My insides clench with nerves. The only damn girl in Pulsboro that has this effect on me.
That makes me fucking nervous with just a smile.
If Rachel were mine, I’d never do her wrong. I’d be faithful and devoted.
I’d be the happiest fucking man on the damn planet.
I tip my head at her, my version of a hello from across the bar. Not the first time we’ve traded looks and gestures from afar.
Rachel went to Pulsboro High with me and Tom. She was a varsity cheerleader and straight A student. She was also expressly forbidden from dating guys like me.
It’s a wonder she’s even showed up to the saloon tonight.
Her schoolteacher parents would probably have heart attacks if they found out. But it’s one thing I agree with them about—the Steel Saloon is no kinda place for a girl like Rachel.
She’s not like the others.
I’m half a second away from finishing my beer and heading over to talk when Opie appears at my side. He claps a hand to my back like an older male relative would.
“Checking out all the ass here tonight?” he asks crassly, cracking a toothy grin. “Help yourself, boy. The Tits on Heels love a newbie like you. Bet they’re sick of Gunny and his whiskey dick.”
I shake my head. “It’s not the club girls I’m looking at.”
“Ohhh. You’ve got eyes on one of the sweet ones. Let me guess—the cute little redhead that looks like a damn Disney Princess?” He hacks out a phlegmy laugh, then pounds a fist to his chest to clear it up. “Might have to wait for another time. Skull and Pistol want to see you and Cutty in the office.Now.”
It’s half an hour later, and me and Tom are standing in the back office being given our first assignment.
Skull sits behind the big desk reserved for the prez only, while Pistol, his righthand, flanks him.
Both men look intimidating on a good day. But as they tell us what we’ll be doing, they look like executioners. Their faces are stony, their tones severe.
They speak to us not with the warmth that exists in the celebrations on the bar floor, but with an authority that signals one thing and one thing only.
We’re notreallyin the club ’til this is over and done with.
’Til we successfully complete our first real world mission. Fuck all the hazing and club chores we’ve been made to do the past couple weeks.
This is therealtest.
“You got that?” Pistol asks.
I blink out of my thoughts and clear my throat. Tom’s half drunk, and I tuned out minutes ago. I give a slight nod and answer, “Uh… yeah, we got it.”
“Then get to it,” Pistol says. “Return here when you’re done. And remember what Skull said—don’t fucking get caught.”
Skull merely eyeballs us, his expression solemn and unreadable. He sits in his desk chair with a relaxed posture, almost like a king on a throne.
We’re his subjects.
The new guys that could easily fail tonight and face the consequences. He couldn’t give a shit if we live or die.
I know this as we turn and head for the door.
But I’m also more determined than I’ve ever been in my life to prove them wrong. Show everybody we can do this.
I can do this.
I’ve waited my whole life to become a Steel King, and I’m not backing down now.
