The place was exactly what I’d picture a biker bar to look like. I’d been to a lot of bars in my life pre-Josh-and-Louie, and some had been way sketchier than this. From behind, Ginny pointed in the direction of rows of liquor along the wall, and I headed over, taking in the loose crowd of men and women in leather and T-shirts alike. They were all ages, all looks. Despite the heavy smell of smoke that I knew was illegal indoors… well, it didn’t seem so bad. Most people were talking to one another.

Snagging two chairs in the middle of the counter, Ginny slipped in to the chair beside me. I leaned forward and looked up and down the bar for the bartender, waving when the older man caught my eye. He simply tipped his chin up for our order.

I’d gone out with Ginny enough over the years to know we started off our evenings with Coronas or Guinness, and this place didn’t seem like the type to carry my favorite nectar from the mother country. “Two Guinness, please,” I mouthed to him.

I wasn’t sure he understood what I said, but he nodded and filled two glasses from one of the taps, sliding both over to us, yelling the amount we owed. Before Ginny could get it, I slid two bills across the bar.

“Woo,” Ginny cheered, clinking her glass against mine.

I nodded in agreement, taking the first sip.

I’d barely finished swallowing when two forearms came from behind to cage my boss in, a blond head of hair making an appearance right by her ear. Who the hell was this?

As if wondering the same thing, she started to say, “Who…?” before glancing over her shoulder, her body tight and reeling back. It was her laugh a moment later that told me everything was okay. “You son of a bitch! I was wondering who the hell was coming up to me!” She reached up with the arm furthest away from me to pat the strange man, who was wearing a leather vest over a white T-shirt.

“What a fuckin’ mouth,” the man’s low voice claimed just loud enough for me to hear. He pulled back, his attention casually sliding in my direction. The grin that had been on his face as he spoke to my friend brightened a little more as he took me in.

God help me, he was hot.

The dark blond of his longish hair matched the same color crossing his mouth and cheeks in a rough five o’clock shadow. Mostly though it was his easy smile that electrified his handsome face. He had to be a few years older than me at least. All I could do was sit there and smile at the man who was more than likely a biker based on the fact he had a vest on… and that we were at a biker bar. A biker bar on a Saturday. You really never knew where life would take you, did you?

The longer I looked at the blond’s face… I realized I recognized those blue eyes of his. That particular shade was pointed in my direction from another face, a face I knew well. That blue was Ginny’s blue.

“Trip, this is my friend Diana. She works with me at the salon. She’s the one I told you about who has the boy who plays baseball. Di, this is my cousin Trip,” Ginny explained as my gaze trailed back over to my friend, shaking off the fuzz that had come over my brain from looking at him.

Trip. Baseball. She had mentioned her cousin who had a son around Josh’s age who played competitive baseball a couple of times. I remembered now.

“Nice to meet you,” I greeted, one hand curled around my stout, the other extending out in his direction.

“Hey,” the grinning blond said as he took my hand in a shake.

“He works at the garage by the parking lot,” Ginny explained.

I nodded, watching as the guy named Trip turned back toward his cousin and elbowed her. “Where’s your man at?”

“He’s at home,” she explained, referring to her fiancé.

He gave her a funny look and shrugged. “The old man is back there if you wanna drop by and say hi,” he said to her, his gaze straying back to me for a moment as a small, sly smile crossed his mouth.

She nodded, turning to look over his shoulder briefly, as if searching for whoever “the old man” was. Her uncle?

“Go say hi,” I offered when she continued looking around the floor of the half-full bar.

Her nose scrunched for a moment as she hesitated. “You sure?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, as long as you don’t leave me here all night.”

With that, she grinned. “Okay, it’s my uncle. It’d be rude of me to not go say hi. Want to come?”

If there was one thing I understood and was all too well acquainted with, it was the politics that went behind big, close families. In mine, you had to tell everyone hi. There was no such thing as a group wave unless you wanted your mom hissing in your ear about how much of an embarrassment you were.

“Nah,” I answered and tipped my head toward the back. “Go say hi. I’ll be here.”

My boss smiled and stood up, patting her cousin on the cheek. “Show me where he is,” she stated… which was kind of weird. The bar was a good size but not that big. It wouldn’t have taken her longer than a couple of minutes to find her uncle, but whatever. The blond man nodded and led her through the small group directly behind us. She carried her stout with her.

I sat there and took a couple of sips, looking up and down the counter at the people sitting there. Really, they almost looked like normal, everyday people, except for all the leather and Harley T-shirts. I had just pulled my phone out of my pocket to check my e-mail—not that there was anything important in there—when I caught sight of a familiar-looking buzz cut and brown hair at the far edge of the bar. It wasn’t until the man turned to face forward that I realized it was my neighbor.

Dallas with the asshole brother. Dallas who may or may not be in a marriage with a woman in a red car. Dallas with a giant tattoo across his body. Dallas who was chuckling as he said something to the person who had been sitting beside him.

What were the fucking chances he would be here?

I hadn’t seen a motorcycle at his place in the days since I’d first started paying attention to his house after his brother got beat up. I’d only seen his pickup truck. Was he a biker too?

Taking him in, sitting there with his elbows on the counter, a smile lingering on his sharp face, his attention focused on the television mounted on the wall… I couldn’t really picture him in this kind of place. With the way his hair was cut short and from his posture, all straight back and strong shoulders, I would have thought military, not motorcycle club.

Really?

For one shameful moment, I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into by moving to my neighborhood and living across from someone like him. Him with his marital problems that took place outside and his brother who got the shit beat out of him for who knows what. Him who hung out at a biker bar of all places.

Just as quickly as that thought filled my head, I accepted how dumb and hypocritical I was being. What mattered was what was on the inside, right?

One of the people in my line of view moved and I noticed he wasn’t wearing a vest like so many of the men were. Maybe he wasn’t in the motorcycle club, or was he?

It doesn’t matter. At least, it shouldn’t.

He had brought back my plastic container and thanked me for helping his brother. There was no reason to think he was a bad guy now, was there? He had dirt smudged on his neck like Louie sometimes did, and something about that reassured me.