Page 42 of Wicked Pickle

“I just wanted a motorcycle ride.” She crosses her arms over her belly.

“I can give you a damn ride,” Diesel says. “Those men aren’t angsty college boys. They can get you in real trouble.”

“You belong to Symphony.” Her scowl turns into a pout. “I want a hot biker dude of my own.”

Diesel blows out a long breath like he’s our dad and trying to keep his temper. “Do not leave this office. I have to go make sure everything cools down out there.”

He glares at Marietta, and despite me being as mad at her as he is, the urge to defend her is too strong. “Don’t be mean to her. She wanted to cut a little loose.”

“Well, do it in someone else’s bar,” he says. “People get knifed fighting over a wild woman around here.” He storms out, slamming the door.

I turn to her, expecting to see her chastised and deflated.

But she looks ecstatic. “He called me wild, Symphony!” She grabs both of my arms. “Nobody has ever called me that!”

I press my palms into her cheeks to hold her still. “Marietta, do you have a heroin habit I don’t know about? You’ve never acted like this!”

She pulls me into a fierce hug. “I’ve never danced on a bar before.” She jerks back, her eyes alight. “Forget the coffee shop! I’m going to get a job as a stripper!”

I drop my hands. “I’m here for your female empowerment, Mar, but I’m not sure you have a stripper personality.” Although the two times she’s been at this bar, she has definitely come out of her introverted shell.

She presses her hands against her chest. “I’ve never flashed my boobs before. I want to do it again! Did you see how they all shouted for me?”

She’s been bitten by the attention bug, that’s for sure. Her gaze goes to the door handle, and I step in front of it. “Save it forthe pole dance, girl. If you bare any more skin in Diesel’s bar, it might ruin things for me.”

That sobers her up. “Oh, right. Gosh. I don’t want your man looking at my naked boobs. That’s wrong. Shit. I’m sorry, Symphony. Did he see me? Shit, shit, shit.”

Truth be told, I don’t think he looked for even a second. He was more worried about the scene.

“I’m not worried about that. Why don’t you sit down?” I turn her toward the chair behind the desk. “I think the shots are going to your head.”

She nods and drops into the seat. “You’re right. I feel like I’m high or something.”

“Adrenaline. There was a lot of energy out there.”

“That waitress was mean. I wanted to prove we belonged here.” She folds her arms on the desk and drops her head down. “Okay, I’m moving from excited to embarrassed.”

I smooth her hair. “It’s okay.” I flash to the memory of the bridal room door pressing against my naked back, Diesel kneeling in front of me, my leg thrown over his shoulder. “We all do crazy things sometimes.”

I push aside a pile of papers to sit on the edge of the desk. It’s filled with receipts and invoices and accounting printouts. I spot a contract with Diesel’s name and signature. His scrawl is dark and heavy, like everything about him.

This evening isn’t going anything like I expected.

CHAPTER 14

DIESEL

When I make it back into the bar, Merrick and Jake are pulling beers as fast as humanly possible, all taps wide open, switching out mugs when they fill, while the kitchen staff hands them out.

Vicki isn’t helping, but that’s nothing new. She blows smoke into Iron Jack’s face. He seems to like it.

I jump into the fray behind the bar, calculating the cost of this fiasco as we fill mugs.

A hundred pulls. That’s two-thirds of a keg. Close to two hundred dollars.

“Stop calculating costs in your head,” Merrick says, elbowing me. “That girl will be the talk of the night.”

“Seems like there’s always something to talk about.” I replace an empty mug with a full one and set it on a tray.

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