Page 7 of Spade
“I promise,” Cynthia agreed. She’d just have to come up with a good excuse later to get out of going to Road Reapers. Maybe a headache or something would be believable, but she was going to have to think of something because, from the determined look on Charlie’s face, she wasn’t about to let her out of her promise so easily.
Charlie was relentless, calling Cynthia about a dozen times over just a few hours. After her last afternoon appointment, she took off, hoping that Charlie would forget her invitation, and Cynthia’s promise to think about it—but she didn’t. And when Cynthia finally gave up and answered her cell phone, Charlie was pissed. She told Cynthia that friends don’t ignore friends and hearing that she made her friend worry about her had Cynthiafeeling like an ass. She felt bad enough to agree to meet Charlie at Road Reapers and stay for the first few songs at least. If her friend had her way, they’d be closing down the bar tonight, but Cynthia hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.
She checked herself in the rearview mirror, sitting in the back of the parking lot in her pickup, trying to decide if her friendship with Charlie was worth all this trouble. “Pull yourself together,” she said to her reflection. She felt like telling her reflection to go to hell, but instead, just stuck her tongue out at herself. Cynthia sighed and opened the door to her old truck and hopped down onto the gravel parking lot. The front of the lot was paved for bikes since gravel wasn’t a bike’s best friend. The back of the lot was reserved for cars and trucks, and since Cynthia didn’t ride anymore, she usually parked in the back of the lot.
She quickly looked around and noticed that the lot was packed tonight, and she hoped like hell that didn’t mean that she’d run into Spade again. Maybe a live band wasn’t the guy’s scene, but she had a feeling that she was hoping for something that wasn’t the case. From how many vehicles were in the lot, a live band was everyone’s scene.
Cynthia walked into the front door and wanted to turn around and walk right back out. The place was humming, and she could barely hear over the music, but before she could get out of the bar, Charlie had her arm in a death grip, pulling her back into the crowd.
“You came,” Charlie exclaimed as though she was shocked. Honestly, she didn’t leave Cynthia much wiggle room in denying her invitation.
“Well, you didn’t leave me much choice,” Cynthia complained. After she said the words, she was hoping that Charlie wouldn’t be able to hear her, but from the look on her face, she had.
“You’re here, so you should just let loose and have some fun,” Charlie insisted. From the way she was slurring her words, Charlie had let loose a while ago and was having a blast.
“Um, how many of those have you had?” Cynthia asked, nodding to the drink in Charlie’s hand.
“Oh, we have to get you one of these,” she insisted. She pointed to her husband Ink, who was standing in the corner by the bar with a few of the guys, and he nodded back at her. “That’s our signal that Mama needs more jiggle juice,” she said, laughing at herself. Cynthia had to admit that Charlie was amusing when she was drunk. She had only seen her friend this way a handful of times, and she forgot how much fun she was.
“I’m only staying for a bit,” she lied. “I don’t think that I’m up for a full night of this.” She pointed to the very loud band and looked back at Charlie.
“Oh, don’t be so stuffy,” Charlie chided. “You need a night out,” she insisted. “And there are lots of guys here tonight. I’m betting that you’ll find one and forget all about leaving in no time.” Charlie was wrong about that. The last thing Cynthia wanted to do was find a guy to spend time with—especially at the Road Reapers. If she was going to spend any time with a guy, it would be Spade, and that wasn’t happening.
Ink seemed to appear out of nowhere, handing her not one, but two drinks. “This is what Charlie is drinking, and they seem to be doing the trick,” he teased, winking at his wife.
“Keep that up, and you’re going to get lucky again,” Charlie slurred.
Cynthia groaned and Ink chuckled. “Yeah, we’ll see,” he said. “You’re pretty drunk, honey and I bet that you’ll pass out before we even get out of the parking lot. I guess it’s a good thing that I brought my truck tonight and not my bike.”
“Hey,” Charlie said, as though that was her full defense. She started swaying to the music, forgetting what she was about toprotest, and Cynthia couldn’t help her giggle. Yeah, her friend was very amusing when she was drunk. Watching Charlie this way almost made coming out tonight worth it.
“I love this song,” Charlie swooned. “Dance with me,” she said to Ink, holding her arms wide for him. He caught her body before she practically fell backward and pulled her close.
“Sorry, Cynthia,” he shouted back over his shoulder. “I guess we’re dancing.” She giggled and shook her head at her friends. When she finally made her way back into the dating world, she hoped that she’d meet someone who treated her the way that Ink treated Charlie. There was no question how much he loved her, and no chance that he’d ever do wrong by her.
Cynthia quickly downed first one, then the other drink, and put her empty cups on the table in the corner of the room. She had worked her way over to that spot, trying to stay out of the way. Apparently, the slow song that the band was playing was a lot of people’s favorite—hers included.
The drinks were strong—probably at Ink’s request, and she hadn’t realized how strong they were until about five minutes after she downed them. The room felt hazy and maybe that was from the amount of bodies out on the dance floor, but she was sure that it had more to do with the amount of vodka in the drinks.
“Shit,” she slurred to herself. Cynthia decided that Charlie had a point—she was there so she should just let loose and have some fun. But she’d do that her way—alone, and not with some random guy that she didn’t want to go home with anyway.
Cynthia swayed to the music, letting the beat of the base hum through her body. She closed her eyes and imagined herself six months from now. Would her self-imposed no men rule be lifted? Or would she still need time to heal from Eric’s betrayal? She honestly didn’t have a clue how she’d feel in six months. All she knew was that today, she didn’t think about Eric at all—well, except for now. In fact, the only man that she thought about practically all day long was Spade.
“Hey,” she heard him whisper from behind her. See, even now, she was imagining him whispering in her ear, just as she had every night since he got up from her chair and walked out of Ink’s shop. For some crazy reason, the big biker did it for her, and forgetting her time out from guys wasn’t going to be easy.
“Spade,” she practically moaned his name. It was as though he was really there with her, just like her dreams at night. She could feel his body pressed up against her from behind and his arms banded around her waist. “That feels good,” she whispered, and he tugged her close and swayed to the music with her.
They stood like that for what felt like an eternity, slowing moving to the music, and when it stopped and the room fell silent, she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes and wake up from her dream. She didn’t want her time with Spade to end, just as it had every morning when her alarm went off and she’d have to start her day.
“Where’s your boyfriend, honey?” he whispered into her ear. Boyfriend, what boyfriend?
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she breathed, leaning back into his hold. “Only you, Spade.”
“I see,” he breathed, kissing a path down her neck. He chuckled against her sensitive skin, and she panicked. She didn’t remember Spade ever asking her that in one of her dreams. Her eyes opened and looked down her body to find Slade’s big, tattooed arms around her middle. Shit, none of it was a dream. Cynthia had been dancing with Spade, moaning his name, and telling him how good he felt pressed up against her body.
The band announced that they were taking a break, as she tried to free herself from Slade’s grip. “Let me go,” she insisted.
“After you answer my question, honey,” he said. He had asked her a question? She thought back through everything that happened and realized that Spade asked her where her boyfriend was. Yeah—her fake boyfriend and she had no clue where or even who he was, but she was going to have to come up with something quickly or tell Spade the truth that she was a big, fat liar.
