Daphne
Daphne was drunk, to put it mildly. After a little more time on the dance floor—not to mention the few more drinks that Margaret had shoved in her direction—she was now so tipsy that she could hardly keep a thought in her head. But it was the pleasant kind of drunk—not yet sloppy. She was enjoying the feeling of cutting loose, but now that the man who she’d been ogling from the other side of the bar stood in front of her, her thoughts felt somehow both muddy and erratic at the same time.
“I mean, I don’t think we’ve met, right?” asked Daphne, following up on her previous question. “So how did you know my name? And why did you call me Daph? Only my friends call me that.”
The man shifted his standing position, as if processing this new information. Then, speaking in a deeper, lower voice, he leaned in.
“Uh, I was talking to your friend Margaret at the bar,” he said. “I asked who you were, and she said ‘that’s my friend Daph; be careful with her’.”
“Oh,” said Daphne, satisfied with the answer. “Got it.”
But before she had a chance to say or even think anything else, the man slid into the chair across from her. She was a little shocked by his gall, but part of her actually appreciated his boldness. Her eyes drifted up the man’s thick, toned, tanned arms, noting his winding tattoos. She didn’t know what to think of his thick, full beard, to say nothing of the fact that he was the sort of man whom she’d swore to never date again.
And why, she thought, did he look so goddamn familiar?
“You look a little out of your element,” said the man, a small smirk visible on his full, sensual lips.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Daphne, the booze giving her just enough courage to be confrontational. “You think a girl like me doesn’t come to places like this?”
“That’s exactly what I think,” said the man, not missing a beat. “You’re probably not gonna find a man with a steady four-oh-one-kay and a premium Netflix account here.”
A quick flash of the men that Daphne had gone on dates with over the last year or so ran through her mind. Sure enough, the man described the exact sort of buttoned-up, clean-cut guys who worked in marketing and administration that she’d gone on dates with here and there. They were the types of men who she knew she should be dating, the kind who might one day make loving, stable father figures for Jack—the kind of guys who she forced herself to date, despite feeling nothing but boredom for them half of the time.
But with this beefy, rough-looking biker sitting across from her, Daphne realized, to her chagrin, that there was no getting around her type. She loved the thrill and mystery of the kind of men like him, and, against all her better instinct, the promise of danger and thrills.
“You never know,” said Daphne.
The man only smirked in response before flagging down a passing bartender and ordering a pair of drinks.
“Who says that I even want to drink with you?” asked Daphne playfully.
“Call it intuition,” said the man.
Daphne smirked.
He’s bold, I’ll give him that, she thought.
“So, you’re a biker, huh?” asked Daphne as the bartender returned with their drinks.
This is a bad idea, she thought. I’m drunk already; I should be shooing this guy away with a broom.
But instead, she wrapped her lips around her drink and took a long pull.
“Something like that,” he said.
“‘Something like that’?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “I figured it was a rhetorical question.”
“Well, I have a bike, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“I figured a guy who looks like you wouldn’t be driving a minivan.”
The man smirked.
“Now, that’s an offensive stereotype. What, just because I look like this it means that I drive a Harley or something? For all you know I could be a family man with a house out in the burbs.”
The comment was so silly that all Daphne could do was take an ice cube from her drink and toss it at the man. The cube hit him square on a bare patch of his chest, and Daphne couldn’t help but notice how the water from the impact trickled down his pecs.
“Okay, so you’re a biker,” she said. “And you and your boys look like you’re celebrating something, from what I can tell.”
“You could say that,” said the man, wrapping his hand around his glass of whiskey. “We had a pretty good week and we’re blowing off some steam.”
“You all from here?”
“For the most part. We’re mostly around St. Louis and Chicago, might take some longer trips here and there.”
Daphne couldn’t shake just how familiar this man appeared. Though she couldn’t really make out his features through his thick beard and long hair, she recognized something in those sapphire-colored eyes of his, almost like an intelligence that one wouldn’t normally find in a biker like him.
“And now you’re out getting rowdy.”
“Gotta cut loose every now and then.”
“‘Every now and then’?” asked Daphne. “Isn’t the whole point of being a biker that it’s a non-stop party? Isn’t your whole life cutting loose?”
The man scoffed.
“Spoken like someone who only knows about the way we live from the movies.”
Daphne had a quick flashback to the night that she’d spied on Xander. She remembered with perfect clarity the sight of the man beaten to a pulp, the way Xander had looked covered in his blood. She shuddered, doing her best to dismiss the image from her mind. She wondered if this man got up to the same type of business.
“Then tell me about it,” she said. “What’s so secret about bikers that an ignorant little girl like me just wouldn’t know?”
Daphne continued to feel bold. And it wasn’t just the alcohol; something about this man made her feel as though she could let her guard down.
“To be blunt, it’s something chicks don’t really get. It’s about brotherhood, sticking together, watching each other’s backs. And getting paid in the process.”
“I see,” said Daphne.
“You don’t, but maybe now you know there’s a little more to it than keggers and Harleys.”
The man’s tone had an aggressive edge to it. He struck her as so … different than the men she typically dated. Daphne couldn’t help but like the way he wasn’t afraid to push back, that he wasn’t scared of offending her.
The man killed his whiskey.
“You did a good job on yours,” he said, gesturing to her glass.
Daphne looked down and, to her shock, she saw that it was nothing but half-melted ice. She’d been so into her conversation that she’d sucked her drink right down without even thinking about it.
The man’s gaze flicked over to the dance floor.
“You into dancing?” he asked.
“Um, I’ve been known to, from time to time. But only when I’m drunk.”
“Then it sounds like you’re in the mood.”
“Oh my God,” said Daphne. “Is it that obvious? I mean, I’m only a little tipsy, really.”
“I’m just giving you shit,” the man said. “But it looks like that friend of yours is having a pretty good night.”
Daphne looked over the man’s shoulder and spotted Margaret, who was currently in one of the more secluded areas of the bar shoving her tongue down some grungy-looking guy’s throat, one of the man’s hands on Margaret’s ass, the other on one of her breasts over her shirt.
“Geez,” said Daphne. “I feel like I should do something.”
“She’s a big girl,” the man said. “Besides, girls like her come to places like this and get drunk so that they can do the things they want to but can’t admit.”
Daphne smirked, realizing there was definitely truth to those words.
“You think I’m that kind of girl, then?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said the man. “One way to find out.”
With that, he rose from his seat and strode towards the dance floor without looking back. His body language seemed to say “come on if you want, but if you don’t, then I’ll find someone who will.” Daphne couldn’t help but find that irresistible. Moments later, she was on the dance floor with the man, his hands on her slim waist and his body pressed against hers. And as the music swirled around them and the booze ran through her veins, Daphne couldn’t help but wonder just what she was getting into. But at that moment, in the man’s hands, in his possession, she was ready to get taken away.