GRIFFIN: Red and the Big Bad Reaper

2. Red

CHAPTER 2

RED

Who am I?

That question was so easy to answer . . . four weeks ago.

Four weeks ago, I was Boring Bernice. I lived in the same town I grew up in and attended services at the same Methodist church every Sunday, rain or shine.

I reported in promptly at nine a.m. to the same nursing job for an obstetrician who stuck to a rigid 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. schedule—no middle of the night calls for us. Those moms who went into labor at inconvenient hours just had to deal with whoever was on-call at the hospital.

Four weeks ago, I was known by my coworkers as Bernice Daniels. I spoke quietly and kept my thoughts to myself, just like my grandma taught me growing up. I had a nice boyfriend, a practical diagnostic medical sonographer who let me know last Christmas that he’d be proposing to me by this one if everything went to plan. The only thing surprising that ever happened in our relationship was me dumping him just six weeks before his promised proposal.

It wasn’t him. It was me. Seriously. A few hours after letting him go, I put in two weeks’ notice at my steady job.

I’m somebody different now. Somebody who bartends topless at a nameless biker roadhouse. Somebody who everyone here calls Red—even Allie, the friendly med student who hooked me up with this job. Somebody who knows how to use her feminine powers and get paid for being a wicked vixen.

I smile and flirt and entertain, and the bikers give me huge tips for being the most interesting topless bartender they’ve ever met.

Here, I’m the opposite of boring. The other servers glare with jealousy whenever I come out on the floor to bartend because they know I’m about to overshadow them. And the bikers cheer because they know I’m about to make their night a whole lot more interesting.

At least that’s what they usually do.

When I arrive for my shift that night, nobody acknowledges me. They’re all too focused on something happening near the Reaper’s usual table—a blond guy walking into the roadhouse with both arms held up like he’s the Second Coming of Biker Jesus.

Maybe he is. I wouldn't say the music stops when he arrives, but he definitely gets a lot of attention. Waylon and the rest of the Reapers rise from the table to greet him with bro hugs and slaps on the arms.

Crash and Rowdy, those two bikers who are always offering the waitresses cocaine and other drugs to come upstairs with them, they clear a space for the blond biker on the bench right next to where Waylon’s sitting, as if royalty has arrived.

I thought the Reapers only had two presidents. One for each of their chapters. Waylon and Hades, who left with the other Louisiana members to go back down to New Orleans a couple of days ago. But maybe this guy heads up some chapter I don’t know about? The other Reapers are acting like he’s a huge deal.

And The Bandits wave him over to their table to say hi. A few of them even take selfies with him.

Too bad Allie was catching up on her med school lab hours all week. Her step-uncle owns this place, and she always has the inside dirt on all of the biker g**g guys who come through here. Maybe she could explain why these 1% criminals were acting such a fool over this random Reaper’s arrival.

Right after I take up my position at the beer tap next to the servers' station, a squabble breaks out between Tawny and Kitten, two of the blonde year-rounders. That’s what Allie calls all the non-seasonal servers who work at her step-uncle’s roadhouse.

I thought Tawny and Kitten were best friends. But each is insisting that she should be the one who brings the Reapers their next round of beers and whiskey.

Candy, the bar manager, has to rule on the case like King Solomon. She tells them they can either stop arguing and do the job together, or she’ll let one of the holiday-help girls have the table.

They grudgingly agree to both taking the assignment, which means a split tip. And I make up two crates of Yazoos, thinking that would be the end of it.

But Tawny snatches her crate and makes a beeline for the new arrival before her supposed best friend can grab hers.

And I’m no expert at body language, but I don’t have to be to tell Tawny’s flirting hard with the popular Reaper—and that he turns her down with a hard, dismissive glance before he picks up his beer bottle.

Her rejection doesn’t stop Kitten from acting pissed off, though.

“Oh my God, Tawny! I can’t believe you did that!” she says as soon as they return to the bar to put in non-beer-and-whisky drink orders for the Reapers’ table. “He already let you take him upstairs last year, and everybody knows he doesn’t allow girls to hook up with him twice. It was my turn!”

Doesn’t allow? Who does this guy think he is? Also . . .

“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” I ask Kitten, thinking of the guy I’d seen dutifully drop her off and pick her up in a Suzuki mini-truck a few times since I started working here right before Thanksgiving.

Kitten shrugs. “Mike’s about to go back on the road, and Rockstar’s my hall pass.”

Wow. Rockstar. Is that really the Reaper’s road name? I roll my eyes. It’s obvious from that tag and the way he turned Tawny down like she wasn’t worth more than a few words that this guy thinks he’s all that and a bag of chips. He might be even worse than Hades in the arrogance department.

“Is this guy really worth fighting over?” I ask Kitten. “I mean, you saw the way he treated Tawny. And just because Mike’s going on the road, that doesn’t mean—”

“He’s my hall pass,” Kitten repeats, as if that somehow negates any argument I could possibly make. She glares at her best friend. “Or at least he would’ve been if Tawny hadn’t swooped in, even though she knows he doesn’t do seconds!”

“There’s always an exception to the rule,” Tawny answers in as haughty a tone as one can pull off with her breasts hanging out. “And there was a chance he didn’t remember me. He was pretty wasted the first time, so he only let me suck his dick.”

Okay, so many problematic statements in their argument.

But as Allie had warned me before my first shift at the roadhouse: “Abandon ye here all sense of ethics, sis. Especially the kind that begins with ‘fem’ and ends with ‘ism.’”

Tawny and Kitten get to arguing so bad I decide to do the Bird Call a couple of hours early just to distract them from their fight.

It works. Tawny and Kitten go from arguing with each other to glaring at me.

Ever since I came up with the highly lucrative Bird Call game and Allie used her niece-of-the-boss privilege to tell the other bartenders they couldn’t replicate it, the year-rounders have banded together in hating me behind the scenes. So, Mission Stop the Catfight is easily accomplished within a few bars of the devil music I had to love in secret while growing up with my grandma, who only allowed me to listen to, sing, and buy gospel. Thanks, AC/DC!

I waggle the bottle above my head, and all the biker criminals come running like panting dogs. Rockstar, who?

Not going to lie. Diverting their attention makes me feel some kind of powerful as I watch them converge on the bar.

I paste on what Allie calls my “welcoming s*x goddess look.” It’s not for real, though.

They can look all they want. But Red never lets them touch. She calls them “baby” and acts like she’s known them forever. But they’re not allowed to know her, even for a little while. She smiles and flirts and takes their money. But she’ll never let any of them—

I feel his gaze before I see it. Powerful and burning, even before I notice him watching me across the bar.

The biker Kitten called Rockstar. He’s standing now, but instead of approaching the bar like the others, he’s looking at me. Just looking at me. And it feels like he’s staring into my soul.

Red doesn’t care about the bikers. They’re only a temporary means to an end until we save up enough money to finally make our new dream come true.

But my Red mask slips when my eyes lock with the biker’s. I falter and forget that I’m no longer Boring Bernice. Why is he staring at me like that—like a wolf who’s found his dinner?

My heart flips over, and my stomach flutters. I’m no longer Red. I can’t be. I’m too nervous and afraid.

For a moment, the whole world disappears and becomes one question:

Who is he?

“Hey, Red, you going to pour my shot or what?”

The real world comes back into focus. Gritty and wild, with an AC/DC song playing overhead. I tear my eyes away from the unknown Reaper and find one of The Bandits who took a selfie with him earlier. He’s now standing belly up to the bar and waving a twenty.

“Sorry, baby.” I exhale and pull the Red mask back on to focus all of my transactional attention on the biker with the money.

“Mama Red Bird’s got what you need right here,” I promise him with a wicked smile.

Then I proceed with the Bird Call—doing my level best to pretend like I don’t feel the other biker’s eyes on me.

But I’m beginning to understand why they call him Rockstar.