Still Standing (Wild West MC 1)

Something about that angered me, and with that, my heightened emotion and the tequila in my system, I didn’t guard my reply.

“Okay, West,” I stated. “You may know all that, and I suspect you know more. What you do not know is what it means to be me. There are a fair few people, thank God, who know what it means to be me. So, what I know is you don’t know that first thing about how to play the hand I’ve been dealt. No one can know that unless they spend time in my shoes. So don’t you stand there and make judgments about me. You have no clue, no clue, what it is to be me. And I not only know that because you’re not me, but because, earlier, you said I entered this game. You were wrong. I didn’t enter it. I was shoved into it. So you don’t know everything, West Hardy. You know a lot, but you don’t know anything that’s important. So you cannot tell me I’m making the wrong plays because you don’t get what it means when every breath is an effort at survival. I’m breathing so my take on this is, I’m doing all right.”

He stared down at me and I held his stare.

Then, apropos of absolutely nothing, he asked, “Are you a vegetarian?”

I felt my head jolt and my brows shoot together before I answered, “No, why?”

Without taking his eyes or hand from me he shouted, “Driver! Order Toots and me the works!”

And it was then when I realized I’d read the situation very wrong.

I wasn’t on shaky ground.

I was in the middle of an earthquake.

2

Clean

“Toots, have you paid attention to anything I’ve taught you?”

I looked up, leaned in, put a hand on the wall of a very muscled chest and grinned up at West “Buck” Hardy.

“You asked me if I knew how to play pool,” I reminded him. “You didn’t ask me if I was capable of learning how to play pool.”

I was drunk.

Way drunk.

Unbelievably drunk.

In fact, I’d never been this drunk before in my life.

We’d had huge burgers, cheesy curly fries, and we’d chased them with beers, and that was more food than I’d had to eat in a long time. So I kind of sobered up a little when the food hit my stomach.

But then I shot more pool (sort of) while I shot more tequila and drank more beer, and I passed the drunk I was before like a rocket.

Now, I was smashed.

His hand hit my waist and slid around to the small of my back as he grinned down at me.

“All right, darlin’, are you capable of learnin’ how to play pool?”

I shook my head and gave him more of my weight.

“Nope,” I replied. “I’m not very dexterous. Never have been. Always picked last for teams in gym, and when I dissected my frog in biology class…” I trailed off and scrunched my nose before I finished, “It was seriously icky.”

His hand at the small of my back put on pressure and he fitted my body to his.

“Then maybe we should give up,” he suggested.

“This would be wise,” I told him, nodding, and suggested back, “We could go back to twenty questions.”

His face changed, and I liked the change, whatever it was. I was just too drunk to figure out what it was.

“Clara, honey, you didn’t find that fun,” he reminded me softly.

“Well, if you don’t ask mean questions, West, maybe it’ll be fun,” I replied.

His eyes moved over my face as he murmured, “Mean questions.”

I pulled away, grabbed his hand and dragged him to a couch. I moved in front of him, put both my hands on his chest, put pressure on my hands, and he went down. I collapsed beside him, curled my feet up under me so my bent legs were resting against his thigh, but I twisted my neck toward the bar.

“Driver!” I called. “Would you be a love and get us more beer?”

I heard Buck chuckle, and I turned to see his eyes were aimed beyond me and he was tipping up his chin which meant Driver was going to bring us more beer.

Excellent!

His gaze came to me, upon which I declared, “I’m smashed.”

Buck smiled and asked, “No shit?”

“I’ve never been this drunk,” I added.

His smile didn’t leave his face as his brows went up. “Really?”

I shook my head and answered, “Nope.”

“Babe, you gotta live more,” he advised.

I smiled at him and noticed when I did, his attention dropped to my mouth, which made my belly feel warm, but I ignored this and drunkenly blathered.

“No way.” I shook my head, then bragged outrageously, “I learned early to make all the right moves.”

His gaze left my mouth, caught mine, and I realized in a vague way he looked kind of surprised.

“Come again?”