Page 9 of Property of Player

When she heads down a hall toward the kitchen with a bin of dirty dishes, I make my move. My chair scrapes across the wooden floor as I stand.

“Where are you goin’?” my little brother Pony asks.

“To take a piss. That all right with you?”

“Don’t forget to shake,” he jabs, and I flip him off as I walk away.

I know this place like the back of my hand, so I know the hallway to the bathrooms is the same Taylor took to the kitchen. It’s a t-shaped hall with the men’s and women’s on opposite sides, and at the end of the hall a right turn leads to double doors into the kitchen and a left turn leads to a backdoor to another parking area and a path to the garbage dumpsters.

I glance through the small oval window set in the swinging doors and see the kitchen.

Taylor is unloading the bin, then she turns, talks to a busboy doing dishes, and heads toward the double doors.

I step away and when she comes through, she jolts to a stop.

“Player.”

I don’t give her time to think; I take her hand and pull her through the back door.

She yanks free once we’re outside.

“What the hell are you doing? I’m working,” she hisses.

“We need to talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“The hell we don’t.”

“Go back to your girl. I’m sure she’s wondering where you are.”

“Fuck Molly. She doesn’t mean what you think she does. She’s just someone I’m killing time with.”

“Don’t be an asshole. Like I give a damn who you’re fucking these days.”

I drag a hand through my hair. This wasn’t how I wanted this to go.

“Taylor, I just want to talk to you.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you. We’re nothing to each other anymore. You made sure of that.”

I step toward her, and she immediately retreats a step.

She may throw sass at me, but I’m still a patched member of the Kings of Anarchy, and that’s enough to have her mouth shutting and a look of uncertainty fill her eyes.

I back her to the wall and rest a palm on it, caging her in. “You sure about that?” I lift her chin and study her perfect porcelain skin and features—the strong bone structure, the cat-like arch to her pretty honey-colored eyes—the ones that could always suck me in. “You’re as pretty as ever, Tay.”

She bats my hand away. “Don’t call me that. You lost the right.”

I search the heat in her eyes. It’s not all anger, not by the way her breath has quickened. “You feel it, too. I know you do. This thing—whatever it is—it’s still there between us.”

“You’re wrong.” The words are soft, barely a hushed whisper.

“Am I?”

“Yes. You made your choice, and you chose the club. That’s all I need to know.”

I shake my head. “You don’t know why.”