Page 24 of Gatsby's Starlet
Leather cuts were everywhere, the club’s patch catching the light in flashes as people moved.
The place looked like chaos to anyone seeing it for the first time.
To me it looked like home.
Evie’s fingers tightened around mine when we stepped inside, her eyes moving over everything, the patches, the men, the women drifting between tables in tight clothes meant to catch attention, and I felt the moment her nerves kicked in the same way I’d seen it happen a thousand times before behind the bar.
Running a place like High Voltage teaches you how to read people faster than they realize. You learn who’s about to start a fight, who’s about to cry, and who’s about to bolt for the door. Evie wasn’t doing any of that. She was studying the room. Taking it in piece by piece. After a minute the tension eased out of her hand, her shoulders lowering a fraction as her breathing settled into something calmer.
“See?” I murmured near her ear. “Just people having a good time.”
She let out a small breath. “Okay… yeah. I see that.”
I rested my hand lightly against the small of her back as we moved deeper into the room, not steering her so much as keeping that point of contact there, a quiet signal to anyone paying attention that she was with me.
I guided her toward the back table where Devil, Gearhead, and Bolt sat with a deck of cards spread between them, the three of them looking up the second we approached like they’d been tracking our progress from the moment we stepped inside.
Which they probably had.
“Evie,” I said, stopping beside the table, “this is Devil, Gearhead, and Bolt.”
Gearhead leaned back in his chair, studying her like he was trying to solve a puzzle, and after a second the familiar smirk crept onto his face. “So this is your pinup girl,” he said, glancing at me with a look meant to get under my skin. “Yeah… I can see it now.”
I gave him a flat look. “Careful,” I said mildly. “You’re real close to volunteering to lose a couple teeth.
Under the table Gearhead jerked suddenly like someone had kicked him. Devil. Had to be.
Bolt chuckled under his breath. “Good to see Gatsby finally bring a woman around,” Bolt said, folding his arms on the table. “Didn’t think we’d live long enough to see the day.”
Yeah, yeah.
Half these bastards had been betting for years I’d die alone surrounded by old movies and clutching computer parts.
Devil didn’t say anything, just watched the interaction with that controlled, unreadable expression of his like he was measuring the whole situation for something the rest of us hadn’t noticed yet.
“Who’s this?”
Lucy’s voice cut in behind us and I turned just in time to see her drifting over with Fiona, both of them looking Evie up and down with the kind of open curiosity that usually meant a thousand questions. Lucy could smell new people in the clubhouse from across town.
“This is Evie,” I said. “Evie, this is Lucy and Fiona.”
Fiona slid easily onto Bolt’s lap like a thousand times before and smiled warmly at Evie. “Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah,” Lucy added with a grin. “Always good to have another woman around.”
“Oh, I—” Evie started before trailing off, clearly unsure what the right answer to that was supposed to be.
“We’re still getting to know each other,” I cut in quickly, catching the direction Lucy’s brain was heading before she could start digging.
Lucy laughed outright. “Please,” she said. “If ever two people looked like they belonged together, it’s you two.”
I didn’t argue. Because she wasn’t wrong.
“Come on,” I said to Evie, tugging lightly on her hand before Lucy could launch into round two. “I’ll show you around.”
We moved away from the table and into the room again, weaving between chairs and people while the music thumped steadily around us.
“So,” Evie said after a moment, glancing back toward Lucy, “is she one of the women who hangs around the club?”
