The Marked Men Series Books 1–6: Rule, Jet, Rome, Nash, Rowdy, Asa. Jay Crownover
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Polo Shirt, slow down a minute. I just wanna talk to you for a second.” He was in the middle of telling Nash that he was going to sue him for this or that and that his dad was a judge so they would throw the book at him when he finally noticed I had joined the party. He lowered his wildly flailing arms and glared at me.
“I know who you are, you know. Shaw might think she’s clever but she has a picture of you and your brothers in her room on her nightstand. Her parents have told me multiple times about her unhealthy attachment to you and your family. Her father has even threatened to stop paying for school for her if she keeps showing such questionable judgment in who she spends time with. This little encounter might just seal the deal.”
I had to give the creep credit—on my own I am a fairly intimidating guy, but he was surrounded by guys who were just as big and a hell of a lot more used to physical violence than he obviously was, but the little puke held his ground. “I don’t know what her fascination with a freak like you is, but it’s time for her to outgrow it. She belongs with someone like me, not someone who can’t go through a metal detector without clearing out his face.”
Nash snickered and Rowdy laughed outright. I just shook my head a little and lifted my mouth in a twisted grin. “I think she belongs with someone more interested in getting into her pants than into her daddy’s wallet. Shaw’s a good girl and she has a good head on her shoulders. The fact she wouldn’t let you even round first base in six months is pretty telling, bro. From the sounds of it, you would have better luck taking her folks on a date than her. Look, she’s like family, and I don’t like it when people mess with my family. This is a friendly little chat because we’re on a public street and I’m feeling generous. Next time it won’t be public and my generosity has a time limit. Leave her alone, end of story.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, wanted to say something back, but the mountain of a human being who was clearly the bouncer for the bar came around the corner. Lou looked at the guys leaning on the car and then to the heated Polo Shirt and shook his head.
“Enough. You four go back in. Ayden told me what was going on so your tab is on me. You”—he pointed a meaty finger at Gabe—“you are no longer allowed at the Goal Line; consider yourself eighty-sixed. If Shaw doesn’t want you here, I don’t care how much you got in your wallet or what kinda pull your old man has, this is my house and you aren’t welcome. Next time you want to get all up on one of my girls or put your hands on them, you won’t have to worry about these guys because I’ll make sure they never find your body, understand?”
Even I didn’t question that this monster meant business, so Polo Shirt gulped and nodded his head slightly. My boys pushed off the car and Nash “accidentally” shoved into him as they made their way over to where I was standing. Gabe swore and jumped into his car. He pulled away from the curb and flipped us all the bird as he squealed into traffic. The bouncer looked me up and down and flicked his impassive gaze over our motley crew.
“You friends with Shaw?”
I mean we weren’t friends, exactly, but it was as close as any other explanation so I shrugged and answered, “Sure.”
He nodded. “I’m Lou. I look out for the girls who work here. Shaw and Ayden just happen to be two of my favorites. They’re good girls and they work hard here—they aren’t here just to show their asses and get into trouble—I respect that. I don’t let anyone mess with those two; in fact, I take it personally when someone tries to.”
I wasn’t sure why he was telling me all this but, frankly, he was one scary mother so I kept my mouth shut and just kept making eye contact.
“Shaw is a sweet kid but she tries to do too much by herself. If that asshole keeps bothering her she’ll just suffer it in silence.” Now he was looking at me pointedly, so I lifted an eyebrow. “I wanna know if something needs to be done about him.”
“Shaw and I aren’t exactly close—she wouldn’t tell me something like that. You might want to have this talk with her roommate.”
“I’m having it with you, son.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but just as I was about to say something sarcastic, the door to the bar opened and the middle-aged guys in the jerseys came spilling out and got between us. Lou gave me one last direct look, which I took as him meaning business, and went back inside. I looked back at my friends and sorta threw my hands up in the air.
“Is this what I miss when I go out of town on Sunday?”
All three of them burst into laughter and Jet decided it was time for us to move on to another bar and I ran inside to get my card from Shaw. The guys pitched in ten bucks each for me to give her as a tip and I wound my way back to the bar, where she was talking to another waitress with honey-gold hair and dressed in a cheerleader uniform. Shaw stopped midsentence and looked at me through narrowed eyes. I grinned at her and handed her the money. “Your bouncer friend picked up our tab, but the boys wanted to make sure you got taken care of.”
She handed me the Amex card back. “What did you do to Gabe?”
“Nothing.” She sighed and I didn’t even try to not watch the way it stretched her tiny little uniform across her chest.
“Well, thanks for intervening; I don’t know what his problem is.”
The cheerleader was having sex with me with her eyes, and while I was normally a fan of hot chicks doing that to me, I barely even registered her because Shaw was bending over to get her drinks, and the ruffles on her butt were suddenly the only thing I could see. She was short, so I’d never really thought about her having such great legs, but they were toned and curved just right. Given enough time, I could work up some seriously awesome fantasies involving those legs and those boots and nothing else.
“His problem is you’re hot, richer than hell, have parents who are connected out the ass, and you wouldn’t put out. You not only left him physically hard-up but blue-balled his visions of playing golf with your dad at the country club and sitting next to your mom at the Republican convention. You dismantled everything he was trying to build.”
She flipped one of her pigtails and picked up a tray full of drinks. “I gotta get back to work. You think we can ever have a Sunday not filled with drama and fights?”
I ran a hand over my messy hair and shook my head ruefully. “Sundays have never been a great day for me. I’ll catch you later, Shaw.”
“Bye, Rule.”
I made my way back out of the bar thinking that this had probably been the first time since I had met Shaw when she was just a kid that I had ever seen Shaw be Shaw. It made me a little nervous that when she didn’t have all her guards up and all her haughty defense mechanisms in place, she seemed so fallible, so undeniably human, so approachable, and so … attainable.
CHAPTER 4
Shaw
I counted the pile of money in front of me for the fifth time. I was having a hard time concentrating for a few reasons: first, the bar had gotten busy so I had stayed two hours past my shift and I was dragging; second, there were ten other girls all trying to cash out and the chatter was like a swarm of bees buzzing about purses and boys; third, Ayden kept watching me like a hawk, looking for something, but I didn’t know what; and finally, Loren Decker, my post-high-school Amy Rodgers, wouldn’t stop talking my ear off about Rule.
Loren was a living, breathing centerfold and was what happened when mean girls left high school and entered the real world. She was vapid, boring, and made more money than most of us combined when she was on the schedule because her job was to be flirty and come across as easy—things that were hardly a stretch for her. For some reason she was dying to get every single detail I possessed about Rule. She wanted to know how I knew him, how come he had never been in the bar before, how old he was, what he did for a living, if we were dating, if he had a girlfriend, if he liked blondes, and so on and so forth. It was endless, exhausting, and I