“Ew,” Alice squeaked. “You think you could turn down the creep-o factor?” She wrinkled her nose and stopped spinning.
“The offer stands for you, Alice.” Reierson winked at Alice and moved down to the other side of the bar. He grabbed a towel off the bar and started drying off glasses.
I spun my chair toward Alice and grabbed her legs, stopping her from spinning away from me. “You wanna tell me what that was all about?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Probably the same thing going on with you, but since you don’t want to talk about it, then neither do I.”
“You’re evil, Alice,” I mumbled.
“As soon as you tell me what is going on with you is when I’ll tell you what the deal is with Reierson. Although I’m sure, your story is going to be much more entertaining than mine.”
I looked over my shoulder at Reierson who kept glancing at Alice. “I highly doubt that. I can tell that man has the hots for you.”
“What you call the hots is more known as the fact we live in a small town, and he doesn’t have a lot of prospects to hook up with.”
I scoffed and took a sip of my drink. “I highly doubt that. I think it more has to do with the fact you are smokin’ hot and he can’t control himself.”
Alice put a hand on my shoulder and laughed. “Sugar, he actually said out loud, ‘I don’t really have much of a choice’ when he was asked about me.”
Hell. That had to hurt. I turned my back to Reierson, not liking the way he had talked about my new-found friend. “Well, fuck him. You are way better than someone to settle for.”
Alice clinked her glass against mine. “Amen, sista.” She set down her glass and smiled. “And now it’s your turn because I somehow told you what was going on with him without even knowing I did it.”
“There isn’t mu—”
“Oh, my God, I found you!”
My jaw dropped, and the blood rushed from my face. My eyes landed on the door, and if I hadn’t been sitting down, I would have ended up flat on the floor.
Karmen was standing in the doorway. Nickel was next to her.
Pipe was sneering at me behind her.
Holy. Fuck.
*
Pipe
We found her.
After we made it to her duplex and found it empty, we decided to hit the local bar before we headed back to Weston. I never would have thought Nikki would be sitting on a barstool with a drink in front of her gabbing with some chick.
“She doesn’t exactly look happy to see us,” Nickel murmured under his breath.
Karmen took off across the bar not caring that Nikki looked like she was about to puke.
Nickel looked over his shoulder and smirked. “You still want that drink?”
No, I sure as hell didn’t. Karmen had thrown herself at Nikki, but Nikki was looking at me like I had run over her puppy and was grilling it over an open flame.
Jesus, maybe her leaving did have something to do with me.
Nickel and I made our way over to the bar next to Nikki, and I nodded to the bartender.
Karmen was in the middle of running her hands over Nikki and asking her fifty questions. Karmen had said she talked to her on the phone, but she was acting like she hadn’t spoken to Nikki in years.
“Whiskey, on the rocks.”
Nickel held up two fingers. “Make that two.”
Hell, the bartender might as well just put the bottle in front of us.
Nickel wound his arm around Karmen’s waist and pulled her to his side. “Breath, baby. You’re smothering her.”
Karmen huffed and looked up at Nickel. “I have a month of not seeing her to make up for.”
“Well, I don’t think you need to do that in the first thirty seconds you see her,” he chided.
She slapped him on the chest, and I swear to God, a growl escaped from her lips. “I’m gonna smother you in your sleep if you’re not careful.”
His hand traveled to her small bump, and his other hand caressed her cheek. “I’ll come back and haunt you and this baby, baby girl.”
“I see Nickel’s possessive assholeness hasn’t changed since I left,” Nikki giggled. She grabbed her glass, downed it in three swallows and set it on the bar. “Well, this was a great reunion, but Alice and I have some plans with Vin and the guys.”
The chick she was with clapped her hands like a happy seal and hopped off her barstool.
“Wait, what? You can’t leave.” Karmen grabbed her arm and smashed her nose to nose with Nikki. “And who the hell is Vin? You’ve been holding out on me,” Karmen whispered.
Under normal circumstances, whenever I was in a bar, you could barely hear the person next to you talking, but Nikki had found a hole in the wall no one else knew about except for the bartender and the chick dressed like a cow.
Nikki warily sat back down but clutched her purse in her other hand. “Vin is no one, and Alice and I only planned on being here for a couple drinks.”
“Nikki,” Karmen pouted, “I haven’t seen you in a month. You can’t hang out with me for a little bit? I know you wanted to get out of Weston, but I didn’t think you wanted to get away from me.” And this is where Karmen burst into tears and buried her face in Nickel’s chest.
The bartender set our drinks in front of Nickel and me. I downed my drink and motioned to him to keep them coming. I bumped Nickel and handed him his drink. He kept his arm wrapped around Karmen and lifted the glass to his lips with the other hand.
“Why is she crying?” Nikki asked, bewildered. Her eyes were bugged out, and she looked back and forth between Nickel and me.
“She’s pregnant,” Nickel informed her as if that explained everything.
“Girl, your hormones are raging, huh?” Cow pajama girl asked.
“You have no idea,” Karmen wailed.
Good lord. Karmen was having a nervous breakdown. Nikki looked like she was ready to bolt any second, and Cowgirl had a huge smile plastered on her face watching the craziness unfold.
“I’m Alice, in case you didn’t catch that. Nikki and I work together.” Alice gave a big wave and tipped her glass to Nickel and me. “You guys are more than welcome to come back to my house and hang out with Vin and us.”
Nikki spun around and glared at Alice. “Would you stop?” she hissed. “They are not coming with us.”
Karmen wiped her nose on Nickel’s chest and raised her head. “Why can’t we come hang out with you? I’d love to meet your boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?” Alice asked, bewildered. “You got a boyfriend and didn’t tell me?” she asked Nikki.
Now the circle of confusion was complete.
“No, I don’t have a boyfriend, Alice. You damn well know that. She thinks Vin is an actual guy.”
“He is real, Nikki,” Alice insisted.
“Of course he is, but he’s real in California or wherever the hell it is he lives. I’m pretty sure Vin Diesel isn’t sitting on your couch waiting for us, now is he?”
Nickel looked over at me. “Did we drive into the twilight zone and not know it?”
I shrugged and grabbed a shot off the bar. “I didn’t notice anything on my bike. Maybe in that cage, you would have noticed.”
“I wonder where he does live?” Alice pondered.
“I’ll Google.” Karmen pulled her phone out of her pocket.
“Wasn’t she just crying ten seconds ago?” I asked.
Nickel shrugged. “Just go with it, brother.”
That sounded like good advice. I wasn’t up to deciphering Karmen’s mood swings.
“So are we going back to my house or not?” Alice bounced on the balls of her feet with a huge smile on her face. “I already got the movie loaded. I just need to stop by the store to get more snacks since I only planned on Nikki coming over tonight.”
“Get beer,” Nickel advised.
“Google says New York and Los Angeles,” Karmen muttered.
Alice tossed a ten-dollar bill on the bar and hitched her purse
over her shoulder. “I suppose he has a couple places he lives. Nikki and I can run to the store, and we can meet y’all at my house.”
“Nikki can ride with me.” I don’t know why I opened my mouth.
Everyone turned to look at me, their jaws dropped.
Was it so odd Nikki rode on the back of my bike with me? Nickel had offered me to ride in the cage with him, but I wasn’t up for the Karmen and Nickel show.
“What do you mean by ride with you?” Alice asked.
Nikki scoffed and shook her head. “They’re part of the Fallen Lords, Alice.”
Alice’s eyes lit up. “Motorcycles?” she asked with awe in her voice.
“Yup. I’m sure if you play your cards right, Pipe will take you for a ride.” Nikki stood and hitched her thumb over her shoulder toward the door. “You guys don’t really want to come to Alice’s, do you?”
Karmen looked up at Nickel and clasped her hands to her chest. “Please,” she begged. “We can hang out there, get a room at a hotel for the night, have breakfast with Nikki, and then we can head back to Weston in the morning.”
“You got this all planned out, don’t you, baby girl?” he reached up, tucked her hair behind her ear, and looked over at me. “You gonna stay or head back tonight?”
Nikki’s eyes connected with mine, and I knew exactly what she wanted me to do.
I grabbed a cigarette out of my pocket and stuck it in the corner of my mouth. “I’ll stay.”
Nikki gritted her teeth and grimaced. “Perfect,” she growled.
She grabbed Alice by the arm, and they marched out of the bar with the door slamming shut behind them.
“You gonna tell us what that was all about?” Nickel asked.
I shook my head and tossed a twenty on the bar. “Nope. But I do think we should get out there before Nikki convinces her cow print clad friend to leave without us.”
Karmen grabbed Nickel’s hand and tugged him toward the door. “He’s right. We just found her, we can’t let her get away again.”
Nickel laughed and pulled his keys out of his pocket. “I don’t think Pipe would let her get away again.”
Karmen gave me a knowing look but wisely kept her mouth shut.
I wasn’t going to let her get away again. At least, not until I figured out what the hell was going on between us. I wanted her, but I had never wanted someone like this before.
Nikki was different, and I didn’t like it one bit.
*
Chapter 5
Nikki
“You have about fifteen seconds to spill.”
I rolled my eyes and leaned against Alice’s car. I didn’t have a damn clue what the hell was going on. I had my own questions that needed to be answered.
How did they find me?
Why was Pipe with them?
And why in the hell was Pipe staying the night?
“Hello.” Alice waved her hand in my face. “What is going on, Nikki? I can see you being friends with the chick, but I’m not too sure about the two guys.”
“Then why did you invite them to your house?” I hissed.
“Because my mama raised me to be polite. I couldn’t invite Karmen and not the two burly guys.”
“Nickel is cool.”
She rolled her eyes. “How great, he’s cool. How about we talk about the tall drink of water who just walked out the front door and has eyes only for you?”
Shit.
Fuck.
Damn.
My plan to get in the car before Nickel, Karmen, and Pipe got out of the bar went out the window.
Pipe leaned against the back of Alice’s car and cupped his hand around the cigarette in his mouth, lighting the end.
I hated how handsome the man looked while he slowly killed his lungs. I hated smoking, but whenever Pipe did it around me, it made me sigh and wish I was the cigarette in his mouth.
Argh! This man made me whacked in the head. Who in their right mind wished to be a cigarette?
He inhaled deep and turned his head to blow the smoke over his shoulder.
“Nickel and I are going to run to the hotel to get a room for the night, and then we’ll be over to Alice’s.”
Nickel put his arm around Karmen’s shoulders and tucked her to his side. “You gonna ride with us?” he asked Pipe.
He shook his head. “Nah. Just make sure there is a couch for me to sleep on.”
“You wanna come to the store with us?” Alice looked at her watch. “And if you guys want beer, then we need to go now. They stop selling alcohol at eight.”
Pipe took another drag and shook his head. “What the hell kind of town stops selling alcohol at eight o’clock on a Friday night?”
“The kind that lives in the stone age and has a population of five hundred,” I explained. If Pipe didn’t like it, he was more than welcome to go back to Weston.
“There's that sass,” he mumbled.
I didn’t want him talking about my sass. He used to tease me all the time about it, but that was when I actually wanted to be in the same room as him.
“Okay,” Alice whispered. She moved around to the other side of the car and slipped into the driver’s seat.
I rested my hand on the door handle. “Try to keep u—” My words died in my throat when I heard the Alice lock the door. I yanked on the handle, and the door didn’t budge. Oh, hell no. “Alice, open this door,” I demanded.
I hunched over to look in the car and saw she had a huge smile on her face and was shaking her head. “Nope. You need to catch up with your friends. I’ll go to the store, and I’ll meet you at your place.”
“What? I thought we were going to your place.”
She shook her head and started the car. “No. I’ll run to the store, grab a movie from the rental place on Main, and then I’ll be over.”
No. I did not want them coming over to my house. That was the last place I wanted Pipe to be. “Alice, we are not going to my house.”
She shook her head and shifted the car into reverse. She cranked up the radio and slowly crept the car backward.
Pipe stepped back from the car, and I tried not to think about that damn cigarette in his mouth.
Focus, Nikki.
“I can’t hear you,” Alice shouted. “See you in half an hour at your place!” She stomped down on the gas, rocketing the car out of her parking spot.
“I hate her,” I growled as I watched her taillights fade as she pulled out of the parking lot and down the street.
Karmen clapped her hands together and gave a little jump. “Well, Nickel and I will run to the hotel, and we’ll meet you at your place.”
“No,” I insisted. “I can ride with you guys to the hotel, and then we can all head over to my place.”
“Nonsense. There’s no reason why we all need to go. Nickel and I will only be a few minutes.” Karmen grabbed Nickel’s hand and pulled him over to her car. “You don’t by chance have ice cream, do you?” she asked.
“Does it snow in Alaska?” I asked. I don’t think I ever had a freezer lacking ice cream. “Cookie dough, mint chocolate chip, and butter pecan.”
Karmen pumped her fist in the air. “I knew I could count on you to satisfy my weird cravings.”
“Hey, hey,” Nickel called as he opened her door. “The only one who is going to satisfy your cravings is me.”
Karmen rolled her eyes and ducked into the car. “You’re such a man,” she mumbled.
“Last I checked, that was something you liked about me.” He slammed her door and rounded the front of the car. “Try not to kill each other,” he called.
Once again, I was watching the taillights of a car I wished I was in.
“You know, I really thought you would have been a bit more excited to see me, sugar.”
I looked at Pipe and tried not think about everything that drove me crazy about him. “If I had wanted to see you, I knew where to find you.”
He shook his head and inhaled deeply. The end of the cigarette burned bright, an
d his eyes stayed trained on me. He tossed the half-smoked cigarette on the pavement and stomped on it. “That mean you never wanted to see me again?”
Truer words had never been spoken. “It wasn’t on the top of my list.”
“You mind telling me why that is?”
I looked around and decided this was not the place I wanted to have this conversation. Hell, I never wanted to have this conversation with him. “No.”
He shook his head and strutted over to his motorcycle. “You can’t shut me down that easily. But I’ll let you have a little reprieve ‘til later.” He tossed his leg over the bike and looked over at me. “I promise not to bite, sugar, even though I know that’s something you’re into.”
Why that rat bastard. A smirk spread across his lips, and all I wanted to do was punch his lights out and walk home. He would, of course, bring up something from the one and only night we had spent together.
“You don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you can talk to me like I’m someone you care about.”
He frowned and tilted his head a little bit. “Who said I didn’t care about you, Nikki?”
“Sometimes it’s not what you say, but it’s what you do.”
He shook his head and cranked up the bike. He grabbed the helmet that was hanging from the handlebars and held it out to me. “Hop on.”
Good. He wasn’t going to argue the fact that he did care about me.
As I strapped on the helmet, I remembered the first time I had ridden on the back of Pipe’s back. The feel of my legs wrapped around his strong, muscular body combined with the rumbling of the motorcycle was enough to drive me to the brink of ecstasy. When I first met Pipe, I thought he was handsome, but when my body had touched his, I went up in flames. The man was beyond hot.
“Do you know where I live?”
Pipe smirked and revved the engine. “I was just there, sugar.”
I swung my leg over the back of the bike, sitting back as far as I could without falling off the back end.
Pipe looked over his shoulder. “You don’t think you need to hang on?”
I gripped the seat between my thighs and shook my head. “Just don’t go fast and I’ll be fine.” It was less than a five minute ride to my place, and there was no reason for Pipe to drive like a bat out of hell.
Fallen Lords MC: Books 1-3 Page 21