…or could she?
Three drinks, two hours, and 120 doubts and questions later (one for each minute of each hour), Eve was still wondering what it was that she was doing there.
She had caught a glimpse of Lind Addams earlier when he briefly left the backroom and went outside for a cigarette break. And he had caught a glimpse of her. Their eyes had met once more, longer this time, and he had grinned at her. It had been a sultry, cheeky kind of grin that had made his impossibly blue eyes sparkle with a boyish, devilish light.
Eve had felt it again then, that thrill. She was never a believer in love at first sight, but she believed in instant, mutual, sizzling attraction.
When the twins finally joined her for drinks, she only half-listened to their giggles and their bubbly conversation. That is, until the talk shifted to the only topic that truly interested her that night.
“What do you think the Diamondbacks are doing here of all places?” Kelly asked. She dyed her hair dark brown in order to distinguish herself from her otherwise identical blonde twin, but she wore a blonde wig when she performed on the nightclub’s stage.
Aileen shrugged. “Making trouble, I’d imagine.”
“Do you think Gary crossed them somehow?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
They didn’t seem too worried. Gary Merchant treated the girls who performed at his nightclub surprisingly well. It was one of the reasons why Eve had decided to stick around this long—but all of them, even Eve, knew better than to get attached. You never knew when things may go south, and if they did, you were better off with as little emotional scars as possible. Gary was just their boss. A fair boss, but just a boss nonetheless. There were no personal ties and there never would be, especially not for these girls who, unlike Eve, didn’t dance to escape.
“It doesn’t make sense though,” Eve spoke up. “If Gary had been in business with the Diamondbacks, wouldn’t we have seen them around here before?”
The other two paused for a moment.
“I guess,” Kelly conceded. “I, for one, would have noticed them. There’s some pretty fine-lookin’ boys in their ranks.” She grinned suggestively.
“Like that Viper guy,” Eve said casually. The twins didn’t seem to be as spooked by the presence of the motorcycle gang as Jessica had been, and she allowed her interest to make an appearance.
As if a spell had been broken, however, the twins froze and stared at her.
Finally, Aileen laughed. “Oh, honey,” she said, “you couldn’t take the Viper.”
Eve blinked, taken aback. “Excuse me?”
“He’s a wild one,” Kelly said. “Too wild a ride for you.”
Eve huffed, offended. “You’re underestimating me.”
The twins giggled and shrugged, unconvinced.
“I could take him,” Eve insisted. “And his bike, too.”
“Really?” Aileen said, her interest suddenly peaked. Her hazel eyes sparkled with an impish, drunken glint. “Then, I dare you to do it.”
Eve froze for a second. This was rapidly going downhill. “What?”
“I dare you to go out there and take his bike for a spin. You’ll recognize it; it’s the one with flames in the form of serpents on the tank.”
Eve was so shocked by the suggestion of stealing Lind Addams’ bike—even for just “a spin”—that she didn’t even feel like commenting on the tackiness that had just been described to her.
“I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can’t,” Kelly said, her devilish smirk matching her sister’s. “Just like we said.”
Something flared up in Eve then—a sort of pride that might have to do more with the heavy drinks she had downed than with any real pride at all. If she had been sober, she might have walked out. Instead, she found herself downing the remaining of her third (fourth?) whiskey in one go and standing on unsure legs.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll take the Viper’s bike for a spin.”
One thing the twins didn’t know was that Eve knew how to ride a bike. Her older brother was an enthusiast, and he had made sure to teach her. She even had a license for it.
Five minutes after she had ridden off into the night on a massive Harley Davidson, all hell broke loose.