CHAPTER THREE
I stroll behind the bar.
“Hey bitchmeat, I heard you kicked some ass tonight,” Rusty says. My eye flinches as she brushes her soft knuckles against my bruised cheek.
“You expected something else?” I throw my arms out, heading for the beer cooler. “Any good prospects tonight?” I glance around the bar, crack open a cold one, and toss the bottle cap in the garbage can to my right.
Rusty throws the rag she was wiping down the counter with over her shoulder. “A couple of cute blondes walked in a few minutes ago.” She sets her hand on her hips. “Too bad they didn’t get to see you fight, though.” She grins, batting her long eyelashes. She’s my best friend, the manager of our bar, and she is hot as hell. Thankfully, I’m not her type− I’m a guy. After all, I do value our friendship.
“What? You think I can’t win them over with my boyish charms?” I wink, taking a swig of my beer. JZS’s is slammin’ tonight.
“Oh, I don’t know. Isn’t Jax in the ring right now?”
“Yeah.” I lower my beer.
“Yeah.” She nods with a huge grin. “You’re going to have a bit of competition tonight after those girls get a glimpse of him fighting.”
“Jax don’t fuck around with the chicks at our fine establishment here. You know that.”
“It’s that kind of attitude that makes your older brother so damn hot. Guys aren’t the only ones who want what they can’t have.”
“Shit. I’m not interested in playing hard to get. I tell the ladies what they like to hear, I give them what they want, and then I take what I need.”
“Sure,” she taps me on the chest, “after they agree to your ridiculous rules.”
“What? They’re good rules.” I smile, tilting my beer back for another swallow.
“Right,” Rusty snorts. “Don’t call me, I’ll call you. I don’t date. No sleepovers and absolutely no virgins. They’re ridiculous rules, Zeke. Ri-dic-u-lous. Hell, if I told some chick that, she’d slap me in the face,” she says, back to wiping down the bar top. “Hey,” she nudges to the left, “isn’t that the girl you took home last night.”
I glance over at Missy Mills who’s standing with a group of chicks, some familiar, some not. With her eyes fixed on me, she gives a wave. I tilt my beer her way with a lazy grin. “Yes,” I say, before finishing the last few gulps of my beer.
“And …” Rusty laughs. “She gets it, right? She agreed to your rules, right. ‘Cause the way that girl is looking over here at you,” she says all laughter, brassy and thick, “I’m not sure she-”
“She gets it,” I say, reaching into the cooler for another beer. I slump back against the counter, shoving my fingertips into the front pocket of my jeans. “Missy Mills is just like the rest. She knows that I’m only here to sow her wild oats, and that’s it. She doesn’t think of fat babies, picket fences, or diamond rings when she thinks of me. Nope. That girl sees me just as I want her to.” I turn to Rusty. “And that look in her eyes, the one she’s burning my way. Well, Rusty, my beautiful carpet-muncher,” I lean down and whisper into her ear, “that’s just her recalling what it felt like to have my face nuzzled between her slender naked thighs last night.”
“You’re an asshole.” Rusty shakes her head bumping me with her hip.
“Just statin’ the truth,” I say with a smirk. “Believe me, she knows that I’ll never get a best-boyfriend mug, and she also knows that I’m all good with it. When little Missy Mills over there settles down, she’ll marry a lawyer, a doctor, or an accountant. And she’ll forget about the one-night stand she had with some MMA fighter who owns a bar called JZS.”
“That’s because, unlike you, she’s probably not afraid of commitment.”
“Hey.” I tap Rusty’s straight nose. “I committed to Verizon for two years, once.”
“Like I said, you’re an asshole.”
“You’re right. And this asshole is going to head on over there to see which one of Missy Mill’s girlfriends he can take home tonight.”
“You’re bad, Zeke Declan. Just all kinds of wrong.” She whips me in the arm with her rag.
“Ah, come on. You wish you were bad like me.”
“Yeah. Right. I’d probably get laid more. Now, get out of here.” She shoves me. “Go do your thing. Go play, some of us have work to do.”
I chuckle, grab my beer, and head over to the group of chicks being sure to make extended eye contact with each one of them.