Nettie nodded.
“Shade gave one of the patrons a lime when he knew that she was allergic, and he was fired.”
“Oh.” She scrunched up her nose. “Mable?”
I nodded. “That was my guess, too. That’s the only local I know that’s allergic to citrus.”
“Interesting,” she said. “I liked Shade. I wonder what happened there.”
“Hell if I know.” I took a healthy sip of beer and winced.
The taste left a lot to be desired.
But I drank with Nettie because she wouldn’t drink by herself.
A loud, obnoxious laugh had me glancing back up in the mirror to see Audrey leaning over the end of a pool table, showing her ass to the world, and her tits to Weaver as he once again lined up for a shot.
She had her hands placed on the green felt and was shaking her butt with her excitement.
“Desperation does not look good on her,” Nettie grumbled. “What the hell is she still doing here, anyway? I thought she was going to move away from this hellhole and ‘become a better person?’”
“She moved away for like a year. She came back lookin’ like she was rode hard and put up wet. Rumors were she was pregnant with some guy’s baby from New York. Bigwig that didn’t want the kid or her. She never got super pregnant or anything, though, so I’m assuming that was all a rumor.”
“Isn’t that just hilarious?” Nettie asked. “The girl that couldn’t stand living here having to come back?”
“Agreed,” I mused.
More laughter, and this time I glanced at Weaver to see him stand up with a scowl.
He said something I couldn’t hear, but all of a sudden Audrey was hauled backward by her shorts by an older man with a permanent scowl etched on his face.
Once she was far enough away from the table, he let her go and went back to talking to one of his club brothers who was sitting at a high top.
I snorted out a laugh and took another healthy sip of my beer.
“Swear to Christ,” I uttered under my breath. “That woman is one day going to bark up the wrong tree.”
“She already did, it looks like,” Nettie pointed out. “Look at that scowl on her face.”
Our giggles must’ve reached her ears, because she turned with a scowl.
She saw us and her shoulders straightened, and that tube top she was barely holding up slipped another inch downward.
Soon, the only thing holding it up would be the piercings in her nipples.
“Doesn’t she know that it’s twenty degrees outside?” Nettie murmured into my ear.
I snorted.
“Well, look who the cat dragged in,” Audrey cooed. “If it isn’t the Wheelie twins.”
“Wheeler,” I corrected her automatically. “How are you doing, Owala?”
Owala was like the red-headed stepchild of the water bottle world. Was it corny to compare her to a water bottle? Yes. But I was weird like that.
Audrey looked confused, but the man behind her lined up to once again take a shot did not miss the joke. His quiet chuckle preceded him sinking two balls into the pocket nearest us.
His lips were quirked as he aimed and shot, but when he was done and his eyes met mine in the mirror, I felt the instant jolt.
