Rolling Thunder

by Matt Lincoln

  Tessa let out a joyful squeal and threw her arms around me. “It’s real!” she cried. “Oh, Ethan, this is so wonderful. You finally have proof. That ship has to be out there, and I just know you’re going to find it.”

  It warmed me that she hadn’t started gushing about how I was rich or said anything about how much this little sack of metal had to be worth. She was only happy that I’d found what I’d been looking for so long.

  When she drew back, I took her hand and pressed the coin I’d extracted into it. “I want you to keep this,” I said, folding her fingers around it as shock flooded her face. “I would’ve given up if you weren’t here telling me to keep going, so don’t even think about refusing, or I’ll make you swab the deck.”

  The protest that had been forming in her expression melted into happiness. “In that case, I’ll just say thank you.”

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  Our gazes locked, and I had to fight the urge to propose cave sex. There was way too much sand here, and we still had time.

  She was going to stay with me again tonight.

  When the thrill of discovery died down, I collected my gear, and together, we headed back out to the beach, wandering to the shoreline. I’d stowed the sack of gold coins deep in my bag, both so I wouldn’t lose them and so I didn’t spend too much time obsessing over their existence. At the moment, I just wanted to be with Tessa.

  We sat in the damp sand and kicked off our shoes, letting the warm surf wash over our toes. After a while, Tessa leaned her head on my shoulder and sighed.

  “You’d better keep in touch with me when I go back to New York,” she said with a false glare. “I mean it.”

  “I will,” I promised as I slipped an arm around her waist.

  “I wish I could stay.” She sighed again and scooted closer to me. “Also, I wish we’d met while my father was still alive. Maybe we could’ve ended up living closer together.”

  I wished that, too. “It’s not like we’ll never see each other again,” I said, though I wasn’t sure that was true. “You’re welcome on my boat any time you’re in the neighborhood.”

  “Well, if you’re ever in New York, you can stay at my place,” she said, and then instantly blushed. “I mean, if you want to.”

  I smiled and lifted her head gently, tracing her jaw with my fingers. “I do.”

  The kiss that followed was sweet and salty, as timeless as the ocean that lapped at our feet.

  Epilogue

  Miami, Florida – Present Day

  I could still taste Tessa’s lips as I wrapped up the story. Lost in the memory, it took me a few moments to pull my thoughts together and focus on the present, and the bar in which I sat. No longer Mike’s Tropical Tango Hut, but the Rolling Thunder. My bar.

  So much had changed since then, but some things remained the same.

  Gradually, I picked up on the barrage of chatter that was washing over me. My audience of six twenty-somethings had grown considerably to a small crowd, and at some point, the overhead music had been turned down so they could all hear me. I wagered Mike had something to do with that.

  He’d be lucky if I didn’t kick his ass when this fiasco was over.

  “Okay, settle down,” I called out as I raised a hand to stem the tide of questions being thrown at me. “Yes, the coins were real. No, I didn’t marry Tessa, and no, you can’t touch Cobra Jon’s staff. That probably answers everything, right?”

  Ty, the original cocky hotshot who’d goaded Mike into making me tell this story in the first place, leaned forward eagerly, all traces of his earlier antagonism gone.

  “What about the Dragon’s Rogue?” he asked. “Did you ever find it?”

  That was a story I definitely didn’t want to get into tonight. “Maybe,” I hedged. “Look, I wasn’t even going to—”

  “What’s the deal with the old stool back there?” another young man to my right said, one who hadn’t been part of the original crowd. “There’s a bullet hole in it. Did you guys have a shootout in this place, back in the day?”

  I heaved a sigh and glared hard at Mike, and he laughed. “Don’t look at me. I’m not telling ’em.”

  “All right, listen,” I said. “If you really want to know about the stool and the bullet, come back tomorrow night. I’ll think about telling you then.”

  A wave of protests mingled with more questions arose, and I made a cutting gesture. “Hey, I’m all talked out tonight, okay? Get out there and do bar stuff,” I said with a chuckle. “That’s what this place is for. In fact, everyone here gets a drink on me, as long as you leave me alone for the rest of the night.”

  This time, a cheer went up, and I breathed a sigh of relief as the crowd dispersed and patrons started filtering around the bar.

  At some point, one of the girls must’ve freshened my drink because there was a frosty mug of beer behind me on the counter. I grabbed it and stood on legs that were half-numb from sitting for so long.

  “Going outside for some air,” I said to Mike. “Care to join?”

  “That depends.” He smirked. “Are you gonna punch me for riling these guys up?”

  “Haven’t decided yet. Probably not.”

  “I’ll take those odds,” he said as he reached back and grabbed his own drink.

  Beyond the crowd that had been listening to me yammer on, there were at least a few dozen others in the bar, seated at tables or playing pool and darts in the back room. “When did this place get so packed?” I murmured.

  “They’ve been trickling in all night,” Mike informed me. “Looks like your grand opening was a success.”

  I snorted. “Except that I just took a bath on free drinks for sixty or so people.”

  “Hey, you didn’t get your business sense from me. I only gave out freebies to people who got themselves shot,” he chuckled, “including yourself at least one time if I remember correctly.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t remind me.”

  We walked out the door, hung a right, and by unspoken consent made our way down the alley which was considerably cleaner than it had been ten years ago. I’d had the old dumpster hauled out and replaced with two brand new containers, swapped the dirty yellow light with a bright halogen, and installed two pairs of security lamps at the front and back of the alley.

  “Huh. Things seem a bit brighter than they used to,” Mike remarked as we settled on the stoop in front of the service door.

  I nodded in confirmation. “No more shadowy ambushes back here.”

  “Good call,” Mike said.

  We sipped our drinks in silence for a few minutes, and I let the memories run their course as they drained slowly out of me. There was good and bad in my past, just like everybody’s, but it was time to focus on the present.

  “You know,” I said casually, “I didn’t expect to actually make money on this place. I planned on running in the red for at least a few years.”

  “So much for that plan, right? You’re profitable. What a bummer,” Mike joked. “You should have a good cry in your beer about it.”

  I smirked. “Maybe I will.”

  “Well, here’s to you and the Rolling Thunder,” Mike said as he raised his glass. “May the storms of life steer clear of your new venture, even if you’re tempting fate by naming the place after a storm.”

  “That was… a very strange toast, but what the hell, I’ll drink to that.” Grinning, I clinked my mug against his and tossed back a long swallow. Cold beer tasted pretty good when it came from a bar that I owned. At least, it didn’t taste like I’d paid six bucks for a draft that was half foam.

  It tasted like success, and all the stories I still had left to tell.

  Author’s Note

  Hey, if you got here, I just want you to know that you’re awesome! I wrote this book just for someone like you, and if you want another one, it is super important that you leave a review.

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, I’m only human, and you have no idea how far a simple “your book was great!” goes to brighten my day.

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