One Hundred and Thirty-Six Scars(34)

“Hey, you okay?” Phoebe asks from under Ryder’s arm.

I nod my head. “Yeah, long looong story.” I chuckle, taking a seat beside her.

She opens her mouth about to say something until her eyes divert to the door behind me. A smile pulls on her lips and I know she’s got something ticking in her brain. “We need to talk about this soon,” she answers, eyebrows raised.

“Probably. But right now… right now, I need the comfort from vodka.”

“Vodka?” Melissa asks, shocked. This is no surprise. I’m not a heavy drinker. When I drink it’s a couple of glasses of wine, not ‘walk outside a bar with an entire bottle of vodka, drunk.’

Nodding my head, I answer, “Yeah. Just for tonight.”

Phoebe’s eyes go behind me again, and I fight the urge to follow what she’s staring at. She smirks again, resting her eyes on me. “Hmmm. Interesting.”

I point to her bottle. “How many have you had?” Phoebe smiling after finding out about Abby’s death is something new.

She laughs. “Enough to do the running man.”

“Please don’t,” Mellissa groans from her spot. “What if the paparazzi snap you doing it? Give them something else to pick on you for!” Melissa continues.

Phoebe laughs. “Oh good. Maybe they’ll tell something truthful for once.”

Since Phoebe and Ryder have been together, the paparazzi haven’t been all that nice to her. Being from a motorcycle club and all that.

I take a look down at my bottle. Fixing my vision, I laugh. “Holy shit! I’ve drunk half a bottle of vodka!”

Melissa and Nettie both laugh and Phoebe pats my hand. “Let loose girl, you’re safe here. Get it out tonight. But you will always be safe here. You could get batshit drunk and none of the SS men would touch you. Although…” her eyes drift behind me again, “…I can’t speak for a Devil.” She gives me a wink before raising her bottle to her mouth.

A laugh erupts from my mouth before I can stop it. “I’m sorry. I think I’m drunk, and I don’t know why I just laughed. Shit.”

They all erupt into fits, Ryder included, when Tommy takes a seat beside me. Tommy is the drummer in Twisted Transistor. He and I have established a close friendship. After he showed me New Home we spent a little time together. But it was only ever as friends, he and I both know that.

“Hey,” he answers, flipping his cap backward and pulling his drink up to his lips.

“Hey! How have you been?” I ask, with the sound of Delinquent Habits ‘Return of the Tres’ sounding through the speakers making me want to get up off my seat and do a dance, or attempt to.

His eyes scan Ryder before setting back on me, glancing at the bottle in my hands.

He laughs, shaking his head. “Oh, no way. Do I need to confiscate that from you?”

My hands clench around the bottle.

“No. No, you do not.” I raise it back to my lips and take another sip, letting the warm liquid once again, cover my throat before settling its burn in the pit of my stomach.

Phoebe’s still laughing, when her eyes drift behind me and her laughing abruptly stops. “Err, hey? You okay?”

“Yeah, Meadow? Come… I want you to meet some people.”

Shit.

Turning my head around, I see Tommy twitch in his spot before his head turns again.

“Beast, I’m not really in a good fashion to meet new people right now,” I whisper to him, making the girls laugh again. I turn around and narrow my eyes at them. “Don’t be mean, what if I fall on my face?”

“Well, if you fall face down, ass up… I’m sure they won’t mind.” Tommy winks at me. If it wasn’t Tommy who said that, I would have vomited in my mouth, but I know he’s joking.

Beast, however, doesn’t.

“I wasn’t asking you,” his voice is low, almost a growl.

The laughing around the table stops and Phoebe shakes her head. “Calm down, Beast. They’re just friends.”

“I didn’t say anything, Phoebs,” he retorts behind a smirk.

“You didn’t need to,” she quips back.

Silent conversation is exchanged between the two of them, before Beast lowers his hoodie from his head, showing his hair that’s a little longer than what I remember, but still quite short. He smiles at her before reaching for my hand. “Come, they don’t bite. Well… they don’t bite hard. But they bite where I tell them to, and they know you’re out of bounds.”

Taking his hand, with the bottle of vodka in my other, I smile. “Thanks for that.” I meant it, I don’t like men hitting on me. Vodka or no vodka, I’d still find the situation uncomfortable.