But he hadn’t seen Pete in over twenty years, which was one reason he was wearing his cut. So the man would take him seriously.
“Yo! You can’t wear colors in here.”
His eyes scanned the mostly empty bar until he found the woman who had yelled at him.
It wasn’t just any woman. It was a woman. One hard to miss.
And now seen, he had a feeling would be hard to forget.
She was standing by one of the pool tables, putting away cue sticks and organizing worn-down cubes of blue chalk.
That reminded him. He needed to find some used pool tables and all the shit that went with them.
Fuck. One more thing to add to the never-ending list.
He needed prospects, and soon, to do some of the dirty work on that list.
He focused his attention back on the woman now moving between the seen-their-better-days pool tables. “Says who?”
“Says me.”
Trip pursed his lips and tilted his head as he watched her leave the area sectioned off by a half wall from the rest of the bar where the tables, chairs and ancient jukebox were set up.
“And who the fuck are you?”
She shot him a smile—a nowhere near friendly one—as she passed him and made her way behind the bar.
So, she was a server. Or a bartender.
Or just a plain ol’ bitch.
But bitch or not, she had caught his dick’s interest, which surprised him.
Couldn’t be the long, shiny black hair with the dark blue streaks that fell in soft waves around her slender shoulders.
Probably not.
Couldn’t be the eyes that had narrowed on him like ice blue laser beams trying to burn a hole between his eyes.
Nope.
Couldn’t be the full sleeve of colorful tattoos that covered her left arm or the small gold hoop in her right nostril. Or even the wide black leather cuff that circled her right wrist.
Fuck no.
Maybe it was the worn black jeans which fit her long, slender legs. Or the heeled black leather boots that climbed up her calves.
Or the loose white tank top advertising Crazy Pete’s, that she had a portion tucked into the front waistband of those jeans. A thick black leather belt also cinched her waist snugly, emphasizing just how narrow it was.
Also couldn’t be the black bra straps that played peek-a-boo from the back of her tank, along with a portion of another tattoo that spanned her upper back. A tree of some sort.
No. It wasn’t one of those things at all.
It was all of them combined.
It also could have something to do with the attitude that rolled off her in thick waves. Just like her hair.
Thick, silky waves he could lose his fingers in, rip her head back and take her fucking bossy mouth.
Yeah.
Fuck.
Now he needed to fuck someone, and he doubted she would voluntarily be that someone.
Though, if she did volunteer, he’d make an exception to his normal taste of thick women with thighs and tits which could smother him to death while he busted a nut.
Yeah, that’s what he normally liked. Not chicks who looked like they should be standing on a stage as the coked-up and wired lead singer of an all-female rock band.
While she looked like a badass, it was probably just an act. A way to piss off mommy and daddy.
He could see it now. Her parents set up a really fat college fund, and when she turned eighteen, she probably gave them the finger, threw all of her belongings into a black Hefty bag over her shoulder and hauled ass out of her upper-class two-story home to make her “own way in the world.”
She was thumbing her nose at society.
“Take off the cut and order a drink, or get the fuck out.”
Normally he’d choose the “get the fuck out” option but he was there to talk to Crazy Pete and that was what he was determined to do. Whether he had to deal with the black-haired ballbuster first or not.
He approached her—since she now stood behind the bar with her hands on her narrow hips—shrugged off his cut and tossed it on top of the bar inside out to conceal his colors. Then he settled his ass on one of the stools and rapped on the shellacked, but severely scratched and chipped, wood top with his knuckles. “Jack.”
She lifted one dark brow sharply. “With Coke?”
“It look like I got a pussy?”
She quickly spun around and Trip barely caught her shoulders jerk. After grabbing the bottle of Jack Daniels on a shelf above the bar, along with a shot glass, she turned around, her face not showing a hint of amusement.
Damn.
She slapped the shot glass in front of him and gave him a generous pour.
He tipped his chin up at her in thanks and downed it in one swallow. He let the burn subside before pulling out his tin and a half-smoked hand-rolled.