Page 3 of The Keeper

PIPER

Ivy & Piper’s Guide to Life Rule Number Twenty-Eight:

No woman left behind.

Istabbed my straw against the ice cubes in my cup with more force than was necessary, noisily slurping up the last remaining droplets of my third watermelon margarita—or was it my fourth?

I’d lost count somewhere between Ghost’s friends showing up sans Ghost and the ménage-in-the-making currently playing out next to me in the heated infinity pool.

Not that I was judging. I was a girl’s girl through and through, and if anyone deserved to let their hair down for the weekend, it was Ivy. Her entire life revolved around residency. Before tonight, the only Ds in her life were of the psychopathology variety—deviance, distress, dysfunction, and danger.

She tugged the Stetson off Duke’s head with a drunken grin and placed it over her icy blonde curls before swimming back over to GQ. “If you want it back, you’ll have to come in and get it.”

“There are certain rules when it comes to a man’s cowboy hat, darlin’,” he drawled in hisgravelly voice.

“One, the hat always comes off for the three Ps—prayer, patriotism, and when payin’ your respects. No exceptions. I’d also recommend taking it off at church, restaurants, and inside your mama’s house unless you wanna get cuffed upside the head. I like to take it off when I meet a lady for the first time, like tonight. Two, if you can’t hang your hat, set it upside down on the crown—keeps a man’s luck from runnin’ out and maintains the shape. Three, never mess with another man’s hat. That’s a fightin’ offense.”

Duke—whose road name I could only assume was a John Wayne reference—had a whole Marlboro Man thing going on with his cleft chin, clean-shaven face, and jawline that could cut glass. The streaks of silver woven into his close-cropped brown hair weren’t hurting, either.

He looked like someone you’d find rustling cattle on the Four Sixes Ranch. He probably opened the car door on dates, helped old ladies cross the street in his spare time, and kept his hand on the small of a woman’s back when entering a room, letting every man in the room know she was his.

GQ, on the other hand, looked like the lost member of some trendy alt-rock band. Medium-length strands of dark brown hair fell in strategically messy waves over one eye. He had a nose ring, a diamond stud in his left ear, and a week’s worth of stubble dotting his jawline. He was the guy whose photo would have lined my bathroom mirror as a teen—the brooding bad boy I would have been just young and naïve enough to imagine had a soft spot only for me.

They were a juxtaposition—complete opposites save for one exception.

Neither had said a word to me beyond introducing themselves.

The men chatted up Ivy, a few attendees who stopped by on their way to the bar, and even the hotel staff. Meanwhile, I downed one margarita after another while wishing I was literally anywhere else. Like back in the hotel room, binge-eating my way through the emergency chocolate bar stash in my purse and moping over my shitty luck with men.

But Rule Number Eight in Ivy and Piper’s Guide to Life Manual—Never leave another woman in a vulnerable situation—meant I wouldn’t be going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

“Are you challenging me to a duel, Duke?” Ivy asked, tipping the brim of the hat down low over her eyes.

He chuckled and shook his head. “Not quite. If a woman takes a man’s hat, it generally implies she’d like to take a few other things off him, too, if you catch my meanin’.”

“Wear the hat, ride the cowboy,” GQ said bluntly before taking a swig from his beer.

Sober Ivy could handle both bikers and any emotional baggage they happened to have with her eyes closed. Unfortunately, Sober Ivy had been M.I.A. for the past thirty minutes, and there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I was leaving her alone with two complete strangers, especially not when cowboy hat-related sex acts were being discussed.

“Well, in that case, I’d say it’s?—”

“Time for another round!” I exclaimed before she could finish that sentence. “My treat.”

They agreed and tossed out their drink orders before resuming their conversation, rendering me invisible once again.

Was it too much to ask for some pity small talk?

Or, at the very least, eye contact?

Curious to test a theory, I tapped Duke on the shoulder. “Remind me again, you had the Landshark, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied without turning around. I didn’t get so much as a head tip in my direction.

“Great. Be right back,” I said quietly, feeling the tears forming in my eyes as I swam over to the stairs.

“I’ll come with,” Ivy insisted, waiting until we were out of earshot before asking, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” I said, flashing her a fake smile. It was the most relaxed I’d seen her in over a year, and I didn’t want to be the one to bring it to an end.

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