Still Standing (Wild West MC 1)

I looked back to him.

“Sorry?”

“We’re gonna break,” he told me, tipping his head toward the table. “Line up your cue.”

I looked at the table then to him. I did as he asked, set my beer aside, bent over the table, acutely aware that he was close, we were being watched, and my skirt was very tight, and I lined my cue up to the ball.

My body froze as his warmth curved around me, his hand on mine on the cue, his other arm stretching out so his hand could cover mine resting on the table with the cue over it. His back was pressed to mine, his hips pressed to my bottom.

Oh God.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Only way to learn,” his deep, rough voice said in my ear, but somehow I felt it on every inch of my skin, “is by feel.”

Then he drew both our hands back on the cue and struck it forward. The cue hit the white ball and it accelerated, cracking soundly against the triangle at the other end, sending the balls scattering as his hand went flat to my midriff and he pulled us both up.

I watched the balls.

Two went into pockets, both solid colors, and Buck moved from me to the tequila.

He poured our shots and handed me a glass.

This time, I didn’t hesitate.

I was not one for liquid courage, but at that moment, I was going to take anything I could get. Therefore, I threw it back and then watched as Buck threw his back.

He took the glass from me, set both on the side of the table, grabbed my bottle of beer, handed it to me, caught my free hand and moved me down the table.

He stopped, upended the cue he was carrying so its nub was to the floor and got in my space.

Again, I didn’t retreat. The tequila was hitting me, I could feel it. I didn’t remember the last time I’d had a drink and now I’d had three shots of tequila and sipped at a beer.

Drunk was going to come fast.

He knew this too.

I was definitely on dangerous ground.

“He leave you with anything?” Buck asked.

I blinked up at him.

“Who?”

“Your ex,” he answered, my heart skipped again then he went on, “They didn’t find all the money. They seized your house, the contents, your cars, your accounts. Did he leave you with anything? Cover your ass at all?”

“No,” I told him and took another sip of beer. And it was at that moment I decided to fight fire with fire. “Why did you and Kristy get divorced?”

He looked down at me and answered without hesitation, “She didn’t share my vision of what our lives would be. That being copasetic most off the time, not up in each other’s shit nearly all the time. She married me with expectations of where our lives would lead, but she didn’t share those expectations with me. If she did, I’d never have married the bitch in the first place.”

“What were her expectations?” I asked.

“My turn, Toots,” he didn’t answer.

“Sorry,” I whispered and took another sip of my beer because I had nothing better to do.

“You didn’t know?” he asked

I studied at him, off balance again.

He asked questions I kind of understood, but they were questions that forced me to clarify in a way that I suspected he was trying to make me off balance.

“I didn’t know what?” I asked back to clarify.

“About the whores,” he clarified.

My middle moved back like he punched me, and I twisted my neck, looking away to hide the pain his words caused.

In doing this, I had no idea I missed the gentling of the air around him again, but even if I was looking at him, I wouldn’t have caught it.

I wasn’t numb to this.

Even after eighteen months.

Even after having my husband arrested in a middle-of-the-night raid of our house.

Even after having my photo, his photo, all those women’s photos (okay, there were only three, but three was a lot) on the covers of newspapers, and even some magazines, for months on end.

Even after the hideous questions the journalists would shout at me whenever they had their chance.

Even after having everything I owned taken from me.

Even after losing my job.

Even after walking into multitudes of stores and restaurants and seeing people’s faces change when they recognized me.

And even after hearing some of the things they said, either straight to my face or under their breath.

Truthfully, it wasn’t that big of a story. We were just another in a never-ending cycle of greed, ugliness and negativity the public at large consumed with wild abandon like the news was a daily Bacchanal.

But Rogan was young, handsome, a fallen golden boy, and some of the details were salacious, and those kinds of descents from grace lived a life much longer than anyone’s fifteen minutes.