Bull (Kings of Mayhem MC 6)

“It’s okay if you’ve never fired a handgun before,” Cool Hand added, a little condescendingly.

I folded my arms across my chest.

“Dude, does she look like she’s ever fired any kind of gun before?” Nitro asked.

Which grated at my nerves.

“Good point,” Cool Hand replied.

I didn’t like being shoved in a box by someone’s assumption.

I let my arms drop to my side.

Fine.

I would shoot the damn gun.

“Nothin’ to be afraid of, darlin’. No one gets it perfect the first time,” Cool Hand said as Randy handed me the Beretta. “I’ll walk you through it.”

But before Cool Hand had the chance to show me anything, I had the safety off, my feet stepped apart, my back straightened, and I was firing five rapid shots into the target on the sandbag with an eagle-eyed precision no one saw coming.

In seconds, I had blown the center target to pieces.

Because I don’t like people making assumptions about me.

When the echo of the last shot faded into the sunny afternoon, you could hear a pin drop. I stood for a moment, watching the waterfall of sand spill from the sandbag onto the concrete before taking a look around me. Chins had dropped. Mouths were open.

I handed Cool Hand his gun. “How’d I do?”

But he couldn’t find the words.

Feeling a little smug, I walked away and made my way toward the clubhouse, smiling when I overheard Vader say, “That’s fucking it. First Star Wars, and now this. If Bull doesn’t make his move, then I’m going to sweep her off her goddamn feet and marry her.”

Randy followed me inside. “Want to tell me what the fuck that was all about?”

I shrugged. “Nothing to tell.”

“Uh-uh. What you did out there was not beginner’s luck. Now spill. How’d you learn to shoot a firearm like that?”

Brushing him off wasn’t going to work here, so I looked him square in the eye and I told him the truth.

“Once upon a time, someone made me a victim. Afterward, I decided it would never happen again.”

TAYLOR

The following Monday, after dropping Noah at school, I stopped into the gas station to fill up.

“Your card has been declined,” the attendant said when I went to pay.

“Are you sure?” I felt the sudden flood of heat run through me. I knew we were running low on money, but I was sure I had enough for gas. “Can you try it again?”

The attendant looked put out as he retried my card. “Declined.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“Not according to the machine it’s not.”

“Can you try it once more?” I asked, praying for it to be a mistake.

This time the attendant sighed dramatically as he put my card through. But just like the previous two times, it was declined.

“That’ll be twenty-three dollars…cash.”

I swallowed back my embarrassment. I didn’t have twenty-three dollars. Hell, I didn’t have ten dollars.

I felt the lady behind me shift on her feet impatiently, and the person behind her huffed out their frustration at having to wait for me to pay. I looked over my shoulder and saw it was a man in a dark blue, pinstriped suit, looking very exasperated.

I swung back to the attendant. “Look, I’m sorry, I don’t have the cash. But today is payday—”

“Sure, it is,” he said, his apathy astounding. “Listen, I don’t care if today is payday, your birthday, or freaking Hanukah, or Christmas day…you gotta pay twenty-three dollars, right now, or I’m calling the cops.”

The cops were the last people I needed to be called.

“What’s the hold up?” The man in the pinstriped suit called out peevishly.

“Her card is declined, and she doesn’t have any money to pay,” the attendant announced to the store.

I glared at him. Jerk.

The large lady behind me sighed. When I looked over my shoulder at her, she looked me up and down, and shook her head with pure, uninhibited judgment.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” The man in the pinstriped suit pushed past her to get to the counter and handed the attendant his card. “Put hers with mine, will you, and let’s get this fucking done. Some of us don’t have all day to stand around.”

“You don’t need to do that,” I said, wishing the floor would open up and swallow me whole.

“Excuse me, but from where I’m standing, it looks like I do,” he snapped, looking at me with the arrogance of a person who had never seen skid row, or felt the grip of hunger pains because money was tight and you had to pay for your kid brother’s school excursion.

I stood as still as a mouse as we all waited for the transaction to go through, my body aching with mortification. When the attendant handed him the receipt, he shoved it into his wallet and gave me a contemptuous look.

I followed him out, grateful for his generosity, even if he was being an asshole about it.