It was my brother standing with his arm wrapped around the bartender’s shoulders, the burly man wearing my brother’s old jersey. Wow. I had no idea.
“You look a lot like him.”
The man’s voice matched his physique, rough and tumble. He approached, eyeing me entirely differently than when I was recognized while walking into a human bar. “Thanks. I guess.”
He laughed. “Well, you could look like that asshole.” He pointed to another picture hanging close by and I visibly winced.
“Fuck, I guess I could. My brother come here often?”
“When he’s in town. Like clockwork. What’ll you have?”
“Just a draft. Guinness if you have it on tap.”
His grin widened. “You passed the test. Of course we have Guinness on tap.” For some crazy reason, wolf shifters preferred a darker brew, Guinness to be exact. There was no rhyme or reason, but it was an interesting nugget of information that had endured gossip and variations of the story since the seventeen hundreds.
As he poured the beer stein, I scanned the customers. While a couple of guys nodded from recognition, not a single person in the joint was afraid or incensed that I’d dared walk into their fine establishment. Hell, maybe my father was right in that finding a place with my own kind was good for the psyche.
“Here you go.” As soon as he placed the beer onto the bar’s surface, he nodded behind me. “Speak of the devil.”
I didn’t need to turn around to know Saint had arrived. I could smell him from a significant distance. And not his natural scent either.
A laugh had already bubbled to the surface by the time he slipped onto a barstool next to me. “Speak of the devil indeed.”
By the time my brother had landed on the wooden surface, a Guinness and a shot of tequila were waiting for him. While another one of our inhuman attributes was our ability to hold our liquor, I was surprised he was indulging.
He lifted the shot glass, tossing it back before he even settled in. When he slammed it on the bar, I shook my head.
“Always the grandstander,” I told him, wrinkling my nose when he glanced in my direction.
“What? I took a shower.”
“Not your body odor. It’s your choice of aftershave. You’re still wearing that shit?”
“Jovan Musk Oil isn’t shit. It’s the fragrance I wore every time I captured a beautiful woman.”
I choked on a gulp of beer. “You mean Lily would kick your ass if she knew you were wearing that shit.”
He laughed. “Bingo. I had a half bottle left. I couldn’t let it go to waste.”
As the laughter died down, the silence we’d shared most times when together drifted between us. For the two kids who’d been so close, to find it difficult to know how to even talk to him any longer was bothersome.
“I don’t know what to say, Saint.”
“About what?” He pulled the glass to his lips, still staring at the television over our heads.
“About what happened with theToday Show.”
“Hey, Jim. Can we have some of your mother’s delicious peanuts?” Saint asked.
“Sure thing, Saint. Mama will be excited how much you love them.” The bartender immediately grabbed a bowl, filling it with shell-on peanuts that smelled heavenly.
For a full minute my brother didn’t say anything or even react, merely crushing a few shells and popping the peanuts into his mouth. When he laughed, slowly turning his head toward me, I could tell there was no animosity. “You know, when my phone blew up that day, I was pissed. I figured it was your way of getting back at me for making the NHL before you did. I was ready to hunt you down and destroy your career. Hell, you wouldn’t believe the shit I had planned.”
“Why didn’t you?” I bristled more than I should until he grinned like he did every time he pulled a prank on me.
“Well, the truth is that Lily doesn’t kick my ass just for my horrible choice in aftershave. She’s pretty clear about me keeping my family close. She did a little digging of her own. That’s when I realized someone was trying to pit us against each other.”
“Oh, yeah? Who would do that?”
