Splinters of You (Retired Sinners MC #1) - Anne Malcom Page 0,8

the streets as I left my car and walked to the entrance.

This was the kind of place that noticed newcomers. That wanted to greet them, ask them about their lives and welcome them. Luckily, my default “fuck off” face seemed to deter the people that looked like they were going to do just that. These kinds of towns were getting few and far between as we were turning into an increasingly individualist and antisocial race.

Some remained. Some endured. Across America, there were ghosts of time when work was plentiful and factories thrived, and this town itself was a relic when townspeople knew each other’s names and stared at the woman getting out of a Beemer and wearing thousand-dollar shoes, walking into a bar at noon on a Wednesday.

I didn’t smile.

What was the point of encouraging them?

“Let me guess. Margarita?”

I glanced up at the owner of the husky voice that had spoken a few seconds after I sat down. I hadn’t been paying attention to anything but my phone and the various of notifications buzzing through my social media. I’d already gotten my moody shots of the woods, my face half shadowed by a self-timer shot that took me an hour to get. The one I’d forsaken my hunger and safety for.

That’s what my social media was, really. A collection of photos that look casual, thoughtless even, when I actually obsessed over them. How I looked, how many likes I got, what people said. What news sources picked it up. If it was trending.

It wasn’t even that I gave a shit about what people said. It was the social cache I was addicted to. I loved that people were forced to choke down my weirdness like rancid caviar. Because I was the Magnolia Grace.

Insane, I knew, which was why I had sat myself down on this stool where someone was assuming I wanted a fucking margarita.

“That’s cute,” I said with saccharine sweetness. “The whole, ‘I’m a bartender and I’m gonna go on appearances and think the woman with great hair, better shoes, and a full face of makeup is going to be totally cliché.’” I raised my brow. “I’m a lot of things, honey, but cliché doesn’t even factor on that list. Whisky. Neat.” I squinted at the bottles lining the back of the bar.

A much more comprehensive selection than I thought somewhere like this would have. “Glendronach 18 is fine.”

The bartender was staring at me. Whether he didn’t expect my borderline hostile response to him guessing my drink, or didn’t expect to be wrong, or didn’t expect to have anyone but the local alcoholics in the bar today. Despite the lighting being dim, I saw him clear enough. Saw he was attractive. Too attractive. Tall. Tanned, somehow, since he stayed indoors and lived in a state that barely had sunshine.

Dark hair. Good. I liked dark hair on a man. Todd had been blond.

Square jaw.

Stubble.

A handful of rings on his hands. Nice hands. Weathered. Attached to muscled arms.

“Good taste,” he said after a long beat.

“I know,” I replied as he turned to snatch up the bottle.

He didn’t ask me anything. Didn’t speak; just poured and set my glass down. A generous double. If I liked anything, it was a bartender with a heavy pour.

He stood and watched me drink. Didn’t try to hide it either. That was fine. I was used to people staring at me. Besides, the stare felt comfortable. Awkward. Honest. I liked that.

This bar was just another in-between place. Like a hotel, or a bathtub. Somewhere I could convince myself was not a place to write. Not a place to work. Maybe a place to marinate. Think on nightmares, fears, demons. Conjure up stories, scenes, sure, but not feel the obligation to write them down. The guilt of not writing them down washed away by tepid water, or strong whisky, or hotel room sheets.

This clean, but dark and appropriately depressing bar—complete with handsome bartender who was not opposed to breaking social rules and flat-out staring at me—this was my perfect in-between place.

“Another?” he asked, nodding to my empty glass.

I looked at the lineup of bottles behind him longingly. My frayed nerves were certainly craving another. My eyes moved to the bartender. Plus, the view wasn’t bad, conversation wasn’t terrible. As in, there was no conversation, which was my favorite kind.

During my contemplation, the roar of a motorcycle reverberated through the bar. My gaze flickered to the windows, wondering if there was a resident motorcycle gang or just some