left hand.
That special finger bare and completely devoid of the ring I was certain I’d be wearing by now.
The ring Stephen would give me to make an honest woman out of me because he’s old-fashioned that way.
I’m nobody’s girl. I’m just Dixie. A girl who made a series of bad choices throughout her life and had everything blow up in her face again after thinking she’d finally gotten settled. A girl trying to figure out how to survive the fallout.
Looking at Kannon again, I suddenly appreciate his intense presence because it gives me a boldness I didn’t have two seconds before. Or maybe I’m just desperate for answers to the questions that I haven’t bothered to ask Penn yet. “Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask. Don’t know if I’ll answer.”
A Daredevils standard answer, it seems. Leaning forward, I lower my voice enough to make sure Lainey doesn’t hear, even though she’s busy texting on her phone with Nancy gone on a bank run. “It’s about Penn.”
“I really might not answer then.”
At least he’s being honest. “He’s a biker. He has the look, the club, and the outlaw lifestyle. Which tends to come with breaking rules. All rules in many different facets.”
He narrows his eyes. “What’s the question exactly?”
“You guys own a brothel. When he’s there for business, does he ever stay for something more… personal?”
Zeppelin laughs out loud, startling me as he chokes on his soda. I didn’t realize he could hear me, and I try to force the flush of embarrassment down. “You don’t pull any punches, do you, Dixie? Just get right to the point.”
Kannon doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t even crack a smile. “No.”
“No, what?” I ask, my eyes locking onto his. “No, you aren’t going to tell me, or no, he doesn’t spend personal time with the girls?”
“No one sleeps with the girls there,” he says. “Club rules are simple. Members can’t sleep with the girls once they’re employed at Velvet Desire. The interview process… well, that’s different. But there’s no sampling the inventory.”
I raise an eyebrow. “And I’m supposed to believe a group of bikers follow the rules and don’t touch the beautiful women paid to please men?”
“Not just men,” Zep says with a nod of his head. “We have female clients, too.”
That was something I didn’t actually know. “Really? Good for them.”
“Yes, we follow that rule. If we didn’t, and we got caught, we’d be on our ass without our leather. That makes us easy targets for the Venom, and it’d be the last time we were ever seen,” Kannon says.
“There is an exception to the rule, but it’s a loophole made for only a couple of guys,” Zep says. “Kannon and Capone can fuck Queenie, but she’s not a working girl. She manages the girls. But Penn’s never been interested in the one-night thing. Or paying for it.”
I’d be lying if I said this didn’t intrigue me. A loophole? But only for two of the guys in the club? That seems a bit favorable, but it clearly doesn’t bother people.
And then I start to worry about what exactly this is between us. If it’s not casual, what is it? It’s not like I’m sleeping with him, but I’ve thought about it. Not just because I think I owe him but because I want to. Something I’d never want to do after what happened with Stephen.
“Is he only being this nice to me because I’m unattainable?” I ask, regretting it the moment it slips out.
It’s a thought that’s been clawing at the back of my mind. What if he only does this because he thinks we won’t ever be something, but then something happens? Will he suddenly lose interest? Will I find myself on the curb with nothing to my name because he bought everything I now own?
I seem safe. I’m carrying another man’s baby, and I’ve made it relatively clear that I’m not interested in him. Even if it’s a lie most of the time.
“Penn doesn’t play games, Dixie. If he’s in, he’s in.”
I look at Kannon because I trust he’ll tell me the truth. He doesn’t really seem to care about hurting people’s feelings if the facts hurt, and I respect that a lot more than most people. He says nothing, and I hate that I have to say it. “Kannon? What do you think?”
He rubs his bearded chin, and I force myself not to cringe at the scratching sound of his skin against the coarse hair. There are quite a few pregnancy side effects I never expected, and certain smells and sounds become like nails on a chalkboard for me.
But that? I can handle scratching on a chalkboard now. Go figure.
“I’ve never seen Penn in a relationship, but I’ve never seen him go through girls like some of the guys in the club have. And he definitely doesn’t bring women home to his house. If he’s going to spend a night or two with one, he uses the clubhouse. So that has to mean something.”
“Does he talk about girls? Maybe he does bring them home, and you just don’t realize?”
He shakes his head. “No, he’s not that type of guy. Honestly, if this was just because you’re unattainable, it would have to be the most exhausting show a man has ever put on. And he’s not that type of person.”
The little flutter of the baby kicking mixes with the butterflies of what Kannon’s said. This isn’t just because I’m unattainable. But he hasn’t made a move, either. Maybe he’s conflicted because I’m carrying another man’s baby. That can’t be easy to just overlook.
It’s also interesting that I’ve spent my life running from men who can’t keep promises, but Penn’s kept every one he’s made.
He’s ensured I’m safe and have people around me to help protect me.
The man’s willing to bleed for me if needed.
He always does what he says he’s going to do, and he hasn’t tried to leverage anything to get something more from me.
“Don’t overthink it, Dixie,” Zep says. “Penn’s a good man. The best of us, really. Just let him take care of you. He won’t let you down.”
And there’s the fear I’ve been fighting against my entire life. Is there a man out there who won’t let me down? Because I have yet to meet one.