CHAPTER 1
Not tonight.
I don’t need this shit tonight.
What started out as a slow afternoon was quickly turning into a wild night at The Skull. In just five hours, I’d already yelled for the bouncers to break up three bar fights between drunken asshats fighting over purely senseless shit. I was losing my damn mind and voice.
Unlike most evenings when I work through the chaos with polished grace, tonight’s serving of ridiculous crap was working my patience in a royal way.
Thanks to the current state of my personal life I didn’t have the tolerance to deal with the bull that came with my bartending gig.
Luckily though, I knew how to use the pistol stashed below the counter.
Special announcement dicks: I’m not afraid to pull the bitch out.
A low-key evening to help me get away from all the bullshit happening at home was all I asked. That’s what everyone was going to give me, whether they liked it or not.
I’d worked at The Skull for a little over two years. It was the only place willing to hire someone without work experience and the owner didn't give a damn about my age. I was now a nineteen-year-old, slinging beer and whiskey in a biker bar to save up money to fund my own dream.
What was my dream?
I was going to be a badass biker street wear boutique owner.
I was determined.
I was driven.
Mostly, I was hungry.
To say that I’d grown up in an unstable household would have been an understatement. I had to make my own way through life ever since I could remember. My passion for clothing design gave me a break from Emma’s screwed up world, and into a fantasy of leather and lace.
I was raised around bikes and bikers my whole life, and drawn to the unique style. It wasn’t for everyone, but it sure as hell was for me. I lived for the daisy dukes, the tattoos, and the motorcycle memorabilia that came with the lifestyle. It was a world that brought me comfort, and a fashion sense that allowed me to be myself, without limits or boundaries. It was an attitude I rocked, a moral code I lived by, and now I wanted to make it my contribution to the world.
I wanted to have a clothing store as well as a patch shop, where I could take in people's leather and lace and bring it to life. I wanted to reach out to a community I admired, and offer quality clothing at an affordable price. These were my people and I wanted to cater to them. Where most people were put off by the biker life, I was exhilarated by it.
There were just two things stopping me: lack of money and those damn demons in my head telling me how much of a fool I was for trying to amount to anything.
Screw you, demons! I’ll show you.
So I had to stick it out at this dingy bar long enough to save up the money I needed.
“Emma! Throw me a drink!”
Rolling my eyes, I bent down beneath the bar and grabbed a beer. My mother was here, and not for the chance to visit her daughter at work, or to commend her for working her ass off to make ends meet. No, my mom had other things to worry about, like the young men at the bar. Gross, I know.
I was over my mother’s cougar ways. She was a forty-something-year-old woman trying to lure in twenty-something-year-old boys who had hard-ons for easy women in leather. She came in here wanting free drinks because her daughter worked behind the damn bar, and if I didn’t get her free drinks, then I conveniently found myself locked out of the fucking house.
“I’ll put it on your tab!” I said as I slid the beer down to her.
But all she did was laugh, like I had cracked a funny joke.
She was already talking with a poor young soul who didn't even look old enough to be in the bar in the first place. She was smiling and leaning on his shoulder, as he settled his hands on her hips. It was disgusting. The woman had no business preying on young men the way she did. She was desperate, and she was drama, and she was the reason why I took all the hours at the bar – that plus my goal to start my shop.
There were days when I never even slept. I would volunteer to come in during the morning hours to clean and set up. Then I would bartend all through the night. It would get me out of the house, earn me extra cash, and get me closer to finally moving myself out of the hell hole I was living in. If things went my way, then I would purchase a building that had a secondary loft over it, and I could live right above my business. It was my dream, and thanks to years of saving up I was so close I could taste it.
“Gimme a shot!”
I panned my gaze up and saw my mother sitting on a stool in front of me. She was back for more liquor.
“You got any cash?” I asked.
“You know the drill, sweetheart. Put it on my tab,” she said with a wink.
I wasn’t ready to fight with my mother tonight. I had already worked that morning, and I needed a place to sleep tonight, so I poured her a shot for free.
“Come on. You can do better than that. I know my only child won’t just leave me hanging” she said.
One shot became two, and two became four. I could see my manager already giving me looks, so I made it seem as if I was actually putting it on her tab. I went over to the register and punched it in, sighing as I looked at the total. My mother had already racked up close to thirty dollars in drinks I knew she wouldn’t pay for, and if I wasn’t careful, that bill would come out of my paycheck.
She tossed it back and swallowed it down. I saw her eyes scanning the crowd, probably looking for that hot piece of young ass she had her hands on earlier. He was standing in the corner with some other woman, and I saw the fire in my mom’s eyes flare up. This poor boy had no idea whose attention he had attracted, and I found myself watching as my mother drunkenly stumbled over to him.
But my entertainment was interrupted by a voice I wanted to hear.
“Mom at it again?” Lindy asked.
“Sweet fuck, I didn’t know you were working tonight.”
I threw my arms around my best friend before drinks started being called out for us to make.
“Mackie called in sick, so here I am. And not a moment too soon, I see.”
Her eyes were looking over at my mother who had slipped herself between the young girl and the guy who had his hands on her earlier.
“That poor boy doesn’t know what he’s in for,” I said.
“Maybe she won’t cause a scene tonight,” Lindy said.
“My mother causes a scene every fucking night,” I said as I started grabbing drinks. “It’s just what happens.”
“So! Where are we with our clothing store bank account?” Lindy asked, trying to steer my mind away from my mother and her drama.
“Once you make your deposit for the month, we can start looking around for shops to buy.”
“Are you fucking serious?” she asked. “We’re there? Finally?”
“Yep. Checked the account yesterday when I made a deposit. Between the two of us, we’ve raised one hundred and thirty thousand dollars.”
“Once I make my deposit,” she said.
“Yep. Once you do that,” I said, grinning.
Lindy was going in with me on the clothing store. We were best friends since we were in middle school. At the bar, she was another under-aged girl who looked decent in a tight leather top and short-shorts, which meant she would rake in tips as well as men who would come to drink our disgusting concoctions. She loved the idea of an affordable biker-wear store, especially since leather jackets and the lace-up shoes were always so damn expensive everywhere.
The two of us had worked our asses off to save up the money we had. We never splurged on ourselves, and never spent a penny that didn’t need spending. We didn’t have credit cards, and we drove piece of shit cars that barely got us to and from our jobs. That’s the only way we’d been able to save up so much money in only two years. Well, that, and the money Lindy always seemed to accumulate from her various boyfriends over the years. She was a trooper.
Lindy was also the girl who could fix anything, from busted up laces and beat-up motorcycle helmets, all the way to motorcycles themselves. If it was in the biker world, she could fix it. I wanted her not only as someone I could trust to help run the place but as someone who could help open the patch shop I would eventually implement.
“You girls still talkin’ about that stupid shop?”
And my mother was back.
“Hello, Gracie,” Lindy said.
“Your top’s too tight,” my mother said.
“No luck with the guy in the corner?” I asked.
“Cock’s too small.”
“Fuck, Mom. Seriously?” I asked.
“You fucking asked. Keep your mouth shut if you don’t wanna know.”
“And yes, we were talking about the shop,” Lindy said.
“It’s a stupid idea. It’ll never work,” my mother said.
“We’ve already saved up—.”
“Lindy. No,” I said, shaking my head.
“Saved up what?” my mother asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“You’re living in my house and under my roof. You’re supposed to be helping me with bills,” my mother said.
“And I do. I pay the electric bill, the water bill, and I stock the fridge. Plus, you drink for free. Whatever I do with my money outside of that isn’t your damn business.”
I pulled another shot glass from beneath the counter and poured her a shot. She threw it back, and I promptly refilled it as Lindy’s eyes grew wide.
“How much has she had already?” she asked.
“Not fucking enough,” I said.
“Okay,” my mother said breathlessly. “Let’s go see if his cock grew a bit.”
“I don’t think you understand how alcohol works,” I said.
“How do I look, Emma?” My mother gave me a drunken twirl and landed flat on her ass. She was giggling and hiccupping as a few men began to gather around her. She looked up at them with this disgusting desire in her eyes, and I turned my back so I wouldn’t have to watch. They were ogling over her like she was in some porno, and I wasn’t going to watch my mother paint herself as that type of woman.
“You okay, Emma?” Lindy asked.
“Just let me know when she’s gone,” I said.
I hated it when my mother got this way. I hated it when she told me I would never amount to anything. Mostly, I hated it when I prayed that she would somehow transform to be a good mother when she was sober, only to be disappointed time and time again.
My mother was going to get herself into trouble one day, and she was going to end up coming to me for help. And now, she had an idea that I was stowing away money somewhere.
Which meant she was going to go looking for it.
My only hope was that that I had pumped her with enough alcohol to make her forget all about this conversation.
“Okay, everything’s good now, I think,” Lindy said.
“You think?” I asked.
“I mean, it depends on what ‘good’ is. She’s leaving.”
“Yep. That’s a good thing.” I turned around and saw my mother hanging off the guy who had his hands on her hips earlier. I had no idea where the younger girl was, and I didn't care. We had bouncers at this bar for a reason so, if something had happened, then they were on the case. All I knew was that I saw my mother—who was two shots away from throwing up her guts—shoving her hands down the pants of a boy who looked barely twenty-one years old.
“I gotta fucking get out of here,” I said.
“I can take your shift if you want,” Lindy said.
“No, no, I don’t just mean tonight. I need to get out of this bar period. Out of my mother’s house. I can’t fucking stand it anymore,” I said.
“Well, I’ll make my deposit in the morning, and then we can go shopping for a place to put a cash offer. We’ll find a place that has that loft or whatever you’re looking for, then we can start moving you in. It might not have electricity or running water, but it’ll be better than what you’re in now.”
“You’re damn right it will be,” I said.
“When’s your next day off?” she asked.
“I’ve got Sunday and Monday,” I said.
“Let’s shoot for Monday then? The deposit will have hit, and I can go with you. I don’t think I have Sunday off.”
“Monday, it is, then.”