With Onyx, Clutch, and Trigger gone, it would leave Uncle Jack short at the garage, but he was used to it and would be able to pull an MC brother in to assist if he needed the help.
After sending out a text to my three, I watched as Colt did the same to his before lifting his phone to his ear. I clenched my jaw so hard my back teeth started to ache, yet I found myself listening a little more intently than I usually allowed myself.
“Hey,” his voice had changed to the tone he always used when he spoke to Quinn, and I noticed his eyes had softened, making him look slightly younger.
Once, and only once, had I heard Flick tell Raven that she thought Quinn was Colt’s soulmate, but she didn’t understand why they were only friends. After that, I had made sure never to listen in when they talked about either Colt or Quinn.
“I’m going to be gone for a little while. You got everything you need?” There was a pause on his end as he waited for a reply.
Whatever Quinn was saying had the softness that had entered my brother’s eyes turning harder.
“You don’t sound well. Are you okay?”
The green of his eyes darkened as his brows furrowed and he stared sightlessly toward the back of the bar.
My body tensed as I waited for the inevitable explosion that would follow Quinn confessing what we had done the night before. But as the seconds ticked by, Colt stayed where he was.
“You’re so stubborn sometimes,” he grumbled. “I wish you would just let me take care of those bitches once and for all, Quinn.”
I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed when Colt just sat there, continuing his conversation with Quinn. She was obviously not going to share our night together with her best friend.
While I didn’t really want to kick my brother’s ass if he did find out and tried to start something, I did want Quinn to acknowledge that something had happened between us.
I scrubbed my hands over my face and pushed back from the table, pissed at my own self for the unreasonable irritation I felt over the whole thing. Great, one fuck with Quinn and I was suddenly turning into a damn pussy with prissy feelings and shit.
I needed to put distance between me and that female. This run couldn’t have come at a better time.
Chapter 11
Quinn
Deciding I was going to pack up and leave Creswell Springs was the easy part. Actually doing it … not so much. My savings would not be enough to cover the cost of moving, let alone everything else.
Before my mother had gotten sick, I’d had a nice little nest egg from all the years of scrimping and saving. I had started working at Aggie’s when I was sixteen, and the tips had been decent enough—and I’d had no large bills to worry about—so I had been able to put most of my money into a savings account.
After my mother had gotten sick, that nest egg had completely disappeared. Cancer was an expensive disease, and I had dipped into my savings repeatedly just to help her pay for her medications. By the time she had passed away, I had been down to my last hundred dollars in that account. Not long after that, my old clunker of a car had joined her in the hereafter, and I’d had to buy a new one. Between a car payment and all the other bills adulting required, I hadn’t been able to start replacing the money that had once been in there.
I was determined to leave as soon as possible, before I could talk myself out of it. That meant saving every penny I could get my hands on and working every free minute I could. But if working at Aggie’s was the key to making me rich—or at least putting a little extra in my bank account—then I was doing it all wrong.
A second job was going to have to happen.
Considering I had only ever waited tables, I wasn’t sure what other kind of job I was qualified to do, and the “help wanted” ads in the morning paper weren’t exactly begging for anyone of my limited skills. Most of them asked for at least some college as an education background. I had been happy just to graduate high school. My computer skills were about as good as the average person who checked their email and looked at the occasional YouTube videos.
I did have good people skills, however, and I could balance up to eight plates on a tray while refilling customers’ water glasses. I doubted that would get me a job in anything but the circus or another waitressing job. Other than Aggie’s, waitresses didn’t have many options, except the coffee shop on the college campus and a steak house outside of town where the ritzier citizens of our small town ate.
There was another option. Paradise City was always ready to hire new girls willing to take their clothes off for the college boys who were all too happy to keep Bash and Spider in business for years to come. It was the closest strip club in over fifty miles, so the place was above average popular.
I knew all I had to do was show up and ask for a job. Even without Kelli working there, I wasn’t worried about getting rejected. I had a decent body, even if I was about as tall as one of Santa’s elves. There was just one teensy, little problem.
Make that a huge one, in the guise of the six-foot-plus hulking biker who was also my best friend and self-appointed protector.
Colt would flip his lid if he saw me taking my clothes off for a crowd.
Getting the call that he was going to be out of town on a run for an indefinite period, however, had me deciding I would cross that bridge when I got to it.
If I had to.
With a plan firmly in mind, I clocked out at the end of my shift at Aggie’s the next afternoon and drove straight over to Paradise City. There were only a few cars in the parking lot since it was too early for the place to be open for business yet.
As I walked into the club, my nerves tried to get the better of me, but I refused to chicken out. If I was going to get out of this one-horse town and as far away from Raider Fucking Hannigan as I possibly could, then this was the only solution.
The dimness inside took a moment for my eyes to adjust to after the brightness of the afternoon sunshine. I slowly looked around the interior, noticing the big stage with three stripper poles. A dozen or more round tables were placed close to it.
I tried to imagine myself up there, dancing for the men and maybe even women who wanted to watch me take my clothes off for them.
Fuck.
Maybe this was a bad idea, after all.
Fuck, fucking, fuck.
No. I could and would do it.
I had to.
The club itself was huge, with smaller stages off to the sides that only had one stripper pole on each of them, with less tables but more chairs. Maybe for parties?
I mentally shrugged at the thought and turned my attention to the bar that was on the other side of the room where two men in black T-shirt with “Paradise City” written in bold neon yellow across their shoulders were stocking the fridge with beer and other alcohol.
One turned as I crossed toward the bar, and I was happy to see he wasn’t an MC member, but he did look vaguely familiar. In a town as small as Creswell Springs that wasn’t unusual in the least. I served nearly every resident at least once a week at Aggie’s, and those I didn’t, I saw at the one and only supermarket when I did my shopping.
The guy raked his eyes over me, suspicion filling his face. “You gotta be eighteen to be in here and twenty-one to drink.”
I pressed my lips together, fighting back the shot of irritation that always filled me whenever someone automatically assumed I was a teenager. It was just one of the drawbacks of being so short and blonde. One day I would probably welcome that I looked years younger than I really was.
Today was not that day.
Instead of telling him how old I really was, I pulled out my wallet and extracted my ID, showing him that I was over the legal limit to be in the club and that I had been past the age to drink for a few years.
His face cleared, and he gave me a second full-body appraisal; this time with what I thought was a little interest in his eyes. “What brings you here? We don’t open for a few more hours.”
“I’m
looking for your boss,” I told him, putting away my wallet.
He nodded behind him. “She’s in the office back there.”
I looked in the mirror behind him and realized it must have been a one-way window. Well then …
Stepping away from the bar, I headed for the almost invisible outline of the door that led into the office behind the bar. Two steps from it, the door swung inward and a woman in her late thirties stuck her head out.
“I know you.” She spoke in a voice that was both husky and a little shaky, though I didn’t think she was nervous. She looked too confident to be. She stepped back, waving me in.
As I entered the office, which was considerably brighter than the other room, I was brought face-to-face with a possible reason for her voice sounding so off.
She had scars on her makeup free face, as if she had been in a car accident and had been thrown through the windshield. The scars weren’t just on her face, though. With her curly, dirty-blonde hair pulled up into a business-style knot on top of her head, I saw that she had several more on her neck; one right over where I imagined her voice box would have been. It looked deep and very painful.
Closing the door behind me, she moved to the desk where a newer computer was already on and several spreadsheets were up. After spending so many years helping Aggie with supply orders, I could understand the little that I could see. Liquor orders, as well as hand soap and other bathroom supplies.
“You said you know who I am,” I murmured, giving her my full attention as I forced my eyes away from the computer screen. “But I don’t believe I know you.”
I knew her name was Topaz, but only because she was Kelli’s boss. Other than that, I didn’t really know all that much about my roommate’s work life.
She shrugged and leaned back in her chair, crossing her long legs. She was dressed in slacks and a nice top, but for some reason, I could picture her just as comfortable in a bikini, dancing in front of a hundred people. Despite the scars and a few wrinkles that could have easily been hidden under some well-placed makeup, she was very pretty. With the body that her professional attire covered but didn’t disguise, she probably got really good tips when she was on stage.
“Of course I know who you are. You’re Quinn Wilder. Kelli mentions you every now and then, and I’ve seen you around. Girl as pretty as you is hard to forget.” She gave me a tight smile. “What brings you here?”
I clasped my hands together. My plan had seemed so perfect in my head, but now that I was standing there, in front of the person who I needed to agree to it—and hire me—it sounded stupid and more than a little terrifying.
“I need a second job,” I finally found myself telling her. I twisted my fingers together, an old habit from when I was nervous as a kid. “And the only thing I have ever done is wait tables, so I’m not exactly qualified to work in an office or whatever else there is out there …” I broke off, not sure how to go on without insulting her, or even Kelli, for that matter.
“And you thought you would give stripping a shot?” she finished for me with a knowing grin.
Biting my lip, I nodded.
“I would love to hire you, Quinn, but what about the club? I know you’re considered family to some of the brothers.”
Seeing an empty chair in the corner, I crossed to it and sat. “Colt is my best friend, but sometimes, I think he considers himself my father.”
“Colt Hannigan doesn’t pay my salary. He is, however, the brother-in-law of one of the men who do.”
“I was actually hoping we could work around telling him, or anyone else who I am,” I muttered.
Her brown eyes widened. “How do you plan on doing that? This is a small town and there are plenty of locals who come in here throughout the week. You probably know them all.”
I twisted my fingers together rougher. “I have a solution for that. Plenty of people know my face, but not one of them has seen me naked.”
With the exception of Raider, a voice tried to remind me, but I quickly squashed it before it could distract me from the business at hand.
I had tried to keep my mind off of him all day, yet it hadn’t worked very well. I was thankful that he was gone with Colt on this run. I needed time away from both of them so I could hopefully get my head on straight, as well as sort out my finances and get the hell out of Dodge—er, Creswell Springs.
“Okay, you have me intrigued.” She shifted in her chair, her eyes locked on me as she waited for me to tell her about this brilliant plan I had.
Blowing out a long breath, I dived in.
Before I was even finished, Topaz stopped me.
I snapped my mouth shut, waiting for her to turn me down because my brilliant plan was too stupid to even consider.
“I’m kind of in love with this idea,” she surprised me by saying as she started messing with the keyboard to the computer and began typing furiously. “The old guys are pretty easy to please. They just want to see a hot chick with no clothes on that isn’t their wife. The college boys, especially some of the frat houses who come in here, they get bored pretty quickly. I’ve been thinking of making a few changes to help alleviate their ADHD tendencies. This is actually something that could work.”
I sat there, my mouth slightly gaped open as I watched her continue to type something I couldn’t see from where I was sitting.
Abruptly, she paused and lifted her head, concern written on her face as she swiveled in her chair. “I need to know if you are going to be able to actually do this, Quinn. I really like the idea, and I can work with it. I won’t even discuss this with Spider and Bash, if you promise not to. If we work together, it might be possible to give you the anonymity you want. But none of that really matters if you freak out halfway through your first set.”
Now there was a million-dollar question if I had ever heard one.
Chapter 12
Kelli
I was still half-asleep when my alarm went off for me to get up for work.
I blindly reached out for it, but when I didn’t immediately feel it, I cracked open an eye, searching the nightstand.
It was gone from where I had put it that morning when I had gotten out of the shower, yet it was still going off. I grabbed my phone, knowing exactly who had moved my alarm.
With only one eye open, I pulled the phone close to my face. Without my contacts in, I couldn’t read anything past the end of my nose.
Pulling up Colt’s name, I was ready to blast him for daring to move my shit. However, seeing that I already had a message from him, my fingers froze over the keys as I read it.
Leaving for a run. Don’t know when I’ll be back. Be good. Watch out for Quinn for me.
There was no cutesy heart or anything else that would suggest he was doing anything more than letting me know he was going out of town. Yet, oddly enough, just getting a message at all from him was more than I would have expected from any other guy. He knew I would be just fine without him. Still, he had let me know he was going away.
The fact that he wanted me to watch over Quinn in his absence was even more telling. Quinn was his person, the one person he would take a bullet for, outside his blood family. That he was trusting me to watch out for her kind of warmed my cold, only half-alive heart.
The alarm was still going off, but I refrained from sending Colt a mean message for screwing around with my things. That he knew me well enough to know I would have just hit snooze a half a dozen times before rushing to get up and out the door for work was a telltale sign of its own. That he had moved the clock, knowing I would have to get out of bed and therefore would be awake enough not to easily fall back to sleep, told me he had spent more time than I realized he had sharing my bed.
Tossing back the covers, I jerked to my feet and crossed the room to the dresser where he had put it before leaving for wherever it was he had to be that morning. My fingers hovered over the alarm clock as guilt and dread churned in my stomach at all the caring things Colt did for me.
I wasn’t
used to having people do things for me, had fought it at the very beginning, but I wasn’t sure how I would feel if it all suddenly stopped. I didn’t want them to stop.
But they will.
Clenching my jaw, I finally hit the off button and returned to my bed. Instead of flopping back down and burrowing under the covers, I sat on the edge, putting my elbows on my knees and burying my face in my hands.
Every day I fought my feelings for the biker, and every day I found myself falling a little more. I ached to love him, ached in a way I had never let myself feel for anyone, other than my mother. It was emotional suicide, though. If Colt ever found out what I was doing—who I was related to—he would be long gone.
So would Quinn, who was loyal to a fault to him.
Pressing my fingers into my eyeballs, I fought the tears that threatened to fill them. I wasn’t sure how long I sat there like that, but by the time I lifted my head, I had to scramble to get ready.
I jumped into the shower, not bothering to wash my hair since it was going to be pulled into a knot later so I could put on the wig I wore at work. My hair was long, thick, and dark. The wig I wore was more dramatic with long, flaming red waves that fell to the middle of my back. With the weight of it added to the weight of my natural hair, my neck would be killing me by the end of the night, but I got a shitload more tips as a redhead than as a brunette.
Once I was dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a tank top, I tossed all my things that I would need for work into my gym bag: makeup, a few different outfits I could change into throughout the night, and my curling iron. Grabbing it, I walked through the small house to the kitchen and grabbed a water out of the fridge before heading out the back door.
It wasn’t unusual for Quinn to not be home when I left for work. She had told me she was picking up extra hours at the diner, so I figured she wouldn’t be home until after midnight. The girl worked way too hard, but it was only one of a hundred different things I liked about her. She was sweet, but feisty. She loved with her whole heart, and frankly, I had learned a lot from her about my own heart.