The bar was hoppin’. I sometimes bounced at this cowboy bar out in Ravensdale, just north of Black Diamond. I lived out on the edge of Auburn in the Green Valley area, so it wasn’t too long of a haul for me and it was something to do on a Friday night when the club didn’t have anything going on.
It was a pretty okay gig – a flat rate of pay for the night, cash under the table, and it bought some goat or chicken feed for the farm on occasion.
Mostly, it gave me an outlet for some of my aggression when shit was otherwise calm around the club. There’s nothing like pitching some drunk frat bros or wannabe cowboys out on their ass, or better yet, their face in the gravel lot.
This was one of my pop’s first stops when he got out of the joint. His old high school buddy, Mitch, ran the place and always had a job for him when he got out. When my pops started getting up in years, after my sister died, I’d just naturally transitioned into the spot my dad had held down at the door.
He still came in and drank sometimes, taking up a stool at the end of the bar to shoot the shit with Mitch while I worked the door. Not tonight, though. Tonight, it was just me, checking IDs as the citizenry’s ladies and gents filed in.
Mitch had been making a killing ever since he’d put in the dance floor and sound system and added the mechanical bull in the corner.
He had a regular Texas-style roadhouse going on out here, and it was popular.
“Hey, Fen.” Bobby, the junior doorman, handed me an ID. I shone my flashlight on it and double-checked it for him. It was legit. I looked at the picture and up at the girl who didn’t look a fuckin’ day over sixteen.
“Try not to stay too late, darlin’. Place gets pretty nuts after eleven,” I said, handing it back to her. She smiled prettily and blushed, and it did absolutely nothing for me.
“I don’t know, Lindsay… I don’t think this is a good idea,” I heard. I looked up into a beautiful set of green eyes, taking the two rectangles of laminated whatever the fuck driver’s licenses in Washington were made of.
Lindsay was a brunette. The math told me she was twenty-eight, and she looked like a bitch. Her makeup was overdone, titties on full display – one of those types looking to hook up and ride a cowboy. She fit right in with the rest of the posers inside. Fake as shit, I had no interest in her or anyone else who came through these doors, typically.
The other license – the name, like her eyes, caught my eye for its uniqueness. Aspen. Aspen Lawson. I handed each lady their license back and let my gaze linger on Aspen.
She was beautiful in an unconventional way – thicker, with some real tits and an ass, a true hourglass figure in a thin sweater that clung to her over jeans and a pair of stylish knee-high boots. She looked cold standing out here waiting to get in. It wasn’t exactly a night for going without a jacket, but a lot of girls did. It was warm inside the bar and it was one less thing to have to try and keep track of.
She had these luxurious blonde curls that framed her face, held back by a slim glittering line of rhinestones – some kind of headband that was hidden but for the evenly spaced stones in her hair. Simple, cute, her makeup, if it was there, understated and accentuating her natural beauty.
She was tall, too. Five foot nine, maybe? Still, not too tall when it came to me. I still looked down at her from my six-foot-five height.
“Thank you,” she murmured, eyes wide when they met mine and I nodded. She plucked her license from my rough, tattooed fingers and I looked after her as she disappeared inside with her friend.
“Hey, man.” I turned back to the half-jock, half-cowboy wannabe who was next in line in his polo shirt and scowled, taking his license from him and skimming it.
“Go ahead,” I growled and let him through. I had some difficulty putting the pretty blonde out of my mind.
Hours later, the bar was closing and Mitch came to find me at the door.
“Hey, we got one that’s drunk as fuck and I can’t find her friend.”