Page 14 of Bullet
We continued past Harry and Bucky talking, but Harry didn’t even look up. It was frustrating and irritating. I was throwing everything I had at the man and he just wasn’t picking it up. The thought that, after everything, I might have blown my one shot being a little too arrogant was enough to make me want to pack up, leave Hoppa, and never come back, but I simply couldn’t give up. Not just yet.
So, Mark got lucky. At least at first. I let him take me home, more as an outlet for my frustration than anything else, but he wasn’t even half as good as Harry and I ended up leaving halfway through. I didn’t feel like sitting under my godfather’s disappointed stare, so I went to crash with my old college roommate Laura. She was used to me coming, and even left my room in the apartment the same, so I used my key to enter, walked right past her on the couch, and went into my old bedroom and plopped down on the bed.
“Rough night?” Laura asked from the doorway.
I didn’t look up from my pillow to respond. “You have no idea.”
“What happened?”
Laura didn’t know what I was up to. “I… like this guy.”
“Seriously?” she yelped. “What’s his name?”
“Harry.”
“Wow. I wouldn’t have expected it from you. You do the whole ‘no strings attached’ thing. So why the long face?”
“I tried to play hard to get,” I said, “and I failed.”
Chapter Five
Bullet
I got the last of my beer down just as Nick shut and locked the front doors.
“Whoo, we’ve been packin’ the place ever since the prospects started up,” Nick said. “Y’all sure know how to attract a crowd.”
The timer on my phone beeped to let me know it was three in the morning. On occasion, I’d get a little too caught up in hanging out at the Taphouse and forget I had two cats at home that got really angry when I came home too late. I slid my empty beer bottle over to one of the bartenders who was cleaning up and then stood up from my barstool.
Turning around and looking at everyone who was still left in the Taphouse, I did feel a little better about our numbers. With all of the members there, plus the seven new prospects, we were actually starting to look like a proper club again. Nick had been so opposed to open enrolment, but it seemed to be going okay. The prospects were taking on their tasks with pride and completing them without issue. At first, I was thinking at least half of the prospects would drop or fail out, but so far, they were all proving themselves worthy.
Open enrolment just might be the way to fill ourselves out permanently.
“You outta here, Bullet?” Nick called over when he noticed me standing.
“Yeah. I’m exhausted.”
“Hey, what was ol’ girl up to tonight?” Bucky asked. “That was her, right? The one Nicky set you up with. She slid in and started talkin’ to that guy right in your face.”
“I don’t know what she’s doing lately,” I replied. “One day she won’t even return my calls, next day I could use her incessant texts as morning alarms. She’ll buy me a drink and then turn around and mess with that guy.” I shrugged. “I don’t know, but I damn sure don’t have the energy to try and figure it out.”
“She asked me about you,” Seth said. “Was wondering why you weren’t giving her the time of day.”
“What’d you tell her?”
“That she fucked up,” he replied simply. “I told her that it was a surprise at all you even went out with her so she could pretty much forget you talking to her ever again.”
He wasn’t wrong, but something about hearing it laid out like that left a sore spot in my stomach. I guessed thatwaswhat I was doing, ignoring her to get her to leave me alone, but did I really plan on never talking to her again?
I looked over at Seneca. She was sitting at a table near the back with some of the other prospects, and though she wasn’t looking in my direction, she was quiet, and I could tell she was listening.
“What do you think?” I asked.
Everyone followed my gaze back to her, and then Joey, who was sitting across from her, nudged her and she looked over at me. “Me?”
“Yeah.”
“You wantmyopinion?” she said. “You realize I’m a woman.” The tone of her voice was thickly sarcastic, and slightly dark.
