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.