by Tracy Wolff
“Tiny, this here is Harm and Lyric. Give them whatever they’d like.” Rooster nodded at the bartender. “Ladies, I’ll be right over there playing pool if you need anything else.”
Tiny grinned and a set of huge, blinding-white dentures sparkled in the fluorescent light. “Is Harm your name or your state of mind?”
“Both.” Lyric plopped down on a red pleather barstool. “I’ll have a white wine spritzer.”
Tiny, who was in fact tiny, looked at Lyric like she was from Mars. “We’re fresh out of white wine spritzers.”
“Okay, I’ll have a piña colada.” Lyric reached for a bowl of peanuts, but the woman sitting next to her grabbed the peanuts and pushed them out of Lyric’s reach.
“Lady, this ain’t the country club. We have beer and we got booze. Most days we even have ice, but that’s as close as we get to a piña colada.” Tiny had a big attitude.
“Well, what kind of beer do you have?” Lyric glanced around like she was looking for a menu. She leaned over, as if to reach for the peanuts, but Tiny shot her a warning look.
“You don’t want to mess with Yoko. Since her old man left with her sister, she’s been in a bad mood.” He pulled out two bottles of Shiner, opened them, and set one in front of Lyric and the other in front of Harmony. “We have the kind of beer that comes in a bottle.”
Lyric turned to Yoko. “I’m so sorry about your boyfriend. Was it recent?”
“Twenty year ago, bitch, but he coming back to me.” Yoko’s English was accented.
She was wearing so much makeup that Harmony hadn’t realized she was Asian until now.
“Konnichiwa.” Lyric clasped her hands together and bowed respectfully.
“Just ’cause I Asian, you think I Japanese?” Yoko pulled out a switchblade and stabbed it directly into the bar top. “I kill you, bitch.”
“You are Japanese.” Tiny pulled the knife out and stowed it behind the bar. “You’re from Okinawa.”
“That not the point. Not all Asian Japanese.” She pulled a Buck knife out of her purse, unfolded it, and stabbed the bar. “My pimp say I no take shit from nobody.”
Harmony stepped in between Lyric and Yoko. If things turned ugly, Harmony wanted to throw the first punch. God knew Lyric fought like a girl.
“I agree.” Harmony took a sip of beer. “You shouldn’t ever take shit from anyone.”
“That what he say.” Yoko pulled the knife out of the bar and used it to clean the dirt from under her fingernails. “I like you.” She leaned forward to look around Harm. “I don’t like her. She go … you stay.”
“What did I do?” Lyric threw her hands up.
Harm ignored her sister—she had to save womankind.
“You shouldn’t take shit from your pimp either.” Harmony hip-pushed Lyric off the stool and sat down. “You should work for yourself. Why give him a cut of your hard-earned money?”
Tonight Harmony was standing up for women everywhere and from everywhere.
The whole bar went silent.
Yoko turned careful black eyes on Harmony. “I don’t think that good idea.”
“It’s a great idea. Think about it. You get to keep all of your money.” And stick it to the man. After her run-in with Heath, Harmony was in the mood to stick it to the man … any man.
Yoko refused to make eye contact.
Harmony looked around. “Your overhead is low and if you got to keep all of your … um … salary, you could afford to lower your prices.”
Yoko’s eyes snapped up and she leveled a defiant glare at Harm.
Harm threw her hands up. “Not that you need to, I’m only saying that you could. To drum up business.” She couldn’t help but notice that business was down, as Yoko was sitting alone.
Lyric peeked her head over Harmony’s shoulder. “Have you ever heard of Groupon? I hear that’s a great way to build up your small business.”
Harmony elbowed her sister and sent her a shut-up glare. “I don’t think they have Groupon for hookers.”
“Well, they should. It makes sound business sense, really. Just think about—”
Lyric had never been able to read body language or simple shut-up glares. How had Harmony forgotten that?
“It’s time for you two to stop talking now,” a dark-haired man said as he leaned over a pool table, lining up a shot. He kept his eye on the ball.
Lyric turned around on her barstool. “Are you her pimp?”
“I prefer business manager.” He made the shot, stood, and checked her out. “You seem familiar. Have we met?”
Lyric analyzed his face. “I don’t think so.”
“She’s married to Heath Montgomery.” Harm rolled her eyes. Not only was this guy poor Yoko’s oppressor, but he was a freakin’ football fan too. Fucker.
He shook his head. “No, that’s not it.” He studied Lyric. “I know you from somewhere.”
“She’s that lady from SETI who does the podcasts.” It was Rooster. “You know that podcast I was talking about on the Crab Nebula? It was her.”
Jesus. Seriously? Harmony felt like she’d fallen into some cheesy straight-to-video movie where geniuses had disguised themselves as bikers while they hid from the men in black.
“I’m doing one on the water plumes on Jupiter’s moon Europa next week.” Lyric looked excited for the first time since they’d gotten there.
“Fascinating.” The dark-haired man lined up another shot. “You and your sister need to leave.”
“We’re not going anywhere.” Harmony didn’t take shit from anyone, especially a man on tonight of all nights.
“You know, I think we left the stove on.” Lyric grabbed Harmony’s arm and tried to tug her off the barstool.
“No we didn’t.” Harmony batted her sister’s hand away. “Sit down and finish your beer. I’ve got this.”
“You should listen to your sister.” The dark-haired man finally looked over at them. “This is no place for a couple of soft women.”
What the hell did that even mean?
“What is she?” Harm waggled her thumb at Yoko.
“An employee.” He stood. “Unless you want to take her place, you need to move on.”
“You don’t scare me. This is a public bar and we’re not going anywhere.” Harm was a level-four black belt in Krav Maga. Her ass was staying put.
* * *
Chapter 6
* * *
Dalton was having a good time playing poker, which surprised him. Once everyone had gotten over him being the boss and started treating him more like one of the guys, it was just poker and laughs and really good chocolate chip cookies.
Speaking of which—he grabbed the last one off of the plate in the middle of the poker table.
“These are really good.” He bit into the cookie, which somehow managed to be crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside. “Where did you get them?”
Usually he didn’t allow himself junk food. Then again, he didn’t usually allow himself to hang out with coworkers, so tonight was a new experience all around.
“I know … right?” Head coach Bobby Golden sat on his right. “My wife needs the recipe or the name of the bakery where she can pick them up. She would love them.”
“Harm made them.” Heath shuffled the cards and doled them out like a Vegas dealer.
“Lyric’s twin?” The screamer from Heath’s phone call earlier? Dalton grabbed his cards and peeked at his hand. A king and a couple of queens. Good. Five-card draw was his game and he was winning. He’d never understood people who just played for fun. In his opinion, only winning was fun.
“Your wife has a twin?” Bum Collins, the team’s defensive coordinator, cocked an eyebrow as he checked out his cards.
Heath nodded. “Unfortunately. Her name is Harmony, but Harm fits her way better. Remember that psycho chick from Suicide Squad?”
Everyone yes-ed.
“That’s Harm, only she has less social skills and even more attitude.” Heath fanned out his cards and then laid t
hem face down in front of him. “I fold.” He stood. “She made cannoli too. I’ll get it.”
He left the room and returned a few moments later with a plate of cannoli filled with dark-chocolate cream.
For long seconds, they all just kind of stared at the plate.
“She makes cannoli shaped like guns? I’m raising.” Dalton shook his head as he tossed some chips into the pot. Now he had to meet her. She was a badass.
“I told you. Harley Quinn with more attitude.” Heath passed the plate around, and Dalton was the first to take one. Figuring it couldn’t be as good as the cookies, he bit into it then whistled. “That’s really good.”
“She’s talented, I’ll give her that … crazy but talented.” Heath bit into his own cannoli. “She calls these Take the Gun, Eat the Cannoli.”
Bum grinned as he counted out enough chips to match Dalton’s raise. “I’ll call. Crazy or not, you gotta love a woman who loves The Godfather.”
“The good twin and the bad twin. Is it like that old movie, Twins?” Coach Golden tossed his own matching bet into the pot and then reached for a cannoli. “They’re twins but Danny DeVito got all of the ugly genes while Arnold Schwarzenegger got all of the good genes?”
Heath picked up the deck, ready to deal the draw. “Well, Lyric and Harm are indentical-ish. Except Lyric got all of the good, sane genes and Harm got all of the evil genes. Does that count? In fact—” Heath’s phone buzzed on the table.
He set down the cards and picked it up, glancing at the screen. Then he swiped his hand across it and put the phone to his ear. “Hey, babe.”
Dalton liked the way Heath treated his wife, how she always took priority over whatever he was doing. A settled coach was good for business.
Coach Golden took a bite of his cannoli. “These are better than the cookies.”
Heath sat up and covered the ear that was minus the phone so he could hear better. “What? Wait … slow down. You almost got knifed by an Okinawan hooker?” Five horizontal lines popped out on his brow.
The sudden silence sucked all of the air out of the room.
“I don’t understand. Harm’s trying to talk who into leaving her pimp?” Heath leaned forward as if that would give him better cell reception. “Since when do they have hookers at Chili’s?”
A minute passed and Heath’s expression turned angry. “What do you mean you’re not at Chili’s? Where the hell are you that Harm is giving hookers vocational advice?” Heath stood and his chair rocked backward and crashed to the floor. “Dead Shot? What the hell is that … it’s a bar? A biker bar? What the hell has your sister gotten you into now?”
Holy shit. Lyric and her sister were at Dead Shot? It was a rough place, which was the nice way of saying that murder was more commonplace there than in Washington, DC, and the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco combined.
Normally Dalton tried to stay out of employee affairs, but he couldn’t leave two women in that place alone. He’d never be able to live with himself if he did.
He dropped the cannoli, then stood up so fast his chair crashed to the floor. “Heath, we need to get them out of there. That place is really bad news.”
The Wrangers’ offensive coach took one look at his face and turned white under his tan.
“Okay, honey. I need you to go to the bathroom and lock yourself in.” He shook his head while he listened to his wife. “Yes, right now. Who cares about Harm? She started this, let her finish it. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I love you. Bye.” Heath felt around his pockets, presumably looking for his keys. “Sorry guys, but we need to cut this short. Feel free to keep playing or let yourselves out.”
“I’ll go with you.” Dalton caught up with him. He wasn’t big on digging up old wounds, but he wasn’t about to let something happen to Lyric. Heath would be useless for the rest of the season if his wife was hurt. “I’ll drive. I know Dead Shot all too well.”
“I didn’t figure you as one for biker bars.”
Dalton followed Heath through the kitchen and out to the garage. “Yeah, well, it’s a long story.”
“One I look forward to hearing once my wife is safe.” Heath grabbed the first key ring on the holder nailed to the wall next to the garage door. “Looks like we’re taking Cherry Cherry. You tell me how to get there.”
He didn’t look like a man who was willing to take no for an answer.
“Sounds good. But what’s a Cherry Cherry?” Dalton stepped into the garage and one look answered his question. A red Cadillac circa a long time ago sat proudly between a black Porsche Spyder and a black Cadillac Escalade.
Heath nodded to the red car. “Jump in.” He clicked the garage opener button on the wall next to the kitchen door.
Dalton slid into the passenger’s seat and sniffed. “Do I need to remind you of the league’s policy on marijuana use?”
The car reeked of reefer.
“I’m clean, but I’m pretty sure Cherry Cherry tokes up every once in a while.” Heath slammed the key into the ignition, and Neil Diamond boomed out of the speakers.
“Your car smokes weed?” Now, he liked Neil Diamond as much as the next guy, but this was loud—really loud. “Can we turn it down?”
“No, Cherry Cherry is in love with Neil Diamond.” Heath leaned into Dalton and whispered, “She doesn’t like anyone who disses Neil.”
“I don’t understand. How can a car have a crush on anyone?” Dalton tried to appear nonchalant, but he made a mental note to review the team’s health insurance to see if it covered mental health issues. How did he discreetly ask Heath to seek counseling? He was worried that all of those concussions through the years had added up to some serious head trauma.
Clearing his throat, he said, “You know cars aren’t actually sentient beings … right?”
The car coughed and then backfired.
Heath patted the dashboard. “He didn’t mean it. He likes you. And he’s not going to say anything else bad about you, Cherry Cherry, because we have to go save Lyric from Harm.”
The check engine light dinged and they sped up.
“Cherry Cherry likes Lyric.” Heath was completely serious. “She hates Harm.”
Cherry backfired again.
“Your sister-in-law can’t be that bad, her cannoli were as close to a religious experience as I’ve had in a very long time.” Dalton glanced around the car, looking for signs of intelligence.
Cherry Cherry backfired for a third time.
“Maybe we shouldn’t mention my sister-in-law’s name,” Heath said as the check engine light dinged again. “Cherry Cherry is very protective of Lyric.”
It wasn’t possible. Heath was obviously insane—there was no way this car was alive.
Neil Diamond’s song “Cherry Cherry” finished and then started up again. “You have it on repeat?”
“I don’t.” Heath glanced at Dalton. “It’s her favorite song. She likes to play it over and over.”
“Okay.” Dalton drew out the word. He peeled his hand from the seat. “Why are the seats sticky? You know, there are people who can clean them for you.”
The engine revved high.
“That’s another sensitive subject. Maybe we should talk about something else?” He coughed, then shot Dalton a this-subject-is-closed look. “So … hang out at biker bars often?”
If he only knew. Dalton’s past was his own business. He’d worked too hard at leaving it behind to unearth it now.
“Not anymore.” He tried to roll down the window, but the button seemed to not work. “Can you roll down my window? My head’s spinning from the contact high.”
“Come on, Cherry Cherry, don’t pout. Dalton’s a good guy. Let him roll down the window.” Heath sounded like he was reasoning with a toddler. “I promise I’ll get you hand-waxed tomorrow.”
The passenger’s-side window rolled down. Dalton hadn’t touched the button, and he couldn’t help but notice that both of Heath’s hands were still on the wheel.
Was he being punked or
was this car actually alive?
“So, um, how exactly did you and Cherry Cherry meet?” He couldn’t help thinking about the first Transformers movie, when Sam bought Bumblebee at a used-car dealer. Maybe the same thing had happened to Heath, and this old Caddy was an Autobot. What kind of robot would she turn into … some sort of bitchy, buxom bombshell with a Neil Diamond obsession?
Jesus, now he was doing it. Were mental health issues contagious?
He tried to be open-minded, told himself that Heath naming Cherry Cherry wasn’t so different from when his father had named his motorcycle Loretta. Only, Dalton was pretty sure his dad hadn’t thought Loretta was alive. Then again, even if she had been, she was truly dead now after his dad had tried to wrap her around a tree almost fifteen years ago.
“I bought her off a baggage handler at the Austin airport. They were out of rental cars.” Heath kept his eyes on the road. “Lyric needed to get home. Her father was sick.”
“Sounds like an adventure.” As they hit the freeway, the wind got to be too much and Dalton tried to roll his window up. Apparently, Cherry Cherry approved of him enough to give him button privileges, because the window slid closed.
“The biggest of my life. We ended up married.” The corners of Heath’s mouth curled up in a smile that Dalton was quickly becoming familiar with.
It was definitely his Lyric smile, and it looked good on him.
* * *
Chapter 7
* * *
Thirty minutes later, they pulled into Dead Shot’s dirt parking lot. Dalton’s first glimpse of the bar told him it hadn’t changed one bit in the last fifteen years. It was still a windowless, gray, cinder-block box with a saggy, brown, shingle roof.
Then again, what else could he expect from the bar that the Bastards of Hell owned? At one time they’d owned him too—and he hadn’t been much different than this place.
Fifteen years changed a lot. Instead of being just another biker, he was now just another suit … albeit a perfectly tailored Armani one.