Griffin (Ruthless MC 3)

Who are you?

CHAPTER 2

RED

Who am I?

That question was so easy to answer . . . four weeks ago.

Four weeks ago, I was Boring Bernice. I lived in the same town I grew up in and attended services at the same Methodist church every Sunday, rain or shine.

I reported in promptly at nine a.m. to the same nursing job for an obstetrician who stuck to a rigid 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. schedule—no middle of the night calls for us. Those moms who went into labor at inconvenient hours just had to deal with whoever was on-call at the hospital.

Four weeks ago, I was known by my coworkers as Bernice Daniels. I spoke quietly and kept my thoughts to myself, just like my grandma taught me growing up. I had a nice boyfriend, a practical diagnostic medical sonographer who let me know last Christmas that he’d be proposing to me by this one if everything went to plan. The only thing surprising that ever happened in our relationship was me dumping him just six weeks before his promised proposal.

It wasn’t him. It was me. Seriously. A few hours after letting him go, I put in two weeks’ notice at my steady job.

I’m somebody different now. Somebody who bartends topless at a nameless biker roadhouse. Somebody who everyone here calls Red—even Allie, the friendly med student who hooked me up with this job. Somebody who knows how to use her feminine powers and get paid for being a wicked vixen.

I smile and flirt and entertain, and the bikers give me huge tips for being the most interesting topless bartender they’ve ever met.

Here, I’m the opposite of boring. The other servers glare with jealousy whenever I come out on the floor to bartend because they know I’m about to overshadow them. And the bikers cheer because they know I’m about to make their night a whole lot more interesting.

At least that’s what they usually do.

When I arrive for my shift that night, nobody acknowledges me. They’re all too focused on something happening near the Reaper’s usual table—a blond guy walking into the roadhouse with both arms held up like he’s the Second Coming of Biker Jesus.

Maybe he is. I wouldn't say the music stops when he arrives, but he definitely gets a lot of attention. Waylon and the rest of the Reapers rise from the table to greet him with bro hugs and slaps on the arms.

Crash and Rowdy, those two bikers who are always offering the waitresses cocaine and other drugs to come upstairs with them, they clear a space for the blond biker on the bench right next to where Waylon’s sitting, as if royalty has arrived.

I thought the Reapers only had two presidents. One for each of their chapters. Waylon and Hades, who left with the other Louisiana members to go back down to New Orleans a couple of days ago. But maybe this guy heads up some chapter I don’t know about? The other Reapers are acting like he’s a huge deal.

And The Bandits wave him over to their table to say hi. A few of them even take selfies with him.

Too bad Allie was catching up on her med school lab hours all week. Her step-uncle owns this place, and she always has the inside dirt on all of the biker gang guys who come through here. Maybe she could explain why these 1% criminals were acting such a fool over this random Reaper’s arrival.

Right after I take up my position at the beer tap next to the servers' station, a squabble breaks out between Tawny and Kitten, two of the blonde year-rounders. That’s what Allie calls all the non-seasonal servers who work at her step-uncle’s roadhouse.

I thought Tawny and Kitten were best friends. But each is insisting that she should be the one who brings the Reapers their next round of beers and whiskey.

Candy, the bar manager, has to rule on the case like King Solomon. She tells them they can either stop arguing and do the job together, or she’ll let one of the holiday-help girls have the table.

They grudgingly agree to both taking the assignment, which means a split tip. And I make up two crates of Yazoos, thinking that would be the end of it.

But Tawny snatches her crate and makes a beeline for the new arrival before her supposed best friend can grab hers.

And I’m no expert at body language, but I don’t have to be to tell Tawny’s flirting hard with the popular Reaper—and that he turns her down with a hard, dismissive glance before he picks up his beer bottle.

Her rejection doesn’t stop Kitten from acting pissed off, though.

“Oh my God, Tawny! I can’t believe you did that!” she says as soon as they return to the bar to put in non-beer-and-whisky drink orders for the Reapers’ table. “He already let you take him upstairs last year, and everybody knows he doesn’t allow girls to hook up with him twice. It was my turn!”