It wasn't a request. It wasn't a command. It wasn't a suggestion. It was the voice Nero used with witnesses who were running on adrenaline and stubbornness, who needed someone to give them permission to stop. Quiet. Steady. Inarguable.
Amani sat. He did it like it cost him something, pulled the stool out from the corner, lowered himself onto it, took the weight off his feet. His shoulders dropped an inch. His grip on the glass loosened. He probably didn't notice either of those things but Nero noticed both.
"There," Nero said. "Was that so hard?"
"You're annoying."
"I get that a lot too."
The corner of Amani's mouth twitched. It was a fraction of the grin Nero had seen in the photograph, maybe a tenth, if hewas being generous, but it was there. Something alive behind the armor.
"What can I get you?" Amani asked, and the question was professional, routine, the bartender reasserting himself over the patient.
“Maybe you can just sit there for a few minutes, like you’re supposed to. I can wait.”
Amani raised an eyebrow, and pouted. It was a sexy pout, whether he meant it to be or not.
“Talk to me while we wait.” Nero took the empty stool across from Amani.
“I’m not going to talk about…stuff…while I’m at work.”
Nero shrugged. “Didn’t expect you to. We can get official statements another time. What’s things been like the past few days? You’re back at work. That’s good.”
“Yeah. Much more healing than laying around on Mom’s guest bed, or even being in my own place. Mom’s not hovering like she was. Bethany either.” He pulled his new phone out and glanced at the screen.
“You’ve still got about five minutes.” Nero flashed a grin.
“Do you have a clock in your head or something? Is it a ferret thing?”
“You could say that. Okay, so how does this place work? I mean, I’ve heard rumors but never know how much to believe and how much to ignore.”
Amani relaxed and proceeded to give Nero a run down of how the club operated. It took a little over ten minutes.
When Amani reached the end of the explanation, he slipped off the stool, grimacing slightly when his feet hit the floor. “Okay, what’s your order, officer?”
"Screwdriver."
Amani's eyebrows went up. "Seriously?"
"What's wrong with a screwdriver?"
"Nothing. If you're at a hotel pool in 2004." He was already reaching for the vodka. His hands moved with the automatic precision of muscle memory, measure, pour, ice, orange juice, stir. He set it in front of Nero without a garnish. "You want an umbrella with that? Maybe a crazy straw?"
Nero took a sip. "It's good."
"Of course it's good. I made it."
There was the kid from the photograph. Just for a second, the sharpness, the confidence, the I-know-what-I'm-doing energy that no amount of gray hoodie could fully suppress. It surfaced and submerged so fast that if Nero had blinked he'd have missed it, but he didn't blink.
Nero nursed the screwdriver and watched the room and waited for Amani to bring up the thing they both knew was sitting between them.
Amani didn't bring it up. He served customers. He made drinks. He was good at his job. Nero could see that even from one stool's vantage point. He knew every regular's name, remembered orders, read body language with the fluency of someone who'd been working with people since he was a teenager. He was efficient and precise and his hands only shook once, when a customer set a glass down too hard and the bang made him flinch. He covered it by picking the glass up to refill it before anyone could clock the hesitation.
Nero clocked it.
A man across the bar, big, broad, bear energy even if Nero couldn't confirm the species, leaned in and said something to Amani. Something friendly, based on the smile. Amani smiled back but the smile didn't reach his eyes and when the man extended his hand for a fist bump, Amani looked at the hand for a fraction of a second too long before he completed the gesture. It was the hesitation of someone running a calculationin real time: is this hand safe? Will this hand do what hands are supposed to do, or will it do the other thing?
The calculation took less than a second. The fist bump happened. The bear laughed and moved on. And Amani stood very still for a moment, his fist still raised, looking at his own hand like it had done something without his permission.
