“If I live through this, you’re gonna owe me for the rest of your natural life. I claim your first born, Tate. Don’t make plans for that sucker.”
“What the hell did they do? Feed you bourbon until you threw up?”
“No,” I said, covering my mouth and belching. “That was my bright idea after hours of cleaning some pretty fucking disgusting toilets.”
“So let me do it.”
It was probably the only thing he could have said that would have got me up off my hands and knees and into the bathroom. There was no way in hell I was letting him into that place, even if I was pretty sure they wouldn’t hurt him. I actually believed he would end up leaving corrupted and deranged.
“Ayda, come on. Like you don’t have enough to do,” he said through the bathroom door. By the sounds of it he was leaning against the wall.
“It isn’t so bad. I just had a long night and made a bad judgment call with the bourbon. Kinda like you did last week. Remember that?” I asked with a sarcastic laugh. “You tried to rip off the local MC?”
“Shut up.”
“Then don’t judge me.”
I heard his mumbled response begin, but the words were lost as I stepped under the spray of the shower. I just hoped it was going to chase away the sluggishness that was getting comfortable in my limbs from the work I’d done the night before.
As luck would have it, I was ten minutes early when I finally arrived at The Hut. I swear the sweat was my body pushing alcohol through my pores, and I could smell it on myself even worse after I slipped through the gate and reached up to knock on the door.
Or maybe the stench was from the bar on the other side of the door?
Either way, it stank. Badly. And my tender, thoroughly empty stomach turned the moment the door was thrown open. I was really starting to regret my stupid decision the night before. When I pulled out of the driveway, I’d been considering sex or alcohol as a way to get my mind off things. But entering the bar and seeing Mr. Lupe’s eyes light up, I went with liquor. A ninety-year-old man that refused to take off his dress uniform wasn’t all that appealing.
“You look as bad as I feel,” Kenny said, pushing the door closed behind me and shuffling farther into the glorious darkness that was the bar’s main room.
“Just say no toilets today and let me sweat it out in the laundry room.”
“I ain’t the boss, kid.”
I waved an arm in his direction and leaned against the pool table, until I remembered what I’d seen happening on the thing the night before and pushed off of it. Wonder what surface was actually safe to touch?
“Let’s hope there’s mercy to be had,” I whispered, almost biting off my tongue when I looked up to see Drew at the bar with a coffee and a smirk. I wanted to know his secret. He’d obviously polished off his bottle of whiskey and then some, yet looked…
“Umm, morning?”
Once again, I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. There was going to be no mercy for the day, no easy menial labor for this girl. He was going to have me jumping through hoops. I just hoped that he wasn’t a complete bastard and would, at the very least, supply me with the tar they were calling coffee.
He did, and although it tasted like raw beans boiled and strained, it actually helped the hangover quite a bit. For awhile, things seemed to be going well. We were holding a half decent conversation, about caffeine of all things, and I actually managed to make Kenny snort once.
Of course, it was inevitable that I would end up sticking my foot in my mouth. That opportunity came when I saw a picture behind the bar of a younger version of Drew, his arm around a slightly older boy, but the reverence was there, shining through.
“Is that a younger you in that picture there?” I asked, my elbows planted as I leaned forward.
Drew's eyes followed mine to see what I was staring at, although something about the way his body tensed beside me told me that he already knew. He didn't answer for a while, and the stony silence was so thick and so powerful, I felt like it was choking me, until he finally cleared his throat and mumbled, “Yeah.”
“You were a cute kid. Is that your brother with you?”
“No,” he answered sharply as he pushed his hands against the edge of the bar and rose to a slow stand. “No, it's not.”
The calm man I’d been speaking to had disappeared by the time I turned to see why he sounded so clipped. In his place stood a man with the color and light drained from him, his jaw set in a hard line filled with anger and an emotion I couldn’t quite place. With a growl that I should “get to work” he stalked away, gripping his mug with such fury, I feared it wasn’t going to last long, while I stood there in stunned silence.
“You want a survival tip, kid?” Kenny asked quietly, leaning into me. “You don’t ask Drew questions about anything or anyone unless you know the story behind it. Maybe not even then.”
Oh, and wasn’t that a lesson I could have learned ten minutes earlier?
Chapter Eighteen
