Hell, he might be a Pop Rocks guy for all she knew.
Actually, deep down, she sorta hoped he was. She’d even make sure she had plenty of saliva to ensure—
“Out of the way, hon,” one of the older women said when Becca paused to watch Linx sing about hands touching hands.
Yeah, he was eating up the enthusiasm from the retirement home crew. Broad smile, swirling hips, dollar bills hanging from his belt.
Becca shook her head and scooted along to finish distributing the latest round of drinks. She turned back to the stage in time to see Mach complete an edge-of-the-stage, on-the-knees rock move to thelastbom-bom-bomwith his guitar held high. Thanks to the guitar move, the ladies could reachhiswaistband with dollar bills.
He absolutely didn’t appear to mind.
“We’ve got a problem,” Brek said from behind her.
She glanced over her shoulder to him.
“I called in a few extra bouncers.” He kept his focus on the front row as he spoke. “This group has a history of not taking no for an answer. If things get dicey, you’ll want to head over behind the bar. Last time one lady tried to pepper spray one of my guys when he wouldn’t let her get on the stage.”
Holy crap. “Was he okay?”
“He was fine. The bottle only looked like pepper spray. It was breath spray, and he felt like an idiot afterward. Who knows if it’ll be breath spray next time? We had to close early to get a handle on things.” Brek’s jaw ticked as something of a gray-haired mosh pit formed at the base of the stage—tables and chairs pushed aside for the walkers and canes. “That’s not happening again.”
One couple tried to dirty dance, but their walkers got in the way.
Four bouncers Becca hadn’t seen before positioned themselves close to the stage, forming a wall of bulging men. They were all muscle and sinew, and now several had dollar bills poking fromtheirbelts.
“Babushka,” Brek tapped the shoulder of a woman in a lime green jumpsuit. He said something too low for Becca to hear.
Babushka responded to whatever he said by tucking a dollar behind his ear.
He gave a head nod in the general direction of the biggest bouncers. The man was built like a mountain.
That’s when things got a little wonky. Becca took Brek’s advice and headed behind the bar while the bouncers moved the wall slowly toward the exit, gently pressuring the group in the direction of the parking lot.
“Becca,” a voice called. A voice that sounded like her mother.
Becca searched the crowd for her.
Crap. Somehow, Mom got caught up with the mosh pit and was part of the herd being carefully prodded out the door.
Becca started toward them to rescue her mother.
Shoulders hunched, jaw still ticking, Brek soldiered to his post behind the bar. “You’ll want to stick around back here. Let the bouncers do their job.”
“My mom’s in the crowd.” Becca tried to find her again, but she’d lost her in a wave of eighty-year-olds.
Brek closed his eyes and took a huge breath. “Which one’s your ma?”
“Brown hair, orange sweater. Not elderly.” Becca pointed to the general direction of her mom but couldn’t see her. “What’s going to happen to them?”
“I have taxis out there waiting to take them home.” Brek smiled a smug grin. “Then they’re somebody else’s problem.”
Well, if they were just going to be taking her mom home, it wasn’t like it wasthatbig of a deal. And, technically—if she wanted to get technical about it—her friends had brought Mom with them. Becca was at work. Therefore, by the laws of technicalities, this was their problem to solve.
“Taxi home?” she confirmed.
Brek nodded.
“That’s not bad. Let’s go with that.” Then there would be no more Crisco conversations. “Also, thank you.”
