Sinful Protector (Roughshod Rollers MC 2)

“You’re cleaning that up,” he says to me.

“Yeah, fine,” I say, unable to help grinning.

It was completely worth it.

The next hours pass quickly with loud laughter and obnoxious jokes. It becomes easy to put Allison out of my mind as I joke around with my friends, rolling my eyes when they say something stupid and competing to see who can drink the quickest.

The bar is far from quiet. It’s Thursday night, but there are several people here, forming their own groups at different points of the bar. I can see Tom in the corner with some men and women (I notice, with a scowl, that the women are not the same as the ones I saw last night), and another clubmate, Liam Hill, waved to us before going on to wish everyone luck in the pool competition. I’m disappointed that Alex hasn’t turned up with news of the house, but I know these things take time.

Ethan and Grant have, thankfully, dropped all mention of Allison as well. Ethan, despite his claim that he would return home after two hours, is still here, waving his arms wildly as he tells a story I’m not listening to. He’ll be annoyed, later, that he missed the chance to mess with Georgia, but I’m glad he’s here; despite his careless, cheerful exterior, Ethan has been working much too hard, running himself ragged, which is likely why Georgia kicked him out both yesterday and tonight in the first place. Grinning to myself, I snap a quick picture of him and send it to Georgia. She replies within seconds.

“Good!”

I laugh quietly and shake my head. Georgia is a godsend in Ethan’s life and I wonder when he’ll realize… I shake my head with a quiet smile. It’s not my place to mess in their lives.

I hear loud laughter from the corner and my eyes drift that way, curious. It’s the oddly familiar man I saw come in earlier. He’s made fast friends with some of the other regulars and they’re all guffawing over something the man has said.

It’s playing at the edge of my mind, frustrating me. I just can’t think where I know him from, which is unusual for me; normally my memory of faces is excellent.

Then the man sits back, a large, unpleasant grin on his face, which is now half in shadow, and my stomach drops as I quickly look away.

It’s Jesse, the man that had assaulted Allison last night.

Of course I didn’t recognized him; it had been dark, and he had been standing in the shadows when I punched him. It doesn’t look like he’s recognized me at all, either, and I’m happy for it to stay that way. Or maybe he was just too drunk to remember exactly what happened.

“Kyle? Everything good?”

I bring my attention back to the present. Ethan is looking at me with a frown. It takes me a moment to clear the drunken haze enough for me to focus on what he’s saying. Maybe I’ve had just a little too much to drink.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Do you know that guy?” Ethan asks curiously, glancing over my shoulder at Jesse.

“He’s…Jesse,” I say. Did Allison tell me his last name? I can’t remember right now. “He’s a scumbag.”

“Well, from the way you were glaring at him, I figured,” Ethan says, amused.

I was glaring at him? Shit, I hope he didn’t notice. I don’t want to get thrown out. Despite the fact that we’re friends, I also know Grant won’t hesitate to throw out anyone that causes problems.

“He’s a fucking scumbag,” I repeat, turning away.

“Yeah, but what did he do?” Ethan presses.

I glare into my mug. “He’s the bastard that assaulted Allison last night.”

The smile instantly drops from Ethan’s face. Something ugly crosses his expression and he cracks his knuckles threateningly. Perhaps Ethan has also had a little too much to drink; his first impulse is never usually violence.

“Should we have a word with him?” he asks darkly.

“No,” Grant says, interjecting into the conversation. “You will not. Or, at least, you won’t until you leave.”

“Aw, come on, Grant…!” Ethan whines.

“No,” Grant says firmly, rolling his eyes.

“I wasn’t planning on doing anything,” I assure the man. “I’m just gonna ignore him.”

“Good,” Grant says. “Make sure it stays that way and out of my bar.”