Jess
When I turned around and saw none other than Pink Raven, I couldn’t help but smile.
I’d always had a soft spot for him, in part because I knew he had to deal with his father’s shadow over him. I’d felt the same way about Lane and... the other Carter when their father was alive, but Lane had been a bit of an arrogant oaf during that time, and the other one was always just a little too much of a people pleaser. Pink Raven struck me as someone who was a great guy just trying to make an identity for himself.
Unfortunately, I knew all too well about the struggles with trying to emerge from your father’s influence.
“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“Oh, it’s going,” Pink Raven said with a very long sigh. “But I’m here, and I’m alive. So I can’t complain about that. Cole’s wanting a beer, so here I am.”
Cole! That’s it.
Somehow, those words didn’t sound nearly as trite as they might have in any other context. There was meaning behind them I couldn’t quite place, but as a bartender, I had long ago learned that the worst thing I could do was press people to reveal information they weren’t comfortable telling. Better to just let people speak first—bar patrons had a way of revealing information as if they were in a therapist’s office.
“Amen,” I said. “What can I get you?”
“Two Blue Moons, please.”
I nodded, reached under the bar for our beer fridge, grabbed two, popped the caps off, and placed them in front.
“Glass or no?”
“No glass,” he said with a nod before slamming a five-dollar bill on the table. “Thanks.”
He hesitated for just a second, as if there was something more that he wanted to share. There was certainly a level of odd tension that I could possibly describe as curious... but I didn’t want to be presumptive and make that claim. Just as customers often thought bartenders were flirting when we really weren’t, we could be just as guilty of assuming people were making moves on us when they just wanted a sounding board for conversation.
And just like that, Pink Raven turned around and sat at a table with some of his friends. I leaned on the bar back, comfortable watching the early evening unfold before me.
I didn’t know what the occasion was, but there was a weary happiness to the group that suggested they had come from a funeral or a wake. In conjunction with the ties that some of them wore and Pink Raven’s words, I figured that one of their club members had died. I tried my best to be detached, but hey, I was human before I was a bartender. I wanted to know what had happened.
About twenty minutes later, Cole came over. Cole was my ideal kind of customer—non-threatening, willing to drink, friendly, and rarely in a bad mood. He’d gotten a little edgier and sterner over the last couple of months, but compared to the rest of his biker friends, he was like the cheerful, bouncy schoolkid.
“Thanks for taking care of us today,” he said as he took a seat, his beer still half-full.
“Of course,” she said. “It’s a pleasant surprise to see you down here. I honestly thought I wouldn’t serve but a random biker here and there when I came down to Ashton.”
“Well, I certainly never thought I’d get to see you again after what happened at Brewskis,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, don’t we? What’s new besides escaping Brewskis?”
I smiled and shook my head. No one asked me these questions. No one, it seemed, except Cole Carter.
And part of the reason no one asked these types of questions was that the answer was the same as it was for most people who lived in this part of California—nothing much. People didn’t live in Springsville or Ashton just for the thrill of it or because they wanted to experience a wild nightlife. They moved there—or, perhaps better said for a significant portion of the population, they stayed there—because they didn’t have any prospects outside of it.
Maybe that was why I wanted to move somewhere new, somewhere random. Because I just wanted a new place. Because I just wanted to be able to answer Cole’s question with a fun answer and have it have actual value.
“Nothing, really,” I said. “What about you? It seems like you’ve made a lot of new friends here.”
“Oh, yeah, I guess,” Cole said with a casual laugh. “I’m just trying to build up this club to be like how my father ran the Black Reapers.”
“I can see that. I always liked your father when he came in.”
Roger Carter had been an unmistakable presence at Brewskis. It was no surprise that it was like combining the best of Cole and Lane. It was something of a surprise that he really didn’t have many flaws, either. He wasn’t rude, and he wasn’t aloof, although part of that may have just been remembering him favorably and comparing him against his sons and the Fallen Saints; compared to the general population, his personality may not have stood out as well.
“Yeah,” Cole said, looking like he was getting lost in thought. “In a way, though, I’m kind of glad he’s gone now. I mean, not glad, but like, we’re here because of the funeral for Phoenix’s father. So, it’s like… like the passing of the older generation brings the current one closer together.”
“I see,” I said. “Which one is Phoenix, sorry?”
“Phoenix is that guy... right there,” Cole said, pointing to... Pink Raven?
