Page 1 of Penn

Chapter 1

Penn

The heavy oak door of the Seven Crows bar swings closed behind me, cutting off the heat that still lingers from the hot desert night. I smirk as the scent of bar food—pizza, specifically—and stale beer spilled from almost fights hits me. This is home. The place where I feel welcome, even if Nancy Charney has threatened to exile me from the place as she slaps a baseball bat in her palm after one too many fights. I know she doesn’t really mean it.

I hope.

We just finished a run, and my muscles feel tight. There’s been a lot of added pressure delivering guns with our rivals hot on our tails. They still haven’t forgiven us for sidelining their president. I’m not really sure how they can justify Butch Ballard almost raping Misty Reynolds but not the consequences of his actions so easily.

Zeppelin Molloy, our vice president, still believes Butch had something to do with the death of our first president, Johnny Sloan. It only gets more confusing to know that Zep’s biological father may have killed the man he saw as his dad, and then to have his biological father attempt to violate his girl? Talk about a fucked-up family tree.

I head straight for the bar, my boots sticking on something spilled that never got cleaned up, and I smile. It’s my lucky night. My favorite bartender is working.

Dixie Knapp.

Her long blonde hair gathers in a loose ponytail that sways with every movement, and I’ve had many dreams about how fast I could make her hair move as she straddles me. And those sultry lips have been wrapped around certain parts of my body in my midnight dreams of her. She’s basically a walking fantasy.

Brown eyes meet mine, and a small smile appears on her face. “What can I get you, Penn?”

I give her my best, slow smirk that usually has the girls at Velvet Desire giggling and flushing. We may not be able to fuck the working girls, but it doesn’t mean we can’t flirt. “Care if I order off-menu?”

“I don’t know if we have what you’re looking for,” Dixie says.

She doesn’t giggle. Or blush. It’s been impossible to charm this woman. She’s the only person I’ve met in a long while who remains unimpressed and unaffected by my wit.

“I see exactly what I want.”

“What you’re looking at isn’t available,” she says. “Your usual?”

“I’ll take a beer,” I say with a shrug. “It’s been a long few days.”

Dixie knows me whether she wants to admit it or not. She doesn’t grab a bottle and pop the top. She knows I prefer draft. And nothing light. It tastes like watered-down piss.

She sets the mug down in front of me, and I take a long drink. “You know, I’m not a bad time.”

“Never said you were,” she says, working on wiping up the bar that she already cleaned when I walked in.

“Come home with me.”

“Penn—”

“Look, my bed is really comfortable. And I could really use a great workout. You’re already in shape, and I thought maybe you could be my exercise buddy.”

Leaning forward, her chest presses together, and I force myself to look into her eyes. She’s trying to distract me, and I won’t let her. “Penn Calloway, you know good and well why I can’t and won’t come home with you tonight.”

“Remind me. I’m having a hard time remembering.”

“I have a boyfriend. The same boyfriend I’ve told you about every time you’ve asked me to warm your bed.”

I sigh and lean forward. “I guess I have a bad memory. And boyfriend is just a word. I don’t see a ring.”

“Like a ring would stop you,” she says with a sweet smile. “Regardless, it’s a commitment.”

“You think I can’t commit?”

Laughing, she juts her chin toward a table of girls in their early twenties. “I think you have that word confused with another. Why not go and ask one or two of them to be your exercise buddy for the evening?”

I stare at the women who glance at me and giggle before glancing back. Eager. Sure, I could take one or all of them home tonight with very little effort, but where’s the fun in that?