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ATOM

CURRENT DAY

“ H it me again like that, you cocksucker, and I’ll hit you back so hard, you won’t stand up for a week,” I say, before touching my cheekbone. Nothing’s broken, but bet I’ll have a black eye in the morning.

The frat boy in front of me is lucky he’s still standing. Only hit him twice to give him a lesson in consent he seems intent on not learning. I’m tempted to deliver on my threat anyway, but I’ve already created enough of a scene.

I grab the guy by the scruff of his shirt and drag him so quickly to the exit, he trips and falls forward. His feet pedal against Whiskey Fever’s peanut-shell-covered floor, but I don’t let him stand.

The path to the exit parts like I’m Moses splitting the Dead Sea, or however that Bible story goes.

“Hey, let go of my friend,” someone shouts and tries to grab for my arm. One of the great joys of hard-earned rancher biceps is he can’t quite manage to get his hand around it to stop me.

“You got a death wish?” Catfish asks, holding the friend at bay. Our club treasurer got brushed with the pretty stick when he was born and likes to come out on the weekend and put those good looks to use. But people underestimate his easy-going nature when they fall on the wrong side of him or the club. “When a woman says no, she means no. Your friend needs a lesson to remember that.”

“You hear that?” I say to the blond-haired, blue-eyed college student I watched attempt to chat up a group of girls, then turn aggressive when they shot him down.

He fights the hold I have on him. I think the collar of his shirt might be choking him. “Let…me…go.”

The door is in sight, and when I get there, I toss him out into the street. He lands on the road with a thud, and I step over him, gripping his chin. “It’s cool to go say hello to a pretty girl in a bar, but as soon as she tells you any version of ‘go away,’ you go—the fuck—away. Next time I see you grab a woman in a bar, your momma will spend the rest of her life wondering what the fuck happened to you while you die slowly in a box six feet underground surrounded by your own shit and piss.”

Catfish slaps my shoulder as he glares down at the man on the street. “Lesson learned, right, kid?”

The guy nods. “I’m…sorry.”

I shove him back to the ground. “Go home.”

Catfish looks at me and begins to sing some old song about being someone’s hero.

“Fuck off,” I say, biting back a grin.

“Let’s get you a beer, big guy,” he says. “You earned it, doing your good deed for the day.”

“Can your good deed for the day be that we don’t have to go back inside?” I ask.

He shoves me toward the door. “You’ll thank me later when you’re buried balls deep in thoroughly consenting pussy.”

The truth is, as the enforcer of the Iron Outlaws, I’d rather be anywhere other than Whiskey Fever on a Saturday night. It’s an old-school honky-tonk. Round tables and wooden chairs surround a large wooden dance floor as loud country music with a beat for line dancing plays.

The scent of good cooking fills the place. Ribs and wings drenched in honey barbecue and chili.

It’s packed, as usual, on a weekend night. Too many people, too many fights, and too much noise for me. I’m a country boy who likes, well, wide-open spaces and the silence that comes along with them.

And it also contains horny bucks who think the girls in the bar owe them a good time.

Yet the biggest problem with Whiskey Fever, beyond the rule of no club colors worn inside? It’s run by Ember.

With her wild strawberry-blonde curls, generous smile, and a curvaceous Stevie Nicks vibe, she’s always been a looker. Over the years she’s grown into her looks. There are more rings on her fingers, and I’ve lost track of the number of ear piercings she now rocks.

But you can see her inner confidence in the effortlessly charming way she chats and laughs with customers, continuously drawing them to her bar. She remembers their names, has a knack for guessing what drinks people want, and runs a tight ship. Her employees love her because she pays them above minimum wage, lets them keep their tips, and gives them vacation.

She also has a baseball bat behind the bar that she’s been known to swing if shit gets too rowdy. And I’m pretty certain there is at least one Beretta hidden in a strategic place out of customers’ reach that she could grab if needed.

People know her now as an ebullient bar owner. But I still see her quiet love of the outdoors. The way she’ll ride her horse for days, and her love of camping out beneath the stars. She cooked the best campfire meals I ever tasted when we were younger and went on club campouts.

Like me, she chooses her chaos wisely.

All of which make it damn near impossible to keep my hands off her after all these years since I turned her down.

From that day, our relationship changed, both of us doing what we had to do to move past that painful afternoon. Dismissing her to keep her at arm’s length became my default. She vacillates between being that young girl who looked at me like I was her whole world and a jaded woman who can’t stand the sight of me.

And I switch between being the overbearing big brother she never had and an antagonist who lives to rile her.

Right now, she’s leaning over the bar, flirting with some dipshit in a shirt a size too small, jeans so tight that you can see his junk, and a pant hem that doesn’t properly meet his boot. I want to kill the fucker for violations against fashion alone.

Definitely an out-of-towner, because no cowboy would be seen dead in an outfit like that.

But Ember sees past all of it. She has a rare gift for seeing people exactly as they are.

And sometimes I think she can see right through me.

I turn to face Catfish. “Can’t believe we’re wasting a perfectly good Saturday night when we could be sitting in front of a fire out on the ranch somewhere. We’re wasting summer sitting indoors on a night like tonight.”

Some people argue the end of July is too hot and humid to be camping, but I can’t think of any time better.

Catfish throws back some of his beer, then tips his head toward two girls dressed in denim shorts and cowboy boots looking our way. “Maybe. But looks like those two are just dying to come over here and thank you personally for getting rid of that asshole. Unless you like watching cattle out in those fields more, in which case, go fill your boots.”

“Dude. Don’t joke about fucking animals.”

Catfish laughs. “Fuck, no. That wasn’t what I meant. But why did your head go there?”

I shake my head. “If I wanted to get laid, I could have stopped by the clubhouse on the way out to camp.”

“Brother,” Catfish says, “you’re thirty and act like a fifty-year-old man. Look around. See all the fresh flowers there are in here to pick.”

I look around, and the sad truth hits me.

None of them are Ember.

“Listen,” Catfish says, “I’m going to check that those girls are okay.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Check they’re okay? Is that what we’re calling making a move these days.”

“Fuck you. Just get us a drink.”

As he walks away, I turn to face the bar, searching for a bartender to serve me. But it’s Ember who is marching toward me, no sign of that pretty smile of hers. Her plump lips are pursed, and her chest heaves. Don’t need to be a psychologist to figure out she’s real mad at me.

One day, I’m certain I won’t get that same kick deep in my gut every time her eyes catch mine. But that isn’t today. Even in the reflection of the pink and blue neon signs over the bar, she’s hands down the most beautiful woman in here.

“What the hell are you doing causing trouble in my bar?”

I try to avoid staring at her tits, but it’s a fucking task to keep my eyes up. “Don’t start, Em.”

“The last thing I need is people thinking they’re not safe if they come in here. What did he do, look at you the wrong way? Make some joke about cowboys?”

That’s the other thing with Ember. On the rare occasion she comes to talk to me, I have to busy myself doing something else just so I don’t stare at those thick pink lips of hers as she talks. Or how white her teeth are, or the cute little chip on her front tooth she hates but never gets around to fixing.

So, I play with the edge of the beer mat to give the illusion of only giving her part of my attention.

“That guy was harassing that group of girls, the one Catfish is checking in on. If you had better security in here, they would have seen it. Instead, you have those useless sacks on the door who don’t give a shit. So, if you want to worry about people feeling safe, you should be worrying about that.”

“Oh,” she says, her shoulders dropping. “Sorry for jumping to conclusions.”

“Yeah, well, for the record, I didn’t come here for a fight, just a drink.”

“Thanks for dealing with that.” Her words are brisk. “You want another?”

I nod, and her fingers brush mine as she takes the empty bottle out of my hand. They’re long and narrow, and she keeps the nails short and square. Wonder what they’d feel like wrapped around my cock.

Ugh, it’s ridiculous how easily I get a boner around Ember Deeks. Thank fuck I’m seated on a stool, facing the bar, and she can’t see.

“Please. But make sure it’s cold. The last one was a little warm.”

Can’t say exactly what it is, but it feels a lot like her light just flickered, and I feel like a dick. “I’ll check it myself.”

I sigh as she walks away from me. I never mean to be an asshole to her, but somehow, it’s become the most convenient way to separate what I want us to be and what we are.

I’m not one hundred percent sure she even likes me anymore because of it. But I know if she ever made a move towards me, it would be impossible to keep my hands off her, which, if Butcher ever found out about it, would be the last time I put my hands anywhere.

So, we do this dance. One where I let her close, but as soon as it feels unbearable, like I can’t take another breath without touching her, I do something to push her away.

When she returns to the bar, she places it down on the counter. I pull my wallet from my pocket to pay, but she puts her hand out to stop me. “No. Don’t want any disappointed customers because of warm beer. It’s on the house.”

Before I can argue, she’s fixed her smile and moved on to the next customer. And now I feel like a double heel because not only did I chip away at that smile of hers, but I also ripped off her bar to the tune of a beer bottle.

“Fuck me,” I mutter to myself as I watch her hips sway beneath tight jeans that hug her ass.

“Atom,” Catfish says, slapping my shoulder. “This is Nina and her friend Savannah. They’re on a road trip from Dallas, headed to the University of Utah to finish their final year of college. They wanted to say thanks in person.”

“Thank you,” they both say at the same time, which is…weird.

For Catfish’s sake, I nod. “Get you girls a drink?”

“Please,” Nina says. “Lemon drop martini for me.”

I remember Ember once joking about how they tasted like alcoholic toilet cleaner.

“Same for me,” Savannah says.

“Catfish?”

He grins. “I’ll have another beer.”

I turn back to the bar, hoping Ember will catch my eye again. But before she has time to spot me, one of the other bartenders, a guy, jumps in. “What can I get you?”

I place the order but keep my back to Catfish and the two girls. I’m really not in the mood to make small talk. I watch as the bartender mixes the drinks and then grabs the beer, but in my peripheral vision, I see an attractive-looking fucker, tall too, lean over the bar and whisper something into Ember’s ear.

Normally, I’m a great judge of Ember’s body language after all these years of watching out for her. But I can’t tell if she wants this guy’s attention or not.

He’s got the look of a cowboy, but it’s a little too…polished. The jeans fit like they’re meant to but don’t have a single wrinkle and aren’t frayed around the hem after years of wear. The plaid shirt over the T-shirt looks fine, but there are still fold lines down the front and back, like it just came out of a packet.

Ember shakes her head at something he says, and I see it. She loses her smile for half a second. I push back my stool, still watching.

He’s trying to persuade her to do something she doesn’t want to. He’s gesturing to a table he’s sitting at with two friends.

And no fucking way I’m going to let him force her.