Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70516 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70516 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
My baby sister of a whole three minutes got to play in front of thousands. She’d made the Olympics.
I was so happy for her I could cry.
I was even happier for her that she got the hell away from this place and our parents.
I just wish I’d had the courage to leave myself.
But I hadn’t.
I’d fallen back to what I’d always known, applying for a job at the local high school.
The school had sent me through school to become a certified teacher, and I’d accomplished my own new set of dreams.
“How long do you think you’re going to be able to stay?” I asked, feeling a pang against my chest from my aching heart.
I loved my sister, my twin. But I loved her enough to want her to be happy, and not to have to deal with this crazy bullshit.
“Til Wednesday, at the latest. We have a game on Friday in Seattle,” she explained. “I’m going to fly straight from here to Seattle.”
I looped my arm into hers, and together we walked into Hopps.
I didn’t miss the huge crowd that was taking up the majority of the small space.
The only good thing I could say about a crowd this big was that neither my sister nor I would be noticed.
Especially not with the big group of bikers taking up the back corner of the room drawing everyone’s attention.
Speaking of bikers…
“Isn’t that your electrician there?”
I followed Nettie’s gaze to find my hot electrician in the flesh, now wearing a Dixie Wardens MC cut over his sweatshirt.
He had a woman leaning over the pool table talking to him as he took aim for a shot.
“Sure is,” I said. “Looks like Audrey Owala has wormed her way in there. How surprising.”
“Audrey Owala.” Nettie cackled. “I’m going to call her that instead of Audrey Stanley from now on.”
Audrey Stanley was a deacon’s daughter. Her father and my father went way back, and so we were forced to spend time together even though Audrey was very much not our cup of tea.
But, being the forced nice girls that we were, we’d tried to be friendly with her even though Audrey was anything but.
Hell, I still remembered a time in high school when she’d fucked my boyfriend under the bleachers during prom.
Now, looking back, I saw it as a boon.
But back then, when I’d been crowned prom queen and him prom king, and we were supposed to be dancing, I hadn’t found it as gifting.
“Let’s just say that she did you a favor,” Nettie said. “And if your electrician friend finds her attractive and wants to do her, then you don’t want anything to do with him anyway.”
I tried to turn a blind eye to the two people, but even after we sat down at the corner of the bar closest to them, I couldn’t help but stare at them through the mirror above the bar.
But, to be completely honest, their group was pretty unwieldy. It was a surprise that Hopps himself didn’t kick them out.
Then again, he wouldn’t.
He was a part of their motorcycle club, too.
He was as old as dirt, and his wife was aging right alongside him.
They had great, cheap beer. A great atmosphere. However, they didn’t quite control the crowd like they used to.
Though, I had a distinct feeling that the group of bikers wouldn’t let any harm come to their club brother’s bar from any outsiders.
They might cause the harm, but no outside forces would be able to join in…
“Two beers,” a man said as he set our beers in front of us. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
“What happened to Shade? I heard he was gone from the area,” Nettie wondered.
Shade was a bartender and had worked for the other bar in town.
“Long story short, there was some shit that went down a bit ago. I don’t know exactly when seeing as you know what I’m having to deal with on my own…”
Nettie nodded.
“Shade gave one of the patrons a lime when he knew that she was allergic, and he was fired.”
“Oh.” She scrunched up her nose. “Mable?”
I nodded. “That was my guess, too. That’s the only local I know that’s allergic to citrus.”
“Interesting,” she said. “I liked Shade. I wonder what happened there.”
“Hell if I know.” I took a healthy sip of beer and winced.
The taste left a lot to be desired.
But I drank with Nettie because she wouldn’t drink by herself.
A loud, obnoxious laugh had me glancing back up in the mirror to see Audrey leaning over the end of a pool table, showing her ass to the world, and her tits to Weaver as he once again lined up for a shot.
She had her hands placed on the green felt and was shaking her butt with her excitement.
“Desperation does not look good on her,” Nettie grumbled. “What the hell is she still doing here, anyway? I thought she was going to move away from this hellhole and ‘become a better person?’”