Page 3 of Fallen Dove
The shower hissed to life, and water pounded against tile.I stepped in and let the heat beat against my skin.Shampoo, conditioner, soap.The normal routine, but it felt different here.Like rinsing the slate clean.
By the time I stepped out and wrapped myself in one of Mom’s fluffy towels, I felt lighter.I dried off and tugged on the clothes I’d set out the night before: blue jeans, a fitted black tee with The Lords Social Club logo over the chest, and a cropped green sweater over top.Sneakers instead of boots.Hair pulled back into a ponytail that meant business.Chapstick, not lipstick.It wasn’t glamour, but it was me, and it was enough.
I gathered my things and stood at the foot of the stairs.For a moment, I hesitated, with my hand on the banister.Walking up these stairs meant the start of my life back in Weston.Sure, I technically got back over a week ago, but now I'm starting life here.
With Mason.
My stomach tightened, and my nerves sparked low in my chest.Fourteen years hadn’t erased the way he’d looked at me that night, or the way his rejection had driven me out of this town.I had seen him every Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we had always kept our distance from each other.I had tried to talk to him last Christmas to see what he thought about me moving back home, but he was not at all ready for that.
I was here now.
He managed the Social Club.And I was walking straight into his world, whether either of us liked it or not.
I took a deep breath and lifted my chin.
One step, then another.
The basement door waited at the top, and my first day was waiting on the other side.
And I climbed the stairs to meet it.
Chapter Two
Mason
I wiped the bar with a hot rag, and watched the sheen spread across the wood until it caught the overhead lights.Two hours before we opened, and already I had a list in my head: tables twelve through sixteen needed wiping, a couple of coasters were curled and had to be replaced, and the salt and pepper on table thirteen were running low.The Social Club had a rhythm, and if you didn’t stay ahead of it, the place ate you alive before last call.
I looked around the room with a manager’s eye.Pinball machines hummed along the left wall, their neon lights casting lazy pulses across the floor.The pool tables sat down the middle with cues racked neat and straight.Cornhole boards leaned against the back wall, waiting for the first group of loudmouths to get competitive.The giant beer pong setup, trash cans painted red with scuffed dodgeballs stacked in a crate, waited for a bachelor party to turn it into chaos.And the axe-throwing lanes at the far end?Fresh paint on the targets, with pine boards already scarred from practice.The whole place smelled like lemon oil, cold beer, and fryer grease that refused to leave no matter how many times we scrubbed.
It was any other day.Except it wasn’t.
Because today, Adley started waitressing.
Two weeks ago, Slayer had dropped it on me.“Kid’s moving home.Needs a job at the Social Club until she figures out her next step.”I’d swallowed the shock and answered like it was no big deal.As far as he knew, I didn’t have an opinion.And that was how it was going to stay.No one but Adley and I knew about the kiss fourteen years ago.Nobody else ever would.
The front door opened with a quick creak, and Thorn strolled in like he’d been born to work this place.Brinks and Cora’s kid carried his apron slung over one shoulder, and his hair styled to look careless but probably took effort.He dropped onto a stool at the bar, spinning once before planting his elbows on the wood.
“You look like your exhaust fell off your bike, brother,” Thorn said with a grin.
I fixed my face so I didn’t look as pissed off as I felt and kept wiping.“Just thinking about inventory next week.”
He groaned loud enough to echo off the pinball machines.“Please don’t remind me.Maybe we could have Adley take care of that from now on?Or at least next week.Once she does it, she’ll know why we shoved it off on her.”
I chuckled and shook my head.“Pretty sure since I manage the Social Club, I should be the one to do inventory.”
“Then why the hell do you always make me help you?”Thorn shot back.
“Because you’re the low man on the totem pole.”
“And now Adley is,” he insisted, with a smirk like he’d won the argument.
I tossed the rag into the basket under the bar.“We’re not piling inventory on Adley her first week.She’s here to learn the floor, not get buried in back counting cases.”
Not to mention, inventory meant two people stuck in the walk-in together for hours.No way in hell I was letting that happen.Not with her.Not with me.
Thorn raised a brow but didn’t push it.He leaned back on the stool, and drummed his fingers against the counter.
I had rules, and they were set in my head: No staring.No closer than five feet.Only talk about work.And absolutely no thinking about her when I was supposed to be thinking about this place.Rules kept me alive, and I liked being alive.
