Before Sinclair

Chapter One: Carla's

THERE IS ONE thing and one thing only that I need to do now that I’ve turned eighteen and that is the egregious task of losing my virginity. Most will find themselves wondering: “Why are you so eager to lose your virginity, Freyja. You should wait until you find that special someone. You should wait until you’re in love.”

And to that, I would say, I will never fall in love. Not ever. Not because I don’t want to or not because I’m aromantic or something like that, but because I fear love. Right down to my very bones. From a young age when I came to understand what romantic love was, I feared it.

My mom took me to all kinds of counselors. A psychiatrist here, a psychologist there, and they all pretty much came to the same conclusion. There was deep trauma left behind from my father, the wound he had made on me ran deep. It could get better with counseling, they thought. After a few appointments with a therapist and I would see that love wasn’t the scary thing I was making it out to be. I was young enough for my mind to be easily bent in the right direction.

Except, ten counseling sessions later and I was still as afraid of love as I had been pre-counseling. I had a list prepared for why romantic love was a sham that didn’t last.

“I don’t want to be the one who’s still in love when everything falls apart,” I had told the therapist as she sat across from me, her face respectfully blank.

“There’s no guarantee that love falls apart, Freyja,” she said. Her voice was gentle, calm, and prodding. She was scribbling something down in her notebook, that blank expression never ebbing.

I remember, even now, how uncomfortable that careful expression made me.

“Everything falls apart,” I’d said in response. “There’s nothing that lasts forever.”

Her eyes had flickered up to me and I could see the expression in them. The contrast between her perfectly calm face and her pitying eyes was so large it was almost funny.

That was how I was diagnosed with severe anxiety and Philophobia, the fear of love. After that, I attended a few more sessions up until recently. Since I was turning eighteen, my mother could no longer force me to go. Apart from the medicine to keep my anxiety at bay, the sessions did nothing for me. In the end, it was like going around in circles. My therapist had tried her best, she really had. And maybe, for anyone else, they could have been fixed. But I was not like anyone else. I had seen with my own eyes how love ended. I knew how quickly love dried up.

Even the love between family could die as fast as it was born.

With love, nothing was safe. One minute you’re loved and the next, you’re thrown away. You’re left grappling, gasping, trying desperately to hang onto what’s no longer there. You use anger to hold on to it if you can or sadness. You’ll use whatever you can to hang on to that love because you’re scared that, if there’s no anger and no sadness, you may never let yourself feel again.

I didn’t want that pain back then, and I don’t want it now, eight years later. What I do want is what I know I can have and what I know will always stay. I want to look after my mother, to take care of my younger brother, and watch him make his way through college when he finishes school in three years. I want to finish my freshman year in college without any hiccups and get this journalism degree so I could properly start the career I wanted.

I want things that are real and solid and that will always be there. Love is not one of those things.

Love is fickle and the people who feel it are even more fickle than the emotion itself. I don’t want something that can be here today and gone tomorrow. What I do want, though, is to experience s*x at least once.

That’s how I got roped to coming to Carla’s of all places.

Sofia was someone I only ever talked to in the one PE class we shared together. I was a shy loner, and she was an outgoing pothead who was slept with whoever she wanted and never let anyone make her feel bad for it. I had always respected that about her. What I didn’t like about her was how quick she was to make girls feel shitty about sleeping with guys she liked. Her inferiority complex wasn’t cute at all, but as long as she wasn’t whining about the guys she liked sleeping with someone other than her—even when they didn’t even know she was alive—she was cool to hang around.

She was the one who had convinced me to come to Carla’s.

“If you want to lose your virginity, that’s the place to go,” she had said, grinning at me. She rolled onto her stomach, her eyes holding mine. “The men of the Iron Order don’t do relationships. I think only four or five of them are in relationships. The rest of them are completely up for grabs. You can have your pick of noncommittal s*x partners.”

I had been sitting at my desk, posting a new book review for my book review blog TheFairLadyFreyja. These days, the site had really taken off and I was even earning a decent enough revenue that I would be able to get my own place after my eighteenth birthday. Mom was supposed to take me down to sign the lease for it a couple of days after my birthday passed.

I swiveled the chair around to face her. “Aren’t the Iron Order a gang?” I asked, the disapproval heavy to my own ears. “And isn’t Sinclair the devil personified?”

Sofia rolled her eyes and shook her head, her dark curls bouncing. “Sinclair Buchanan is a s*x god and all the women who frequent Carla’s knows it. With all the women clamoring over him, he’s not going to notice you.”

I blew out a sigh. “Because, let me guess, you’re going after him.”

Sofia grinned. “That’s right.” She sat up suddenly. “Do you remember that story I told you after I finished my GED program last year?”

I racked my brain, trying to remember. Failing, I said, “You told me a lot of stories during that time.”

She groaned in frustration. “The one about the hot guy I met who I took back to my place…” she trailed off, waiting for me to recall it.

“Oh. Yeah, now that you mention it, I remember it.” I put two and two together. “Wait, that hot guy was Sinclair Buchanan.”

Sofia nodded vigorously. She was nodding her head so hard, I was afraid she might give herself whiplash. The smile on her face was so wide, my own cheeks felt the phantom pain.

“And you’re planning on trying to catch his eye again when we go to Carla’s?”

“Exactly. Everyone knows Sinnerman doesn’t like women who hang around him all the time. So, I’ve been keeping my distance. I’m planning on making him want me by staying away for a bit. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know. And then, on your birthday, we’ll walk in and I’ll just so happen to run into him….” She trailed off, her wide eyes seemingly begging me to pat her on the head and coo about what a great plan she had come up with.

“Isn’t Sinclair the most noncommittal man in Willow’s Creek? He only cares about running his drug ring, leading his gang of goons, and occasional sex.” I stared at her shrewdly. “Aren’t you just begging to get your heart broken?”

Sofia’s face flushed and her eyebrows knitted together. She glared at me. “Jesus, Freyja, it’s not like I’m in love with him.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. Ever since I realized my fear of love, it was like I had gained a sixth sense where I could easily sense when someone was in love with me or someone else. I knew Sofia well enough to know she didn’t chase men often and that she wasn’t much of a thinker. The mere fact that she had thought up a plan to even try to catch Sinclair’s attention was a testament to her growing feelings for him. She was one of those girls who preferred one night stands and yet she was thinking of having a second night with Sinclair.

She clearly liked him more than she was letting on.

“You don’t like him more than you should?” I asked skeptically.

“No.”

“Not at all?”

“I said no.”

“Then if I slept with him, you’d be okay with it?”

Sofia snorted and rolled her eyes. “You’re so mousy and timid, I doubt he’d f**k you.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

She huffed. “If Sinclair actually took you home instead of me, I wouldn’t be pissed, okay.” Even though she had said that, she spoke as if the very idea of Sinclair picking me over her was impossible.

It was moments like these that made me seriously want to strangle Sofia. It was also these moments that made me glad I was a confident person. Sofia was someone who made a lot of snide remarks and gave backhanded compliments. I liked her better when we were just two friendly acquaintances who talked to pass time in PE. But these days, after she had come back into town and we met up at the Spring Fair that was held a few weeks before my birthday. Ever since then, she had attached herself to me like a cancerous cell. My mother was so happy at the prospect of me having a friend, I couldn’t bring myself to tell Sofia to f**k off.

“Make sure you remember you said that,” I said.

I wasn’t planning on sleeping with Sinclair Buchanan, though. In fact, I planned on staying as far away from him as I could possibly get. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him and the world he lived in.

Sofia had snorted. Her disbelief in the fact I could sleep with Sinclair almost made me decide to go seduce him just to spite her, but I changed my mind.

Getting back at Sofia was not worth jumping in Sinnerman’s bed.

Carla’s is a sizeable brick building on Willow Creek’s coast. It’s about a twenty-minute drive from the county line bridge and was nestled in a thicket of trees. It was the only business around this place since the Iron Order liked their privacy more than anything.

Sofia pulls the car she borrowed from a guy she’s “having fun with” into Carla’s. The parking lot is already filled with motorcycles and a few cars sporadically dotted in. On my right, I can see a group of women giggling with a couple of bikers, their voices high and flirtatious.

“I told you,” Sofia said, opening her door. “Everyone comes here to find a good f**k buddy. Even the girls who pretend like they’re prudes. Come on.”

I push the door open, butterflies floating around in my stomach as I step out. It’s spring, so the night air is chilly but not overly cold. The area around Carla’s does not smell as fresh as the rest of the air in Willow’s Creek does. I can smell the scent of cigarettes and faint traces of alcohol floating on the clean, crisp scent of freshly grown flowers and trees.

I pull at the dress Sofia lent me. It’s skintight. I’ve never worn something so revealing in public before. It was a good thing I had left after Mom had gone to bed. She probably would have died of a heart attack if she had seen me in this thing. This dress was what Sofia called a ‘come f**k me dress’. It left practically nothing to the imagination.

I fiddle with the low cut hem, uncomfortable with so much of my chest being exposed.

Sofia half-sighs, half-groans and says, “How are you supposed to snare a man like that? Come on.” And grabs me by the wrist, dragging me in the direction of the bar.

I stare at the sign of Carla’s as we approach. My heart is in my throat and it’s pounding so hard, the world around me seems like its vibrating with every beat of it. The sign is a cool blue, and the signs in the window indicate pool games and half-off alcohol on Saturdays.

On the inside, Carla’s is filled with the scent of cigarette smoke and sweat. The cigarette smoke is so thick, it hangs just underneath the ceiling like a fog and the smell of sweat is so profound I wrinkle my nose. An AC/DC song is blasting through the speakers, and people are downing liquor like it’s water.

“There he is,” Sofia shouts.

I look over in the direction where her eyes have gone and see a man’s back. He’s near the pool table, chalking up his stick. Other than the fact that he’s tall with a nice physique, I can’t tell much about him. In this dim lighting, I can’t even tell what color his hair is. Under these lights, even chocolate-colored hair seemed black.

But judging by the way Sofia’s eyes had lit up, the Sinnerman must be nice to look at. Of course, I’ve heard such things from other mouths than just Sofia’s. In Willow’s Creek, gossip was the bane of the town’s existence. In a town where the most you could do on an ordinary day was go to a movie for entertainment, people turned to other people’s lives and small-town drama for fun. I had heard from the lips of men and women, old and young, gay and straight, that Sinclair Buchanan was the most attractive man in this town.

“If only he wasn’t a criminal,” the women would say, shaking their heads and sighing. “He would be the perfect man with a face like that.”

I had rolled my eyes at that statement. A handsome face didn’t equal the perfect man. What if he was handsome but liked to tie women by their ankles from the ceiling and shave off their skin to wear it later?

“I’m gonna go,” Sofia said quickly, pulling her hand from my wrist. “Go. Have fun.” She made a beeline straight for where Sinclair must have been.

I sigh. Of course, I had expected for her to disappear on me. It was one of the many reasons why I typically didn’t attend parties with her. Mom had long ago drilled into my head that, at parties, it was better to travel in groups or pairs. Men often took advantage of girls who were alone and it was best to have a group of reliable friends to guard against men like that.

Sofia was not a reliable friend.

She had already disappeared in the crowd and I could no longer see her; she was somewhere between the bodies of Iron Order members who were surrounding the pool table, but she was too small to make out over all those tall, broad-shouldered men standing around.

Sighing, I make my way over to the bar. In this crowded space, it’s the only place that isn’t so filled up it would bring me anxiety. I push my way through and finally find a seat on a vacant barstool. And pause.

The woman manning the bar is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. She has honey-colored skin and this hair that, even in the dimness of this room, is clearly darker and richer than every other head of hair around her. It falls down her shoulders and to her waist like silk.

As I’m sitting there, gawking at her and wondering how I’ve never seen her before or how the town isn’t abuzz about such a beautiful woman living in it, she turns her attention to me. Her deep, opaque eyes stare into mine as if she’s trying to pull an Edward Cullen and read my mind.

“You’re new here,” she says. Her voice is low and quiet, and I can hear hints of a Spanish accent there.

It’s not a question, but I nod anyway.

She looks at me skeptically. “Are you twenty-one?”

I hesitate and then nod.

Her face shifts and I know in that moment she knows that I’m lying. She shakes her head, turning her eyes toward the ceiling.

“Whatever,” she mutters, tossing a rag she had been using to clean a glass over her shoulder. “If anyone asks, tell them you showed me ID.”

“I have ID…”

It was the fake ID that Sofia had given me. I had no clue where she had gotten it from, and it had been burning a hole in my purse ever since she had given it to me.

The woman lifted her hand to stop me. “I don’t need to see that fake s**t,” she says, waving her hand. “What do you want?”

I thought about that. I had never had any alcohol before. I had never so much as sipped a glass of wine before. My mother had a strict rule about Odin and I touching alcohol before we turned twenty-one. If she knew I was here right now, sitting in a bar preparing to get more than a sip, she would go prematurely gray.

I cleared my throat, trying to appear as mature as possible as I said, “What do you recommend.”

The woman gives me a look that clearly says my attempts at pretending I know about alcohol and this isn’t my first time have not worked on her.

She sighs, lifting her face to the ceiling again, her nose pinched between her thumb and forefinger.

“A margarita,” she finally says. “Too much alcohol might not be good for you.” She begins pulling out what she needs to make the drink she had decided on, and then she pauses. “I know you’re not twenty-one, but how old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

She narrows her eyes for a moment, thinking. “That’s fair,” she mutters. “You’re old to sign up to die for the county, so you’re old enough to drink a f*****g margarita.”

I watch in fascination as she mixes the drink. Her hands move expertly, and just by looking at her, I can tell this is something she had done countless times before. I can see she has a tattoo on her hand, but it’s so dim and her hands move so quickly, I can make out what it is.

She’s pouring my drink into the familiar stemmed, curved glass associated with margaritas when a couple bumps into the counter of the bar and knocks the glass from the bar top. She swears under her breath, jumping back just in time before the drink can spill all over her.

The look of absolute murder in her eyes makes me turn to the couple worriedly. Even if I’ve only just met her today, I get the feeling this woman shouldn’t be screwed with. The man’s back is turned to her, so he doesn’t see how obviously pissed off this woman is and neither does his partner, who is heartily making out with him. Her fingers are embedded in his hair, and the two of them seem to have forgotten they’re in a public setting.

I glance back at the woman, wondering what she’s going to do. To my surprise, she picks up the margarita glass and flings it at the couple, bits of leftover margarita flying. The glass hits the man straight in the head with a thunk that’s audible to me even over the loud music.

The man hisses and swivels around to face Carla. “What the f**k?”

“That’s my line, pendejo. Am I not running a f*****g bar? Am I running a whorehouse instead? If you want to push each other up against bar tops and walls, f**k off out of my bar. Can’t you see I’m busy?” Her accent is thicker with agitation.

The two of them stare each other down, neither one of them seeming like they’re going to submit to the other. For a moment, I’m worried for her. The man beside me is a large beast of a man whose arms are the size of healthy infants.

But my worry for her seems to not be needed. I watch, in awe as the woman takes the rag on her shoulder and shucks in straight into the man’s face.

“Who gave you the right to look at me like I did something wrong to you?” she asks, coming from around the counter. “This isn’t your first time disrespecting me. What? Couldn’t win a fight against Bruiser, so you decided to disrespect his wife, is that it?”

The entire bar is quiet except for the music. I knew of Bruiser in name due to the many rumors that surrounded the Iron Order. He was Sinclair’s right-hand man, and well known to put anyone who showed disrespect to himself, Sinclair, or his wife into a coma if you were lucky, and a grave if you weren’t.

Even someone like me, who had no interest in gossip or even the Iron Order, had heard his wife’s name in passing. Carla Rodriguez. The one who Bruiser had bought this bar for. The one who was known to have a temper just as quick as her husband’s and fists just as fast. Mom’s friends, when they got together to gossip, often spoke about Carla getting into fights with men who thought she was an easy target because she was the only woman in the Iron Order, and winning.

I gape at her, watching as she stalks up to the man. His partner has disappeared but he doesn’t seem to care that she’s gone. He’s too busy glaring at Carla defiantly.

He smirks and says something low. I can’t hear what he’s said over the music, and he’s clearly said it low enough for only Carla to hear. The next thing I know, she’s launching herself toward him. She doesn’t ever reach him, though, because one of the men who had been watching on the sidelines has his hands on her shoulder, pulling her back.

She shrugs him off and tries to go around him. When he doesn’t let her, she glares up at him.

“Move, Sonny.”

“You know I’m not gonna do that. Bruiser would kill me if I let you get into another fight.”

“You want me to let this son of a b***h disrespect me? Move. I’ll take accountability for—”

“I didn’t say I’d let him disrespect you.” The man—Sonny—turns suddenly, and I watch in horrified fascination as his fist lands against the man’s cheek with a meaty thwack. The man, after he falls over doesn’t get back up.

Sonny grins, his arms outstretched. “As you were people,” he calls out.

And just like that, everyone returns to doing what they had been doing before. Carla sighs and goes back to stand behind the bar, muttering that she’ll make my drink again, and Sonny has gathered a group of guys to pick up the disruptor and throw him out onto the pavement of the bar. All the other patrons have returned to their laughter and alcohol, and on the other side of the bar, I can hear the slap of sticks and billiard balls slapping against one another.

I move to turn back in my seat to face the bar when I see him. There is no way someone could see Sinclair Buchanan and not know who he is. He’s the only one in the area for pool who is utterly motionless, watching with narrowed eyes as the disruptor is being carried out. I can’t see much of his face with this distance between us, but the backlight of a neon sign that I can’t see outlines his profile well enough for me to see he’s handsome. Even from here, I can tell he looks like he’s been chiseled to stone. A male g*****a brought to life.

Attractive and bad news, I think to myself.

But just as I’m going to turn my gaze away, his eyes shift over to me. There’s this odd feeling suddenly. One I’ve never experienced before. Ever. My heart has only ever raced for two reasons: exercise and anxiety. But the feeling spreading through me now is for neither of those things. Although this feeling is almost like anxiety—it makes me feel oddly jittery and high-strung—I know that it’s not that. Anxiety is not such a warm feeling that creates a riot of electrified butterflies in my stomach.

I cannot pull my eyes away. Even though my mind is telling me that I should look away and pretend I haven’t seen him, I can’t listen to reason. My gaze is locked in his. It’s like there is an invisible but undeniably flammable string connected to the two of us. If he stepped closer, if he came up to me, it would ignite.

It’s too dark to tell but I swear he smiles.

“Hello. Kid.”

I force myself to break eye contact and meet Carla’s eyes instead. The steadiness in them calms me considerably, but the odd heat from just Sinclair’s gaze alone does not leave. Now that my mind is my own again, my skin feels uncomfortably overheated.

With a racing pulse and unsteady hands, I wrap my hands around the drink Carla is offering me. I barely notice it at all as I all but inhale it, grateful that it’s cold.

“Be careful with that,” Carla cautions. “Unless you want to be carried out of here.”

I let out a breath. She’s right. I’ve never ingested alcohol in small doses, large ones would be too much for me. I push the glass a little further away from me and, even though I tell myself I’m only looking around the bar, my eyes go back to the place Sinclair Buchanan had been just a few moments ago.

He’s not there anymore.

And then, I tell myself that the feeling of dismay rising inside of me isn’t disappointment. Why should I be disappointed because he’s no longer there, watching me from the other side of the room? Wouldn’t I have been more creeped out if I had turned back around and found him standing there?

And even if he had still been watching me and that electric feeling that had pulsed in the air between us continued to thrive, what would I have done? Had s*x with him? With the Sinnerman?

“Get me the usual,” a voice next to me says.

I glance over automatically since almost everyone had cleared away from the bar, and then I do a double-take.

Sinclair is standing beside me, unnecessarily close considering how much space there was now that the bar area had been vacated by everyone but me and a couple making out at the far end. He’s watching me and under the lights, his eyes are seductively dark. He’s more attractive up close than he had been far away. I understand now why Sofia is so taken by him to the point of nearly being obsessive. Ever since she had planned for us to come here on my birthday, she talked about him nonstop for a week.

His lips curve into a smile and I’m not sure if it’s just me but that grin seems very suggestive.

“Are you here alone?”