Page 3 of Gatsby's Starlet
I reached beneath the counter and flipped the switch that rotated the music feed from the standard playlist to mine for the next set. The crackle of vinyl filtered through the speakers before the opening riff hit, something older than most of the crowd would recognize.
A few of the older members lifted their heads. Someone near the pool tables gave an approving nod.
“Man was born sixty years too late,” one of the regulars called.
I allowed myself the smallest smile. “It was a better time.”
Chain leaned closer. “You weren’t there.”
“Didn’t need to be there to know it was simpler. Families took care of each other.”
He studied me for half a second longer than usual, like he might argue the point, like he knew better, but he let it drop. “Keep the floor clear. Lark has a double shift.”
“Got it.”
At the far end of the bar, Ruby laughed at something a customer said, bright and easy as she tucked a loose strand of red hair behind her ear. She’d been at High Voltage long enough to move like she belonged. She was a damn good employee. Hard to find.
I poured another drink.
Checked the screens again.
Counted heads without meaning to.
The night rolled forward calm and controlled. Engines outside idled down as late arrivals trickled in.
The bell over the front door chimed, not loud enough to cut through the music or the rumble of conversation, but sharp enough that my head lifted automatically, more reflex than interest, because I was always tracking entrances whether I meant to or not.
And then she walked in, and something in me caught wrong—subtle, but enough to throw everything off its rhythm, like a bike idling just a little too rough under your hands.
She didn’t hesitate or linger in the doorway, didn’t look around like she needed to figure out if she belonged; she just stepped inside and let the door fall shut behind her, moving like the place already made sense to her, like a crowded biker bar on a Friday night wasn’t anything worth thinking twice about.
The neon caught her as she came in, red light dragging across dark red waves of hair pulled back just enough to show her face, the rest spilling over her shoulder with a kind of deliberate weight, and it settled over her in a way that made the color there seem deeper, warmer, like it was meant to be noticed.
I didn’t realize I’d stopped moving until the glass in front of me sat untouched and the rag in my hand had gone tight in my grip, my jaw setting as something low and heat-heavy worked its way through my chest and dropped slow into my gut, instinctive and uninvited.
Pearls rested at her throat, real ones, shifting softly with each breath, drawing my attention down along the line of her neck to the clean fit of that dress, cream with small red dots, simple at a glance but cut in a way that held its shape against her, dipping just enough that I had to pull my gaze back up before it lingered too long.
Nothing about her pushed for attention, and somehow that only made it harder to look away.
When the fabric slipped slightly at her shoulder, it revealed the edge of a rose inked into her skin, dark-lined and deliberate, and that contrast, soft polish over something permanent, settled into me in a way that didn’t come with a clean explanation.
She paused just long enough to take the room in, her gaze moving slow, measured, uncertain like most first-timers, and when it clicked for her, it showed in the way she didn’t stiffen or pull back, just absorbed it like it matched whatever she’d already decided walking in.
That was when it really landed—soft didn’t mean easy.
By then my pulse had already picked up, syncing somewhere with the bass running through the floor, everything else around me dulling out at the edges, voices fading, movement blurring, until it narrowed down to her and the way her eyes lifted and found mine without hesitation.
She held it, steady and clear, like it wasn’t a question.
Like she’d come in looking for me.
And standing there, with that look fixed on me and that hot weight sitting low in my gut, all the control I usually kept locked in tight, the reading, the distance, the patience, didn’t seem to carry much use.
All I could really track was the space between us, and the quiet certainty that my life was about to change.
CHAPTER TWO
THE BELL CHIMEDwhen I pushed the door open,and for half a second I nearly stepped back out into the humid Charleston night, pretending I’d misread the sign and wandered somewhere I had absolutely no business being, like a librarian who had opened the wrong door and accidentally stepped into a biker documentary she was wildly unqualified to narrate.
