"New waitress," I say flatly. "Accident."
Knuckles' eyebrows shoot up. "New waitress? The one Donna hired today?"
"Didn't ask her life story."
"But you didn't lose your shit on her." It's not a question. Knuckles knows me well enough to read between the lines. "That's interesting."
"It's not interesting. It's nothing. She got bumped, drinks spilled, shit happens."
"Uh-huh." Knuckles crosses his arms, still grinning. "So why do you look like you want to murder someone?"
"I always look like I want to murder someone."
"Fair point." He glances back toward the main floor. "She cute?"
My jaw tightens. "Didn't notice."
"You're full of shit."
He's not wrong, but I'm not giving him the satisfaction. "Don't you have tables to watch?"
"Don't you have a shirt to change?" he counters. "You're dripping on the carpet. Donna's gonna bitch."
He's right about that. I need to get upstairs, change, and get my head on straight. I've got four more hours on shift, and I can't spend them thinking about a woman whose name I don't even know.
"Later," I tell Knuckles, heading for the employee elevator.
"Hey, Havoc?"
I stop, looking back.
His grin widens. "She's got an ass that won't quit. Just in case you didn't notice that either."
I flip him off and keep walking.
The elevator ride to the third floor gives me sixty seconds to get my shit together. I focus on my breathing: in through the nose, out through the mouth, the technique my VA therapist tried to teach me before I stopped going to appointments.
It doesn't help.
By the time I reach my apartment, I'm still half-hard and pissed off about it.
The place is small: one bedroom, one bath, a kitchen I barely use, and a living room dominated by a couch I've had for six years. It's not much, but it's mine. More than I had growing up in the system, bouncing between foster homes that ranged from indifferent to actively hostile. More than I had in the military, sleeping in barracks or tents or whatever hole we could find that didn't have insurgents waiting to blow us to hell.
I strip off the wet shirt and drop it in the sink, running cold water over it even though it's probably fucked. The beer smell is already setting in.
My reflection catches in the bathroom mirror, and I stop.
Tattoos cover most of my torso—a memorial piece for my unit across my ribs, dog tags inked over my heart with names I'll never forget, symbols and dates that mean something only to me. The scar on my face is the most visible damage, but there are others. Shrapnel scars on my shoulder. A knife wound on my side. Bullet graze on my thigh.
I look like exactly what I am, a man who's been through the shit and came out the other side meaner for it. What the hell would a woman like her want with someone like me?
Not that it matters. Not that I'm thinking about it.
Except I am thinking about it. I'm thinking about the way her dark eyes went soft with genuine distress when she apologized, like she thought I might hurt her for an accident. I'm thinking about how her hands trembled, how her voice shook, how fucking tiny she looked standing there with an empty tray, terrified.
And I'm thinking about how badly I wanted to tell her she didn't need to be scared. Not of me. Never of me.
Which is insane, because I'm the guy people should be scared of. I'm the enforcer. The one who handles problems. The one who makes grown men think twice before fucking with the club.
