AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Technically, I didn’t stumble here. I tracked his cell phone and sped down here ready to run him over with my truck if he was starting fights.”
“Oh, he wasn’t starting any fights. He looked like he just wanted to be alone when we came in.”
Cadence crossed her arms and looked a little sheepish. “I guess I could throw a couple of axes if you teach me.”
“Kru is the best teach—”
“I would rather piss on an electric fence.”
“Oh.” Lovely. She couldn’t help her grin at the visual. “I would be happy to teach you…on one condition.”
“What condition?” Cadence asked suspiciously, pushing off the wall.
Jenna sidled behind her and gripped her shoulders, then angled her toward the bathroom mirror to look at her reflection. “Maybe wipe the angry off your face before we go back out there. This is a good-vibes-only night.”
Cadence stared at her scowl for a three-count, then relaxed and pursed her lips against a smile. “Fine, but if Kru is buying, I’m getting something top-shelf. My heart is still racing. I thought he wasn’t answering because he was raising hell. I have never gotten to town faster. My adrenaline is still up.”
“Well, you’re off the clock now,” Jenna told her as she wiped her back with a paper towel, hoping to dislodge at least some of the wall germs Cadence had leaned against.
“You’re such a mom,” Cadence said, and when Jenna looked back up at her in the mirror’s reflection, the woman didn’t seen to be joking.
“You’re the leader,” Jenna argued. “I’m just here.”
“Here cleaning up messes quietly while the leaders just stomp around their lives.”
And that seemed like a compliment too, just like Lucas’s words had earlier.
With a baffled look, she watched Cadence open the door to leave, but the woman waited, holding the barrier open, eyebrows arched high as if to say, “Are you coming, or what?”
“Coming,” she said softly, and followed her out.
“I can see why Beaston asked me to bring you in.”
“That part still blows my mind,” Jenna said.
“On that list Beaston gave me, did you know you were the top one?”
“M-me?” she uttered.
Cadence shrugged. “I used to ask myself that too, but now I’m starting to see. Some of us are meant to be leaders, and some are meant to be the glue. You’re glue, Jenna.”
And then Cadence left Jenna staring after her in the hallway, barely conscious of passersby bumping her shoulders as they headed for the bathrooms.
When she thawed out and meandered to her Crew-mate…friend?...Cadence was ordering, “Four panty-dropper shots, and make them extra pink.”
She helped Cadence carry over the four (very pink) shots to the table where her purse rested, unharmed.
There were three women talking to Kru, and Lucas was throwing the axe in the lane closest to the wall. When she set the shots on the table, he turned with a ready smile, and Kru came over complaining that he had to run interference because the women on the next couple of lanes wanted to talk to him and Lucas, but Lucas was an “anti-social asshole.”
“I don’t give a shit,” Lucas assured Kru as he pulled Jenna closer by the waist and kissed her temple. Against her ear, he murmured, “I told them I was with someone.”
Jenna turned and looked at the three women, who were sipping drinks around the table nearest their lane. They were looking in their general direction, so she lifted a panty-dropper shot and dipped her chin. “To pretty girls!”
Cadence lifted hers, too. “To the girls.”
“What about the boys?” Kru asked, scrunching his face at the pink shot.
“And to the boys that break their hearts!” one of the other women shouted from across the way.
