Page 17 of Absolution

Grabbing a clean rag, I begin to wipe off the bar one last time when a noise startles me.

“Shit sorry, sugar,” the other bartender Missy says, as a glass falls from her hands. “I didn’t see that glass sitting there. Damn drunks don’t ever seem to be able to put the damn things in the right spot at last call.”

I mumble an unintelligible response back to her, not really paying much attention to what she just said.

“You know,” she questions. “You seem to be jumpier than a long-haired cat in a field of mouse traps, Ricca. Everything okay?”

I continue cleaning the bar and plaster a fake smile on my face.

“I’m fine, Missy. Just been a shit day between the diner and the crowd tonight. I’m good,” I lie.

Missy saunters up beside me, planting her elbow on my nice, clean bar and stares at me. Her closeness sends a shiver down my spine, and I jerk away from her.

“That so?”

“Yup,” I squeak.

“So, it doesn’t have to do with that cool drink of water that came in here tonight?”

“Nope. He’s just someone from my past that came to visit unannounced. He’ll be gone soon enough.”

Missy rolls her eyes at me, not believing a damn bit of what I am telling her from the smirk on her face.

“Sugar, if that kind of man came looking for me, I’d be riding him like an express train, instead of rubbing the same damn spot on that bar over and over again.”

My eyes drop to the rag, when I realize she’s right on at least part of that. I have been cleaning the same damn spot over and over again. Fucking Ratchet. He’s been here a few hours, and he’s already turning my brain into mush. He’s a fucking distraction, just like I thought he would be.

“Why don’t you go on home and find that man of yours,” she teases. “I’ll take over from here before you wear a hole in that new counter top.”

Missy snatches the rag from my hands and bumps me with her hip, effectively moving me out of the way. I stand and watch her, before she turns around and glares at me.

“I said get going, Ricca. Don’t let that man go to waste, before someone older and wiser like me steals him from right under your nose.”

I stifle a laugh at the mental picture of Missy trying to seduce Ratchet. He may not be a young buck anymore, but I doubt even Missy could inspire him to sample the cougar side of life. Reaching down below the bar, I grab my purse and head toward the door. I step outside and inhale a deep breath, letting myself relax for the first time all night. The air is cooler after the round of storms that went through this afternoon, and the humidity is finally tolerable. The cold tingles against my shin, making me shiver just a little bit.

Finding Ratchet isn’t on my to-do list tonight as much as my brain is screaming at me. All I want to do is crawl into bed, and wake up tomorrow to find him still gone. Don’t get me wrong. If the situation didn’t involve my brother, my reaction would have likely been different. It kills me to plaster on this indifference façade, but I need every advantage I can get for Asher. Ratchet is bound to have a record, and that’s something I don’t need when the caseworker comes knocking on my door. I think about the look on their faces, when I swing open the door of mom’s old doublewide trailer, and introduce the biker who likely has more blood on his hands, than I have on my own.

Since the night that I kissed him at Red’s, he had me. The bond between us began to take root the night that I accidently invited Dani into the underbelly of the motorcycle club world. I was in an abusive and manipulative relationship with Enrico at the time, but in that moment, I betrayed him for a stranger who made me feel for the first time in years. A stranger that has now invaded my life with no intent of going quietly, and was willing to travel down the dark rabbit hole of being near me. My actions nearly cost Dani her life, but I was willing then to make her collateral damage to save my own hide. Something I regret every single time I see her with Hero and her children. I nearly cost her that happiness.

It was a mistake that I could never let happen again.

As badly as I want to embrace his presence, wishing him away for the time being is the course I must take.

I have to stay strong, but how can I when Ratchet is a tornado hurtling right towards my safe space? He is chaos, and with chaos, nothing is safe in its chosen path.

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