Bound In Secrets

The Club

Sawyer, ten years later

There he is, right in the middle of my club. The man used to have a crush on him. My best friend's older brother. A beautiful woman with hair the color of blood hangs off his arm.

I've been in love with him since I first saw him when I was eight and he was eleven. He was handsome then, with chestnut hair that liked to flop in his face and eyes the color of moss in a rainforest.

I haven't seen him since he left. Wow, he grew! His simple navy V-neck stretches tight across his shoulders, well-defined his arms with muscle, and his jeans are tight over his hips and thighs. He has one arm covered in tattoos with four lip rings, two rings in each eyebrow, and his septum pierced. All the hardware is in navy, matching his shirt. If I thought he was hot before, my panties are soaking wet now just looking at him.

I'm sitting on a couch, drunk, with my best friend, Carmen, clinging to me. We are curled up together. He doesn't notice us until Jeremy, Carmen's boyfriend, points at us. I hold my breath, closing my eyes, hoping he doesn't bring the girl.

"Hello, little sister," he addresses Carmen in this sultry velvet voice.

"Oh look, Sawyer, it's my asshole big brother who couldn't bother to visit me on holidays but now conveniently lives across the hall from our apartment." She nudges me sarcastically. "Oh, goody." The vitriol oozing out of Carmen's mouth does not surprise me.

She has been hurt and angry at being abandoned by her older brother for the past ten years. I get it. He left me, too.

"Sawyer?" He asks, staring at me in disbelief.

I guess he didn't recognize me at first. I've changed a lot over the years. My breasts have gotten large, and my slight body has filled out over the years. I no longer look like the toothpick of a girl.

I meet his eyes. "Hey there, Jensen, it's been a long time," I respond coolly, even though my heart is pounding thunderously.

"Hey there, Jensen," he drawls. "Is that all I get, cher? Seriously, Juliet?" Jensen asks in a taunting voice.

I shrug my shoulders at him, then uncurl from the couch, standing up. "What did you expect, Romeo? To be welcomed with open arms when you didn't even bother to grace me with a phone call all this time you've been gone."

I pat him on the shoulder, turning my head to wink at my bestie. "Holler if you need me, babe. I'm going to get us something else to drink." With all the calm and self-confidence I did not have, I walked away from my childhood friend and former crush.

I stroll to the bar. "What will it be, boss lady?" Cruise, my ex-con bartender, and my right-hand man ask.

"The usual," I tell him as he gets to work with a wink. The usual are two rum and cream sodas. It's mine and Carmen's go-to drink.

I inherited this club from my father when he was imprisoned three years ago. Then, it was a biker bar, and my father was the bookie for the MC.

My father raised me on his own when my mother left us when I was a baby. My father never remarried, and he didn't bring women home. He is overly protective of me, and I love him dearly for it.

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes? Damn, did you get hot, my Eurydice," says a purring voice next to me.

I glance to find another man who left me when I was sixteen, one of Jensen's best friends, Carter.
Carson Moreau. He has gotten huge too, no longer the rail-thin boy he once was when I first met him when he had just turned fourteen. He is no longer the gaunt, hollow man he was when I dropped him off at a mental health facility years ago.