She looked just as good as ever. What she didn’t look, in her designer jeans, complicated designer blouse, seven hundred dollar shoes and two hundred dollar haircut, was like she belonged in a biker bar.
I, on the other hand, was wearing a Harley t-shirt that Deke brought back for me from Sturgis. It fit snug, was pale blush and super cool with Harley Davidson written in burgundy and silver on the front with a pair of wide silver and burgundy wings on the back. I was also wearing jeans (that were designer) and silver strappy sandals that didn’t cost seven hundred dollars, not even close, but they were hot. My hair was down, I’d just had it touched up by Dominic (at the same time I gently forced Sunny out of her house and into the salon so Dom could work his magic on Sunny too, and he did, and even she liked the result) and I’d let it dry somewhat wild because Tate liked it that way.
Hayley looked like an upper, middleclass suburban housewife who had a personal trainer and a standing appointment for monthly visits to the salon.
I looked like a biker babe.
And she’d just seen me kissing the beautiful, badass Tatum Jackson. I knew it by the astonished, yet envious look on her face. A look that I suspected I sported the first time I saw him with Neeta.
This was why I smiled.
“Hayley, girl, what’re you doin’ here?” I asked, loud and friendly, didn’t wait for an answer and turned to Tate. “Honey, this is Hayley. You know, the woman who pretended to be my friend while she fucked my husband, Brad?”
Tate, standing again with arms wide, fists to the bar, tried not to smile, failed when his lips twitched up and then he muttered in his rough, sexy voice, “Yeah, babe, I know who Hayley is.”
I turned back to Hayley to see she was staring at Tate, her eyes wide, shocked and openly covetous, her lips were parted and her face pale.
“Come on, I owe you a drink,” I announced, moving to her and shuffling her toward the bar as I saw Jim-Billy, Nadine, Steg and Wings all watching, all smiling and I helped Hayley onto a stool then I turned to Tate, “Honey, can you get Hayley a martini?”
“No,” Tate replied.
“Oh,” I said then turned to Hayley, “We don’t do sissy-ass drinks here. Will you drink vodka straight?”
She blinked up at me then she blinked up at Tate, what she didn’t do was answer.
“Maybe we’ll start you with a diet pop,” I suggested.
“I… you…” she struggled then said, “why do you owe me a drink?”
I leaned back, crossed my arms on my chest and grinned. “To thank you because you freed me from Brad.”
“What?” she whispered.
“You freed me from Brad so I could get out of that hellhole of a life and that cesspit that was Horizon Summit and find Carnal and Tate.” I uncrossed an arm and motioned to Tate, leaning forward and informing her conspiratorially, “He’s my old man.”
“Your old man?” she asked.
“Biker slang for he’s my um… man,” I explained. “We’re together.”
Her eyes went back to Tate and she observed, “He isn’t much like Brad.”
“Thank fuck,” Tate muttered and I swallowed a giggle.
Then I asked, “Tate, honey, would you get Hayley here a diet and I’ll go serve those Buds.” I looked back at Hayley. “I have to serve a few beers. Be right back.”
Tate popped the caps of three Buds, I rushed them to the customers, they paid, tipped big and then I rushed back to see that Tate had served Hayley a diet and was leaning with his hips against the back of the bar, arms crossed on his chest, watching me. I also saw that Jim-Billy, Nadine, Steg and Wings had moved down to stools closer to Hayley and she was eyeing them and Tate uncertainly.
I slid on a stool beside her and asked, “So, what’re you doing here?”
She looked at me. “I… erm…”
“Yeah?” I prompted.
“I heard Brad’s here,” she answered quickly. “Hasn’t he been in?”
At her words, Tate pushed away from the back of the bar and got close, saying in an unhappy growl, “You are fuckin’ shittin’ me.”
Hayley swallowed as she stared up at Tate then she looked at Jim-Billy, Nadine, Steg and Wings then her head turned so swiftly to me I was certain she had to have wrenched her neck.
“They say he’s in town. He wants you back. So much, he won’t take me back,” she said quietly, like this was unfathomable, like someone was trying to convince her the sky was fuchsia.
“Take you back?” I asked.
“Nathan left me,” she whispered.
“Went back to his wife you mean,” I suggested and she swallowed again which I decided to take as an affirmative.
“Ace,” Tate called and I looked at him. “Tell this one,” he jerked his head to Hayley, “to call that fuckwad and tell him, he doesn’t want to know what assault actually is, I don’t see his ass in my bar.”
I nodded, looked at Hayley and advised soberly, “You should do that, call Brad.”
Hayley’s eyes were wide. “You mean he’d assault Brad?”
“Probably,” I replied. “Actually, I’m not sure but I wouldn’t test him.”