“Not since my Barbies started their own club and boys weren’t allowed in my room.” She looks over at me and passes me the bottle. It’s a peace offering and a warning all in one. This girl will be friendly, but she has an in with the club that no one else does.
“Ahhh, so you’re the princess.”
“Yup. But don’t tell Bulldog’s kid that. She took on the club name Princess as soon as she could talk and won’t let anyone call anyone else that. She’s young but feisty, and her dad is teaching her how to throw a mean left hook.”
Her smile has my lips twitching. Got a kid of my own like that, so I can appreciate a dad teaching his daughter early. You never know when you’ll be up against the wall and the only way out is to start swinging.
“So, what do they call you?”
“Ruby, and yeah, it means I’m a precious stone or some shit. Don’t start. Mom was amazing but still wanted a name that made me stand out a bit in the club. And you’re the Yankee.” She looks at me with a raised eyebrow, challenging me to deny her knowledge. But I can’t help that she’s wrong.
“Brooklyn.”
“There a difference?”
“Only if you know anything,” I say, chancing my luck that the girl doesn’t have a disease and drinking from the same bottle, forgoing the glass on the table. Might seem weird, but where I’m from, if a person offers you a drink, you take it from what was handed to you. Anything else is an insult. Something tells me this Ruby girl was raised the same way.
She snorts before nodding. “Hard to deny to the boys that you aren’t making trouble.”
“Kidnapped people rarely play nice.”
“Oh please, you weren’t kidnapped. Club stepped in and offered to help.” She holds up a hand before I can protest what she considers helping. “Admittedly, they’re men and have a fucked-up meaning of the word, but help really is their main objective, especially when a kid’s involved. Besides, kidnapped people don’t get to come out to play and drink expensive whiskey.”
“Says the daddy’s princess.”
She smiles. “Touché.”
Thesounds of the club filter in around us as we sit in silence, watching everything and nothing all at once. The people I was introduced to at Wyatt’s birthday party aren’t around. I see a few of the guys who didn’t seem to have a plus-one that night hanging out, but none got close enough to me that day for me to put a name with the face unless I look at their club vest. Vamp night must also mean it’s family night out or some shit, since not one of the couple types is here.
Looking over at Ruby, I note the lack of a ring on her left hand like me. Not that I take her for the marrying type. She doesn’t scream white picket fence, but I doubt a club princess would. More like leather and oil. Begs the question of why she’s at the club, then. If she ain’t with a man, is she out searching for one?
“No.”
My eyebrows shoot up, as I know I voiced nothing.
“You have the same look that every other old lady gives me. Ain’t looking for a man, don’t need a man. And before you ask, yeah, I want one, just so I can hold him by the hair till I get off and make sure he cleans up after himself, but that’s about it.”
“So, why you here on a Thursday night?”
She shrugs. “Dad bribes me with breakfast at the bakery every Friday morning before my classes. It has the best damn donuts this side of the country, even if the asshole who owns it is a cranky old bastard.”
I laugh at that. “Sounds like my kind of people.”
Don’t know why, but a person who can piss off this chick is someone who would probably remind me of home.I instantly like them, even if I’ve never met them. And something about cranky bakers just makes me smile. When I get really homesick, I watch Gordan Ramsay ream someone out over a dish. What can I say? My family is dysfunctional. We use insults like most people say “I love you.” It’s just something we do, and I miss it.
Thoughts of that are half the reason I open my mouth again. “Bitch.”
Without missing a beat, Ruby responds, “Cunt.”
I turn to face her, and she does the same. “Redneck.”
“Yank.”
“Cum dispenser.”
“Oxygen killer.”
“I bet your IQ is room temperature.”
