It also helps that I have the most amazing coworkers. There is a surprisingly good number of fellow out-of-towners working here too, so our shifts have been going by fairly quickly and smoothly as we mix drinks and sprinkle stories in between about where we’re from and how we ended up here.
I’ve grown closest to another one of the bartenders, a super sweet fellow Midwesterner from Iowa, named Darcie. She’s a year younger than I am, twenty-six, and moved to Houston last year with her loser ex-boyfriend. He dumped her less than two months after the moved and took off for God knows where. With no family of her own, and no reason to go back to Iowa, she decided to pull up her big-girl-britches and kick ass on her own . . . and she has! Go girl power!
It's just before ten o’clock and my break just ended, not that it was very restful dealing with my brother’s latest guilt trip texts, so it’s back to the grindstone I go. I tie my black, short apron around my waist and heck to make sure my long bottle opener and pens are in their right pockets. I tuck a hand towel in one of my back pockets, along with my phone in the other, and push through the swinging door to pop out behind the bar.
The bass in the music is bumping tonight. There is a special big name DJ playing up in the booth on stage, so the crowd is dancing, jumping, and screaming extra loud every time the beat drops. Flashing and spinning lights flash all over the room, giving the entire club the feeling of a psychedelic rave on steroids. Black leather booths line three of the walls of the club, along with several tall tables surrounding the dance floor where some patrons are standing to watch the craziness going on around them.
After mixing a whole slew of various mixed drinks, along with what seems like an entire keg of pint glasses to a bachelor party who are determined to drink all of the beer we have in the building, there is finally a lull in the masses and I am able to take a step back to refill the supplies at my section of the bar.
Napkins need topping off. Straws seem to disappear faster than sand through a colander. And my ice bin is looking more like a slurry mix than actual cubes.
I pull the drain plug at the bottom, then duck into the back room again for a few buckets of fresh cubes.
Once I’ve got the bin refilled, and the buckets put away, I’m back behind the bar and ready for the next rush, when I look up at the VIP balcony and lose all train of thought. Who the hell is that gorgeous man?
Based on the height of the railing he’s standing behind, my guess is that he’s over six feet tall—fuck, I love tall guys. No offense to the short kings out there, but I’ll climb me a giant any day of the week and twice on Sundays. There’s just something about having to look up, and then up some more, to gaze into a man’s eyes that does it for me.
I can’t tell his eye color from this far away, but I can tell that he has a shaved head and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. Oh, man oh, man . . . another weakness I have about men. Facial hair just does it for me and I have no shame in my game in appreciating it.
With one hand holding a rocks glass, and the other gripping the wood banister of the railing, my mystery man is one fine as hell tall drink of water. He’s wearing a maroon button up dress shirt, with the top two buttons undone, along with dark pants.
He’s still too far away to see the finite details, but the flashing lights hit him just right every few seconds to reveal that he has what looks like a chest full of tattoos peeking out from the open lapels. I think they might even continue down his arms based on the dark artwork I can see that cover the back of his hands. What I wouldn’t give to be touched by those hands and get to inspect the details up close and personal.
“Who is that?” I risk a small look at Darcie when I feel her stop to my right, but then my eyes go right back up to my mystery man.
What is in the water around here? There is now another equally dangerous hottie next to the first hottie and he is drop dead gorgeous too . . . just not as hot as the first hottie. He’s an inch or two taller, shoulders bulkier in that weightlifter don’t fuck with me way, and he has a short buzz cut to go with his trimmed facial hair.
“Which one?” Darcie replies with a sigh. “Mister yummy on the left is Fergus O’Carroll. He’s owns this club, so that would technically make him our manager’s boss’s boss’s boss I guess. Definitely a looker that one, but unfortunately he’s taken and his lady is about to have their first baby. I’ve met her a couple times. Super sweet chick.”
“What about the guy on the right?”
“Ahhhhh, I see what’s going on here,” she chuckles as she looks right through my failed attempt at nonchalance. “That would be Corrin Bradach. He’s the bosses personal security. It’s very rare that you see one of them and the other isn’t within arm’s reach. Pretty inseparable, but I guess that’s kinda the point when you consider who Fergus and his family is.”
“What does that mean?” Something about the way she says it makes me break the eye lock spell, look away from this Corrin person, and give all my attention to my friend. “Who is his family?”
Darcie leans in a little closer and whisper shouts, not that anyone around us could hear us anyway with the loud music filling the room. “Fergus O’Carroll. You don’t recognize the O’Carroll name?”
“Why would I? Remember D, I’ve only been in town for two weeks. How am I supposed to know some random business looking dude?”
“He’s the head of the Irish Mafia, Saylor. Like the boss man. Head honcho. Dude in charge. Fergus is the oldest of two sons, so when their dad passed a couple years back, he became the big boss.”
“Holy shit.” I am stunned stupid. “The mafia? Like guns and drugs and all that crazy stuff? That kind of mafia?”
“I’m not exactly sure of the specifics,” she says as she throws a towel over her shoulder. “It’s not like they just going walking down the street, telling random people about all the stuff they do. But I’ve heard rumors of some shady stuff.”
“That’s nuts.”
I’m not sure why I’m thinking it’s so crazy. Shit, I grew up in a town that is practically surrounded by an outlaw motorcycle club. While my dad was never a patched member, my brother is . . . fuck, I just had Thanksgiving dinner with a room full of lawbreakers. I guess it’s not a stretch that a nightclub would be a mafia run business. Illegal entities need a way to appear legal on the outside just as much as the next guy.
“Saylor!” Annie, one of the waitresses, hustles up to the server station to our left with an exhausted look on her face. “I’ve got a huge order for a bachelor party. They just upgraded to a reserved booth, so I could use a hand carrying their drinks back if you wouldn’t mind. I’ll give you a percentage of my tip at the end of the night for the help.”
“No problem, girly.” I flash her a smile as she starts reading off the order. Darcie and I have the drinks mixed up and on three trays in a flash. Annie grabs one and I follow with the other two. I guess hottie admiring will have to wait a bit.
Hmmm—the Irish own the nightclub. While not exactly the same kind of organization as the MC world I’m used to existing around me, it’s still organized crime at the end of the day. I’m not scared of knowing what I know now. In fact, I think it’s kind of a full circle thing.
I moved to the other side of the country and somehow still ended up surrounded by tattooed by who live on the dark side of the law.
What a small world.
