Behind the bar was another man with dark, messy hair, a mustache over his lip that also grew down the sides. A patch at the indent in the middle of his lower lip. An adorable baby younger than Travis tucked securely in the curve of his arm, an arm that was decorated in tattoos of dancing flames. And finally, an elegant, tall, stunningly beautiful brunette in the curve of his other arm (which also had flames).
Last, sitting beside the redhead was a black lady in a dress I might sell a kidney for if it was my style (it wasn’t, it was chic, cutting-edge, and sophisticated, I was flirty, ruffles, and sometimes flowers, definitely butterflies, none of this I knew in a glance she’d ever wear, even upon threat of death). Her hair was coiffed to perfection. Her eyes were sharp in a way she could never play dumb and get away with it.
Those eyes, as were all the others, were on me.
And the remains of their fast food lunch was all over the bar.
“Hey!” I called and took several more steps in.
The men’s eyes dropped instantly to my skirt.
The women’s eyes moved directly to each other.
“I’m looking for Joker,” I informed them.
The women’s eyes instantly swiveled back to me.
“Say what?” the black lady asked, sounding like she was choking.
“Um… Joker.” I lifted up my pie. “He helped me out a couple of days ago. I wasn’t in the position to say a proper thank-you then. So I popped by to say it now.”
The second I was done talking, I jumped when the goatee guy turned his head to the side and roared, “Joker!”
“Holy crap,” the redhead breathed.
“This… is… awesome,” the brunette whispered.
“Girl, get your butterfly ass over here,” the black lady ordered. “I need to get a better look.”
Disregarding this order, sensing his movement, my eyes skidded to the mustachioed man to see his head dropped. He was looking to his feet, but his shoulders were shaking.
The baby in his arm gurgled.
The door behind me opened. I turned to it and saw lanky guy entering.
He looked right to the bar. “Couldn’t miss this.”
With a deep biker voice (that was not as attractive as Joker’s, but it was still attractive), that voice shaking like his shoulders, the mustachioed man replied, “Bet not.”
I was confused.
“Sister,” the black lady started and I looked to her. “I see either Joker didn’t communicate the dress code to you or, better option, you chose to ignore it, struttin’ your butterfly ass in here not wearin’ a halter top and daisy dukes.” She tipped her head to me. “Kudos to you. Be who you are. Bikers be damned.”
The redhead and brunette started giggling.
I was still confused. More so now since there were three women among me and none of them were in halter tops and daisy dukes.
“Sorry?” I asked.
“Joker!” the goateed man roared again.
I jumped again.
“What?”
This came barked from the back of the big room, and my eyes flew there to see Joker striding out of a door that appeared to lead to a hall. He did this looking irate.
He also did this looking like a tall, dark, bearded, broad-shouldered, sinister biker.
And I liked the latter.
A whole lot.
My legs started shaking.
“Company,” a gravelly voice declared.
Joker looked to me.
I nearly dropped the pie.
I held on and called a chirpy, “Hey!”
He kept striding in, his eyes glancing toward the bar then back to me. He stopped five feet away.
“I came in to, uh… take care of my tire like you said I should and I made you this.” I extended the pie to him, both hands still under it, a smile I knew was tentative on my face. “To say thanks.”
He looked to the pie. His expression said nothing.
But I was watching him looking at the pie and I again got that feeling I knew him, and not just because two days ago he changed my tire.
It was a weird feeling. A feeling that felt like it was rattling my memory banks.
But it was also tugging at my heartstrings.
I no longer could concentrate on that feeling, or get a lock on why I was certain I knew him, when he stopped looking at the pie and came to me, took the pie, walked to the bar, dumped the dish on it with no ado whatsoever and looked beyond me, to lanky guy.
“They dealin’ with her ride?” he asked.
“Got on it immediately,” lanky guy replied.
“Right.” Joker turned his attention to me. “They’ll sort you out.”
“I… um. Okay,” I replied.
“Pie’s nice,” he went on. “Brothers’ll like it.”
The brothers will like it?
Wasn’t he going to have any?
Maybe he didn’t like pie.
Darn it!
My phone started ringing in my purse when I said. “Well, that’s good. But—”
“ ’Preciate you comin’ by,” he cut me off to say. Then he looked to the bar. “Got shit to do.”
I was struggling with my bag on my arm to get to my phone. I was doing this feeling a variety of things. All of them bad.
“Good to see you again, uh…” he trailed off just as my hand closed around my phone and my head jerked up when he did.
“Carissa,” I whispered.
“Yeah, good to see you. Take care,” he returned.
He’d forgotten my name.
That hurt.
It really hurt.
But…
Why?
To hide it, I looked to my phone as I heard a gravelly, “Joker.”
But I wasn’t listening because the caller was Tory.
Aaron had long since delegated communication about most everything to his fiancée. That most everything was always Travis, since that was now all Aaron and I had to talk about.
This was mean. It was also awful. And last, it was very much Aaron.
I hated it.
It wasn’t nice, but I also hated her. She stole my husband. She got to spend every week with him and every other one living my dream, being a family with my baby. She drove a sporty Mercedes Aaron bought for her and was regularly in ads in the paper for local department stores or on TV commercials for local furniture stores, sitting in loungers and on couches, her long, thin legs always bare and stretched out.
She was beautiful. She had glossy dark brown hair that I suspected was glossy without product, which was irritating. She was taller than me by probably five inches. She had a natural grace. And even though I was not even close to over the hill, heck, I couldn’t even see the hill, she was almost four years younger than me in a way that made me feel fifty years older than her.
Obviously, for these reasons and about a thousand others besides, I didn’t want to take her call.