Connor

 

I could feel the needles of the other bikers’ laughter stinging me for hours after the raven-haired witch had escaped. I wanted to rage and shout, but there was nothing to rage and shout at, so instead I silently got dressed, gathered my shit, and walked out the door.

 

The guys would forget about it quickly, I assured myself. There was always some new story or humiliation to laugh at in a motorcycle gang. For the time being, I just wanted to drink my worries away. I went to a local gas station, withdrew several hundred dollars cash, and bought a pack of cigarettes. Then, though it was only noon, I took my bike to a sports bar, ordered two burgers and a beer, and sat in silence, nursing my bruised ego. While there weren’t too many people there to start with, the bar, predictably, began to fill up as the night got darker and I got drunker.

 

Why do I always end up with so many crazy fucking lunatics? I asked myself over and over. We weren’t even dating, and that bitch flipped a fucking shit—and over what?

 

The damned president’s stupidity, another, surlier part of me replied. He was making me angry, too. Why didn’t he answer his goddamn phone? I wasn’t his fucking secretary, for Christ’s sake!

 

By this point, I had switched from beer to something a little stronger. Yeah, yeah. I knew that little warning: ‘beer before liquor …’ but at that point, I really didn’t give a fuck.

 

I was so drunk and so annoyed that the conscious part of me didn’t notice how strangely the people around me were acting:

 

Often—oo often for it to be normal—the bartender would sweep his gaze around the bar and then go to mutter something into the bouncer’s ear. They’d shake their heads, scowl, and resume their posts. It was as if they were waiting for something. Or someone.

 

Six times in an hour, a cop car would drive lazily by, just visible through the damp, steaming windows of the bar. He made me a little bit nervous, but not enough to stop drinking, or pay more attention. It was perfectly legal to sit and be annoyed and get drunk. It just seemed a little strange that he kept circling, like the vulture he was.

 

By late evening, the bar was pretty much full. Men sat in huddled groups, laughing and talking, while a few cheap bimbos wandered around, vying for their attention. I did not even raise my gaze for them. They were another biking club’s sluts. Not worth my time.

 

Then, a girl of a very different sort came in.

 

My first instinct was to label her as preppy, with her sexy little pencil skirt, streamlined button up, and expensively silken blonde hair. But then I saw her eyes. She wasn’t even looking at me, but they pierced through the bar like icicles. They were a cold and chilling blue, and yet there was some warmth there, like the sun on blinding snow. I wanted to stand up, and go talk to her, but that fucked-up mess of a morning reminded me: Stay away from the crazy bitches for a while, huh? The girl sure looked steady on her feet, but she was probably just as insane as the raven-haired witch.

 

At that point, I noticed that she wasn’t alone, either. A girl sat with her, and unlike the sophisticated, upper-class poise of the blue eyed girl, her friend made me think of only one thing: trash. She had on a black, lacy slip of a dress that revealed every curve and line of her body, and stockings that stopped at the thigh. Not to say that dressing like that was a bad thing. Of course not. Hell, most of my favorite lays dressed like that. It was the look of aggression, of challenge, and also of superiority as she glanced about the room that made the little warning bells in my head ring, Crazy bitch!

 

And if the blue-eyed girl was going to hang out with trash like her, she probably was bad news anyway. I decided to ignore them and returned to my drink.

 

Outside, I could hear the deep voices of many men arguing. It was so low that I would have bet few in the bar would have noticed or cared, but it set my finely-tuned instincts buzzing. You didn’t go for years as a professional biking criminal without learning to listen to your instincts.

 

Acting innocent, I glanced about the barroom, trying to get a better idea of what might be going on.

 

That was when I noticed the blue-eyed girl staring.

 

Now that our eyes connected, I could not help but smile. Her gaze was at once both pleasant and arresting, intelligent and yet friendly. I got the vibe that she could play with most of the bikers at the bar the way a cat plays with a mouse. This interested me—and not because I wanted to be a mouse. I wanted to show her what it was like to deal with a lion.

 

She raised her hand. Offered me a little wave. Whether it was all those beers and whiskey, or her obvious hotness, or the fact that I apparently didn’t learn lessons well, I decided to go talk to her. Her trashy-looking friend was flirting with some other guy anyway.

 

I raised my hand to the bartender, ordering a pair of drinks for me and the girl. To do this, I had to cut off the dumb blonde bimbo currently ordering drinks, but the bartender knew better than to make a lieutenant of the Devil’s Wings wait. The girl glared at me, huffed, and then stormed off to join her friends, looking mutinous.

 

I didn’t care. I was about to score with some pretty blonde pussy. Or so I believed.

 

I grabbed the drinks and navigated my way to the blue-eyed girl and her table, chuckling at the offended glares of the blonde and her friends as I went. I stole a chair from the next table, (the guys sitting there opened their mouths to protest, noticed the badges on my leather vest, and decided against it,) placed the drinks on the table, and sat down.

 

“Hello,” I said. “I’m Connor. Mind if I join you?”

 

She looked uncomfortable for a moment, as if she worried that it would not be wise. You got that right, I thought. It definitely isn’t wise. Then she looked at her friend, who was currently straddling the lap of some other leather-clad asshole, shrugged, and said, “Okay.”

 

Dimly, I was aware of a police officer entering the bar behind the bar of us, but I decided to ignore him. He could come in here and cool his heels, and besides, it seemed extremely unlikely that a cop would be interested in me or this blonde beauty. She had the words ‘law-abiding’ written all over her.

 

“So what’s your name?” I asked, sliding the drink over to her. She looked at it and then me with suspicion.

 

“Far … Felicia,” she replied, staring me right down in the face as if daring me to challenge it. There was definitely something going on with this girl: her weird sense of discomfort, her trashy friend, how totally out of place she looked at a biker bar. But walking over to her table afforded me a glance down her cleavage, and I thought, Yep. Worth it.

 

“Well, Felicia, I hope you like rum and cokes,” I said, sitting down.

 

“I’d find it a pretty safe bet,” she said. “I bet almost all of the girls you buy rum and cokes for like them.”

 

I blinked and hesitated. She was supposed to say something vapid, stupid, and easy, like, “Oh! They’re my favorite!” And then I’d talk about my favorites … throw in a couple dirty jokes … done!

 

But her response? Her tone was friendly, but there was a challenge in it. I took a split second to think, then said, “You should see the charts. I have a whole experiment to it: buy a set number of girls a certain drink, then correlate it to my nightly success. It’s a whole study, to be published soon.”

 

Usually I am nervous throwing too much sarcasm at a bar slut. They tend to get offended. But Felicia’s eyes lit up and she smiled, melting all the frostiness away in a single expression.

 

“I’d think vodka cranberries would be your winner, then,” she said. “Classy but quick to the point.”

 

She reached out, gave the straw to her drink a twirl, and then took a sip. God! Just the look of her lips closing around that little plastic straw made me want to shove her down beneath the table, onto her knees, right then and there.

 

Easy, tiger, I told myself. Then, out loud, I said, “Eh, you get a lot of girls who worry about sugar. But you get one rum and coke, and one rum and diet, then you’re all set, whatever she needs. And then I just drink the leftover one.”

 

She chuckled. “How valiant of you!” she said.

 

Speaking of valiance.

 

I heard a scuffle brewing behind me. This was normal in a dive biker’s bar. Men often settled their disagreements with their fists, and everyone tended to walk away bruised but happy. What caught my attention this time, however, was not the heavy clod of boots against the ground, but the clatter of high heels. Whatever was going on involved a woman.

 

I turned. There was that bimbo blonde from before—the one I’d stolen the bartender’s attention from. It looked like she was trying to leave the bar, but a large and aggressive looking cop blocked her path. “Look, asshole!” she cried, her drunken voice as high pitched as a hiss. “I’m not driving. We’re calling a fucking cab; now get out of my way!”

 

I stiffened. I was sure the girl was right, but raising your voice like a harpy, screaming and swearing, usually invited trouble. She tried pushing past him, but he seized her arm, holding her in place.

 

The whole barroom quieted. She fought vainly against the cop, but he held her fast.

 

“No, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she shrieked, even as the cop was trying to whisper. “My name is Mimi, for fuck’s sake! I don’t know this Michaels girl you’re talking about—”

 

I heard a gasp from behind me. I whirled, and saw Felicia’s trashy friend leap across the table and grab her by both shoulders. “They’re after us!” she hissed.

 

I saw the light of recognition flash in Felicia’s eyes, followed by fear, and then, a split-second later, cunning. I decided right then and there that I liked this girl.

 

Just then, the blonde bimbo screamed. She stumbled back from the cop, knocking into a table and tumbling down to the floor. His face livid, he reached down, drew his gun, and roared, “Nobody move! We gotta search every fucker in this motherfucking bar. You heard me! Freeze!”