Page 5 of Gatsby's Starlet
He folded the towel one more time before setting it down, as though symmetry deserved a second pass, and I had to resist the urge to point out that I appreciated the commitment.
“Depends,” he said, his voice smooth. “You here to complain?”
The sound of it settled somewhere warm and traitorous beneath my ribs.
“I don’t complain,” I blurted before I could stop myself.
Ruby blinked.
He blinked.
Wonderful. We were off to a strong start.
“I mean,” I added quickly, because silence and I have a complicated relationship and it rarely ends well, “not recreationally.”
The corner of his mouth tipped, not indulgence, not polite tolerance, but something with heat in it, and that, more than the leather, more than the noise, more than the fact that I was very clearly out of my natural habitat, unsettled me in a way I wasn’t prepared for, my breath catching just slightly, something new tightening in my chest, because awkward I understood, awkward I could manage, but this… this felt like possibility, and possibility was far more dangerous.
CHAPTER THREE
“THIS IS MYsister, Evie,” Ruby said, likeshe was placing something fragile between us instead of making a simple introduction, and then she walked off without hovering or sticking around to see if it got weird, just trusted I wouldn’t screw it up.
Sister—yeah, I saw it now, mostly around the eyes, same shape, same color, but that was where it stopped, because Ruby’s gaze moved quick and cutting, always clocking faces like she’d learned the hard way not to miss anything, while Evie’s didn’t move like that at all, hers lingered, took its time, like the room wasn’t a threat, like she could afford to look.
Up close, she was even more beautiful.
I should’ve kept my eyes up, but they dropped anyway, catching her collarbone before dragging lower, that dress pulling in at her waist then easing off again, just enough to make my head go somewhere it shouldn’t.
I dragged my gaze back up, not rushed, not guilty, controlled, because I’m not a saint and never claimed to be, but I don’t lose my head over it either, even if standing this close took a little more effort than I liked to admit.
The dress didn’t push for attention, but it held it anyway, fit her right, modest without being shy, and something about that got under my skin faster than it should’ve.
Truth was, it wasn’t even the dress, it was her in it, the way she wore it like she knew exactly what it gave away and what it didn’t, and didn’t seem to care who noticed.
Then there was the ink, a rose on her upper arm, not tiny, not hidden, dark shading done by somebody who knew their machine, and it shouldn’t have worked, pearls and vintage cotton and a tattoo bold enough to start a fight, but it did.
My grip tightened around the rag in my hand without me meaning to, the glass I’d been wiping going still as my focus stuck where it shouldn’t, my jaw setting just a fraction as I forced myself to look away, dragging my attention back to the bar like it took effort instead of coming natural.
For a second the noise in the bar blurred out, bass thumping, glasses clinking, somebody yelling near the pool table, and all I could hear was my own breathing slowing down like my body had decided to pay attention whether I wanted it to or not.
“Why haven’t I seen you before?” I asked, focusing on her again, because Ruby had been working here over a year and she’d never once dragged her little sister through that door, not until tonight, not until she’d looked at me like behave.
Evie had stepped inside like someone walking into a museum instead of a biker bar, spine straight, eyes taking everything in without shrinking or posturing, just… there, and she didn’t belong here.
I didn’t hate that.
“I keep busy,” she replied. “I don’t have tons of free time.”
“What do you do?”
“I own a thrift store called Patina and Pearl,” she said, and this time her eyes smiled with her. “Finding stock takes a lot of digging. People underestimate that.”
I leaned back against the brick wall, the stretch of framed memorabilia running along it, old rally posters, black-and-white photos of the original members of The Devil’s House, license plates dulled by decades, a cracked helmet from ’78 sealed in a shadow box, a sun-faded Harley tank badge I’d spent three months tracking down from a guy who didn’t want to let it go, and I’d arranged every piece myself, not random, not clutter thrown up to fill space, but set by era and by story and by who it belonged to.
I expected her to look at me.
She didn’t.
Her gaze slid right past my shoulder and she stepped closer, not toward me, but toward the wall like that was the thing worth seeing.
