If you had told me a few months ago I’d be falling in love with an outlaw biker, I would have laughed you out of the room, but it happened so naturally. From the very first moment I’d seen him swaggering into the gas station looking like a bad boy wet dream, he’d been leaving little pieces of himself inside me and stealing sections of my soul for himself.
And that was before he’d put on the full-court press of the past two weeks.
He spent time at Eugene’s every single shift I worked, even if it was only for an hour just to flirt with me when I passed by on my rounds and steal a make-out session in the break room. He came into Lin’s for a haircut so I could get my fingers in thatgorgeous head of dark hair, trimming the sides close and leaving the top long enough to flop over his forehead without product or push back from his face like a modern-day James Dean. That day, it was me dragging him into the parking lot for a quick tussle in the back seat of my Mazda.
The best part, though, were the signs.
He left them all over town at places he knew I’d go.
The night after we fucked in the store room, there was one hung up against the same wall we’d made out against, red lights curved into the shape of a voluptuous woman, the kind of thing you might see at a strip club.
But I knew it was modelled after me by the plush form and the short, wavy hair.
There was “I licked it so it’s mine” hanging up over the server’s station in Eugene’s one day, “You are exactly where you are meant to be” at Lin’s another, and “Miss me yet?” glowing pink inside the door of Revved & Ready clothing store when I went on Lila’s recommendation to pick up some new clothes for work.
My favourite appeared in Honey Bear Café & Bakery where Mei had asked me to meet her for coffee so I could meet her best friend and Axe-Man’s daughter, Cleo. They were sitting beneath it, one word repeated three times from dark to light shades of blue.Baby, baby, baby.
By the look of smug pride on Mei’s face when I gaped at her, I knew she and Boner had orchestrated it together.
“He made me one,” Cleo had confessed in that soft, almost muted voice of hers. “Because I have…issues sleeping in the dark.”
“What’s it say?” I asked, without probing about what trauma had left her with awkwardly chopped hair and a gaunt face with haunted, sunken eyes.
A flicker of a smile around a sullen mouth. “Fuck the monsters.”
I’d laughed gently, falling more in love with him for taking care of this girl who clearly needed all the gentle attention she could get.
It gave me the courage to ask, “Have you ever thought about doing something with all that pretty hair, Cleo? I’d love to get my hands on it.”
She’d blinked at me, subconsciously leaning closer to Mei, who put an arm around her shoulders. I watched patiently as she chewed her lower lip and then confessed, “I told Mei once I thought about maybe dyeing it pink.”
“Like Chibiusa,” Mei added with a little grin for her friend before explaining to me. “From Sailor Moon.”
I didn’t know the reference, but I nodded because Cleo’s flawless pale skin and sage green eyes would look stunning with pale pink hair.
“When you’re ready, I’m your girl, okay?” I offered. “And speaking from experience, having fun-coloured hair automatically makes every day a little happier.”
“Yeah?” she’d asked, her gaze peeling back my layers with nimble fingers. “If you say so.”
And she said it like she believed me.
She didn’t make an appointment or anything, but I couldn’t say I was shocked when she showed up at Lin’s and asked if I could trim her unruly bob into something a little sleeker.
And I couldn’t say we both didn’t tear up when we looked at her stylish, tousled bob in the mirror, and she’d asked me through a tight throat if I had time to do her makeup too.
Without hesitation, I’d pushed back my next client and painted Cleo’s beautiful, tragic face in soft colours that made her eyes pop and the bruises beneath disappear. When Kodiak, one of Aaron’s brothers whom I didn’t know well because he barelyspoke, came into Lin’s to pick her up, he’d hesitated for a full second with his foot raised mid-step before he recovered.
When I told Aaron about it later that night at Eugene’s, he just shook his head, curled an arm around my waist, and murmured, “Not everyone’s as reckless as me, baby Blue. I saw you and knew in my bones I had to have you no matter what ’cause I knew I’d be good for you if you just let me in. The Bear doesn’t think he’s good for anyone and definitely not for Cleo after everythin’ she’s been through.”
“What’s she been through?” I whispered, almost afraid to ask.
It was late enough that the bar was almost empty, and I was the last server in the place. Eugene had entrusted me with my first closing shift with the kind of ceremony I’d come to expect from him.
“You’re closing tonight,” he’d said, sliding a set of keys along the bar top so they hit my hand where I was making paper napkin rollups with cutlery. “Don’t fuck it up.”
And of course, Aaron was waiting it out with me, nursing an IPA as he sketched out a new design for a client at the garage who wanted apickleriding a motorcycle on the side of his gas tank. Curtains, King, and Cressida had kept him company for a long time, but King and Cress had a baby at home, and Curtains seemed a little awkward around me, so he’d left when they had. I knew it bothered Aaron that his best friend was the only member of The Fallen family who seemed to have an issue with me, but I figured I should leave them to hash it out.
Honestly, even though I wanted the red-headed hacker to like me, he was the least of my problems.
