Chapter Four
Dancing with Razor was a lot of fun. Eden loved every second of it, and when Maeve finally showed up, she seemed to have found someone to dance with.
They had a couple more beers, and Razor didn’t leave, so Eden danced with him some more.
They danced to slow songs, fast songs, and even the ones that seemed a little too intense.
She felt so alive, being close to him. No one had ever made her feel this way.
Razor was intense, but it was what she needed.
She stared into his eyes and didn’t want to stop.
After being at the bar for close to two hours, Mac finally realized she existed, as he suddenly appeared at the bar behind her while she was talking with Razor.
“This is a surprise to see you here,” Mac said.
Eden took a sip of her beer. Her sister was off dancing with some other guy, giving her a little space with Razor.
It had been a year since she last spoke to Mac.
He’d stopped by the house, and she’d been tossing out his clothes, telling him to leave.
Even threatening to set his stuff on fire.
He’d lied to her from the start. She thought they were going somewhere, and it had all been a lie.
She couldn’t believe what a fool she’d been.
“Go away,” she said.
“Dammit, Eden, you look really pretty tonight.”
“Mac, you heard the lady, go away,” Razor said.
“Shit For Brains,” Maeve said, suddenly arriving beside Eden. “Fuck off, and you stay the fuck away from my sister. I’m sure Hilary is available, but last I heard, she was enjoying a lot of men in town. You might want to get yourself checked. I heard a lot of dicks have got the itch.”
Eden knew she could count on Maeve.
She looked at Mac and felt nothing, which surprised her. She was going to lose her virginity to him. At one point, she truly thought she was falling in love with him, and that was all a lie. He was not the man she thought him to be.
“Fuck this shit,” Mac said, and suddenly turned on his heel and left.
She turned back to Razor as Maeve grabbed her shoulders and gave them a squeeze. “Are you all right?” Maeve asked.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
“Cool. I’m going back to dancing.” Maeve kissed her cheek and went to dance.
She couldn’t help but laugh at her sister’s antics. She was always so carefree and so ... able to live in the moment.
“Are you really all right?” Razor asked.
She took a sip of her beer. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“Do you still have feelings for Mac?”
“No,” Eden said. “I think it was easy to stop having feelings when I was trapped in a bathroom for close to an hour while he had sex with my best friend. Speaking of which, I don’t even talk to Hilary anymore.”
“She doesn’t come around to the club anymore either.”
“You’ve not seen her?”
“Nope. None of the guys want anything to do with her. It probably didn’t help that half the guys got an infection, and they had all ... tapped that.”
Eden’s eyes went wide. She truly couldn’t believe that happened. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. It pissed Doc off, and a lot of the guys were also mega pissed. It was not a good few days. Go on, you can laugh.”
“I don’t want to laugh.”
Razor laughed.
“Is it wrong I want to ask if you had to get tested?” Eden asked.
He chuckled. “Not at all, and no, I didn’t have to get tested.”
“So, you’re not here with anyone, are you?” She frowned. “I know this is crazy to ask you now, when I’ve spent most of the night dancing with you.” She couldn’t help but glance around the room, hoping not to find another woman glaring at her.
“Babe, I wouldn’t come to the bar with one woman and dance with another.”
“You wouldn’t?” Eden asked.
“Fuck, no, that shit stinks of disrespect, and I don’t disrespect my woman. Not ever.”
“I think I’m going to like you, Razor.” She held her bottle up to his, and they clinked.
“He did that to you, didn’t he?” Razor asked, after a couple of seconds.
She pursed her lips, then licked them after taking a final swig of her beer. It was kind of mortifying. “Yeah, he did.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“And I didn’t even have a clue he was cheating with her.
It was at this bar. He rarely brought me here, but as we were waiting for our food order, a woman approached, I didn’t quite hear what she said, and he said he was just going to dance.
” She shrugged. “I wasn’t feeling well, which is why I didn’t want to dance.
I felt kind of guilty because a lot of people were dancing, and I don’t know, I thought that is what partners did—let your other partner have fun. ”
“Fucker. No, what you do in that situation, Eden, is you stay home. You make chicken soup, and you watch a movie, or you just give her a chance to recover and do all the shit you need to make sure you’re okay.
You don’t go dancing. You don’t go out. You certainly don’t go dancing with another woman. ”
He was saying so many good things, but it didn’t help. There was a lot of red flags when it came to her past relationship with Mac, which was scary.
By the end of the night, Maeve was ready to go home, and it was close to midnight. Eden walked out toward the car, and Razor surprised her by walking them both back to the car.
Maeve was on a dance high but not drunk. Other than the one bottle at the beginning of the night, Eden had drunk orange juice and had even asked the barman to get her a coffee, to make sure the alcohol was completely out of her system. She had that beer nearly five hours before.
Maeve climbed into the car, and Eden stopped and turned to Razor. “I had a lot of fun tonight.”
“You did?” he asked.
“Yeah, you’re a great dancer.”
“That is because I had a great partner.”
Eden laughed. “I’ll see you.”
She opened the driver’s side of the car, just as Razor called her name.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“If I decide to call you, would that be all right?” he asked.
She couldn’t keep the smile from her face. “Yeah, I think that would be more than all right.”
With that, she got into the car, slamming the door closed, and fastening her seat belt.
“More than all right?” Maeve asked and let out a little whistle. “Girlfriend, you have got it bad.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You and Razor, you guys have been like that.” She held up her hand and linked two fingers together.
“We have not.”
“I kid you not. He could not take his eyes from you, and he has not left your side.” She let out a little whistle. “He’s well and truly smitten. He wants a piece of you.”
“Stop it, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Maeve snorted. “Please, I know guys, and I have seen them in action, and Razor is looking for a piece of you.”
“I don’t think that is a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Mac!”
Maeve blew a raspberry. “Forget about him. That guy is an asshole, and you have not exactly used him as a kind of judgment pole for the way you deal with guys at the club.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t think I know about the birthday cakes, or the chicken soups, or you sending wellness baskets?” Maeve said.
“I’m being polite.”
“And you don’t think about Mac and all that shit when you do it? You don’t need to think about it now. Enough time has passed. You’re free to make your own choices, and if you want a thing with Razor, go for it!”
“You know, I never slept with Mac,” she said.
“See, that means you and Mac were not that serious. Sex makes things serious, and trust me, you were not there.”
Eden had a feeling her sister was just trying to make it better. However, there was no way she was going to just fall for Razor because he had shown her a little attention.
****
Razor parked his bike and marveled at the sun beaming down.
It was unseasonably warm for February. In the months leading up to Christmas, it had been unseasonably cold.
It was like the weather didn’t know what the fuck it was doing.
A bunch of kids laughing caught his attention and for a second, he watched as they played on their bikes.
It was refreshing to see kids playing outside instead of on their cell phones.
Fresh air was the real joy of being a kid and exploring adventure. The kids had made a small ramp, nothing too dangerous, and Razor spotted several parents standing at their windows, drinking from large mugs but keeping an eye on their kids.
It was a good neighborhood where Eden lived, nothing like the shithole he experienced, living in the poorest part of the city in a large building filled with many different apartments.
By the time he was ten years old, he’d seen a lot of people get killed, and some kill themselves as they shot up with shit in their veins.
It was not a good place to live. His mother had been a whore, with a swinging door of men to be used by, just so she could get her next high.
Eden was like a breath of fresh air from the past he knew.
Unlike his brother, he didn’t go down the path of drugs and alcohol. He went the other way, fighting for survival, wanting out of the shithole that was home. Joining the Chaos Monsters MC had been a lifeline to him.
Even though they distributed in the city, Doc had a strict policy of not taking that shit.
He didn’t want any addicts in the club. They were weak when it came to that shit.
Their loyalty was always tested, and they always fucking failed.
Anyone caught using was cut from the club.
It was a harsh rule, and they lost some brothers, but unfortunately, he got it.
There was no room to risk it in the club life.
Pulling his attention from the kids, he made his way toward the front door and knocked. He saw Eden’s car still in the driveway, but it was the only one there. Seconds passed, then minutes, before Eden opened the front door.
“Razor, hi, good morning,” she said.