The last seven years of my life were filled with trips to Paris, yacht parties, and Hollywood red carpet events. You wouldn’t hear about any of them going to jail or ending up on meth.
“Well, after that, I started the Kings Motorcycle Club to keep all my friends from joining gangs.” He picked up a black leather vest he’d hung over the back of his chair and showed me the emblem. A skull wearing a crown.
“So … you started a motorcycle club and named it after yourself.” I smirked, toying with him a little.
Why was I so awkward? What a stupid thing to ask; it would probably piss him off. What he’d said about starting a club to keep his friends out of gangs made me rethink my internal judgment of him.
A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, revealing a set of straight white teeth. Men with nice smiles were my kryptonite, and Ethan had an amazing smile.
“I was seventeen when I started the Kings. My ego wasn’t exactly in check back then.”
Now it was my turn to smile. “But it is now?”
I was talking to a guy and it was easy. Maybe I wasn’t such a social freak like Bryce had led me to believe.
Hailey 2.0 was social.
His smile widened and I felt my stomach do flip flops.
“Mostly.” He winked.
Were we flirting? I didn’t know how I felt about that. The ink had been dry on my divorce papers all of six days. I wasn’t ready for this shit. I felt the moment I shut down; it was like a heavy blanket had been thrown over me. My limbs felt weak and desolation opened inside my chest.
I navigated to smoother waters: “Sorry about spilling the beer on you earlier.” Topics that wouldn’t cause him to smile, or me to flirt.
He shrugged. “It happens.”
It happens.
If I’d done that to Bryce or one of our guests at a dinner party, he’d never let me hear the end of it. I’d be branded an incompetent fool not even worthy of serving beer.
Stop thinking about the past.
We were silent a moment while I watched Angela be auctioned off. When I glanced back at Ethan, he was staring at me.
“Did you ever find them?” he asked.
I looked at him, confused. “Find who?”
He leaned forward, bringing the scent of his earthy cologne with him. “Your family. Did you ever go off and make a new family?”
Emotion cut right through me in that moment and my throat tightened.
He remembered everything.
After my mom died I’d become a ward of the state, in and out of foster homes until I emancipated myself at sixteen. That fucking monster Bryce had been the only person I’d considered family and now he was gone too.
Ethan seemed to realize that he’d asked a sensitive question, because he straightened his back and cleared his throat. He changed the subject quickly: “Remember Monica Eisen? She was in my grade?”
I just nodded, trying to rein in my emotions so I wouldn’t cry in this fucking bar, on my first day on the job, while I was on a thousand-dollar date withtheEthan King.
“She got some big modeling contract after high school and moved to New York,” he explained.
I smiled the best fake smile I could manage. “Yeah I heard about that. Good for her.”
“So nursing school? I always thought you’d become a doctor. You had the brain for it.”
I thought I’d become a doctor too, but now I was too broke, too old, and too tired to go after that dream. I’d applied to Phoenix Community College behind Bryce’s back as I planned my exit in L.A. When I got in, I’d been so shocked I didn’t reply for weeks. Nursing school at a community college might not sound amazing, but to me it was a fresh start.
