by Tijan
I’d been away far too long.
“He has a habit of doing that, doesn't he?” My throat swelled up. “Saving lives, I mean.”
We didn’t talk the rest of the time. Linc did my tattoo and bandaged everything up for me. When he was done, I waited until he’d put away all his equipment and cleaned the area, then I walked out of the room with him.
It felt fitting, for some reason.
21
Heather
One month
One week
One day
One hour
One minu—you get the drift—since my last smoke
* * *
“You can't ban smoking from Manny’s.”
Brandon stood behind me as I put up the no-smoking sign. I’d slipped the night I got Naly’s tattoo on my arm. That whole day had been too much in general. Almost all of Channing’s crew had come to the warehouse. They’d put up seven speakers around the yard and inside. There’d been three bonfires. A DJ. A taco truck had pulled in. Someone ordered pizza as well, and the entire night passed in a drunken blur.
Too much booze, and so many people had been smoking, I’d succumbed.
I only got one puff in before Channing took the cigarette from me and led me away, but damn it—that puff seemed to have lingered in my lungs since then.
Every time I walked from the house to Manny’s (a whole twenty steps) I had to walk past the smokers. It was beyond torture, and I swear her tattoo throbbed too.
I’d gone past irrational. I was in survival mode.
I. Would. Not. Smoke. Again. Whether it killed me or not. Though currently, I was almost ready to do the killing myself.
I finished whacking the last nail and stepped back. The sign stayed put.
“I can, and I will.” My hands found my hips, and I turned to my brother. “You’re supposed to be supporting me.”
He opened his mouth. He grabbed a fistful of his hair, and then he closed his mouth. He swallowed. “Are you kidding me? This is our place of business.”
I pointed the hammer toward the front parking lot. “I had that punk’s crew clean out the front section. There’s a whole area over there where they can smoke.”
“No one’s going to go over there. It’s in the woods.”
I didn’t care. It was out of my walkway to work. “Brandon, you need to help me with this.”
He stared at me. I stared back, and then he rolled his eyes. “Fine. God. Good thing I love you.” He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me in for a quick hug.
“Good thing I make us a lot of money with this place.” I patted his chest, moving away.
“There’s that too.” He stopped to study the sign. “I think you should put one more nail in it. It might fall.”
I counted the nails. “You think?”
“Yes,” he deadpanned. “Twelve nails is not enough to keep this eleven-by-fourteen sign in place.”
I patted his chest again, but it was a hard thwack this time. “Don’t be an ass.”
“Only you, dear sister. You’re the only one who can have that title.”
I started inside, but flipped him off over my shoulder. I followed that with a laugh and heard him join in as he trailed behind me.
It’d been a month since that night, and a month since Channing and I were officially back together. Most didn’t pay attention anymore. This was our routine, but this time felt different. Everything felt different for some reason, and the last month had been good. Really good. Maybe it’s because I’d changed my attitude toward the crew, or maybe it was because Channing and I had started talking about Naly. Whatever it was, it was working.
“Is Channing coming over tonight?” my brother asked.
“No.” I shook my head as he slipped behind the bar. I stood back, scanning the inside of Manny’s. “I’m heading over to his place later.” I was about to say more, but Ava came to a screeching halt in front of me.
She was out of breath and swatting at loose hairs that had fallen over her forehead. “Suki’s going ham on Roy—the Uber guy,” she announced.
“Why?”
She held her hands up. “I have no clue. He got his food, asked for salt, and she went nuts.”
I could only groan as I headed to the front section. I heard yelling the closer I got, but it was just one voice. Suki’s. Her arms were in the air. She was shaking a fist at Roy, then the plate, then back to Roy, and I had to admit, I wasn’t sure if she was speaking a different language.
Roy had leaned back, his eyes wide, his face slightly pale.
I liked to give him a discount since he was so quick to pick up our patrons.
Now, as he held his baseball cap in front of him like a shield, I wondered if Suki hadn’t permanently killed that situation.
Another server was trying to soothe her. It wasn’t working.
Suki shook her off and only upped her volume. “Suki’s fish doesn’t need salt. Salt!” She pretended to spit on the floor. “That’s what Suki thinks about salt, ketchup, butter.” She sliced her hand through the air. “None of that is needed for Suki’s food.”
“Suki!” I stepped through the crowd.
Half the dining room was captivated. The other half were still eating.
I sighed. “Okay. That’s enough.” I pointed toward the back. “Suki, my office.”
She scrunched up her face, another burst coming, and I shook my head.
“Office. Now.”
She stormed off. Ava and the other server scattered. As they did, I took Roy’s plate and handed it to Lily, another server passing by. “Give Roy anything he wants,” I said to her, before turning back to him. “On the house. All weekend. Okay?”
Hearing me, three regulars shot their arms in the air. “We’d like more salt too! Suki!”
“Har, har, guys.”
They laughed, lowered their arms, and went back to eating.
Roy was jittery, looking from them to me. He kept that baseball cap in front of him, tightening his hold. “That’s not necessary, Miss Jax.”
Oh, fuck. Miss Jax. I didn’t need to hear that.
“I mean it. No ifs, ands, or buts. On the house. I know you help us out too. Got it?”
His eyes jumped to where Suki had gone, then he swallowed and gave a quick nod. “Yes, ma’am, Miss Jax. I’ll just have a burger.”
Lily nodded. “Got it.” She turned to me. “I’ll take care of him.”
“Right.”
Ava and the other server had already cleaned up the salt, along with whatever else my manager-who-kept-forgetting-she-was-a-manager-and-not-a-chef had thrown, so Suki was the only one left to manage. I started for my office. I wanted to say this was an oddity, but it wasn’t. Suki was sitting in Brandon’s chair, her arms and ankles crossed. Her face was set in defiance.
“You’re cooking again?” I asked as I closed the office door.
She watched me as I sat in my chair. “Marie didn’t come, so Suki took over. Cruz came in early to cover the rest.”
My fingers twitched for a cigarette as I sat down. I rubbed them against each other. Maybe I could rub that urge out of me? Or candy. I had candy.
I started digging through my drawers. Where’d that bag go?
“I know you called Marie and told her not to come in.”
First drawer was a mess. I winced, but no candy.
Second drawer.
“What?”
Aha! Third drawer. There was taffy in there. Thank the candy fairies.
I plopped it on the desk and dug in. “She texted me last night, asked if I was sure we didn’t need her. I let it go because I knew you’d be covering.” Popping a yellow one into my mouth, I gestured toward the hall. “I know you love making food, but you can’t do that. You know that.”
Suki had been shirking her manager responsibilities a lot lately. I’d let it go for too long.
“Katrina’s still on the payroll?” A pink taffy was on deck.
“Yeah.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
>
I tossed the pink one in my mouth and stared at her. Hard. “Because you’re suspended.”
“Suki opens this whole weekend.”
“Not anymore, Suki doesn’t.”
Yes. Third person. I’d joined her narrative. Oh fuck. What the hell. I started unwrapping a green taffy.
“Are you kidding Suki?”
Yes. That was her speaking. Not me. But I answered the same way. “Heather doesn’t kid. Not when Heather needs a damn cigarette.” My nostrils flared.
Suki blinked, and her head inched backward. She was starting to get it.
Heather wasn’t playing around.
Fuck. Damn. Shit! I was doing the third-person speaking in my head now too.
I cleared my head, grabbing that green taffy and clutching it as if it was life itself. “You haven’t been doing inventory. You haven’t been doing the ordering. What you have been doing is putting everything off on Cruz lately, which is why I’ve been cutting him loose most nights and closing for him.”
I was feeling a little more settled. Suki had shut her mouth.
“We have to face facts here.” I gentled my tone. “Food is your first love, but that’s not your job anymore. Roy is like a daddy longlegs. He’s around. You might get mad at him, but he helps us. He kills other spiders and insects for us.”
“He does?”
“What?” Crap. My metaphor. “No, he doesn’t. The daddy longlegs does. They’re good spiders, but that’s what I’m saying about Roy. He’s here a lot, and he might ask for salt, but it’s not an insult to you. We want him here. He helps us. He keeps people safe when they might drive home drunk. We want him here.”
I’d lost her. I could tell by the glazed expression in her eyes. She was probably daydreaming about lamb chops.
“Okay.” I motioned for the door. “Get your temper in check. Decide you want to be a manager again, and come back in a week. We’ll talk again.”
Her lips pressed together. She seemed to want to argue, but instead she pushed herself up with a small growl and stormed from the room.
Brandon appeared in the opened door. “You suspended her?”
I raked a hand over my face. “I swear. Even my lungs are exhausted.” I frowned, sighing. “You know I had to.”
He nodded. “You want me to call Katrina?”
“I’ll call her. And if Cruz asks, he still gets the weekend off. He’s been covering for Suki. He’s part of the problem.”
“I know.” Brandon rested a hand against the doorframe. “He was trying to be helpful.”
I knew that too, but while Katrina might be able to help us in a pinch, that didn’t mean we wouldn’t need a new manager in the near future.
“You can always ask Moose to help,” Brandon added. “He’s done it before.”
“No.”
Moose was one of Channing’s managers at his bar, but I didn’t want to go there. We’d really been trying to keep our relationship just our relationship. Him and me.
I was okay with the high school crews returning, as long as there was no violence and they kept spending money. But if Moose helped out, members of their crew would start hanging out, and that would change things.
Adult crews were in a different league, a dangerous league.
“We’ll try Katrina first and figure something else out before we have to bring Moose in.”
I reached for the phone.
“Okay.” Brandon nodded. “Just let me know if you need anything.”
He closed the door.
And holy shit, I really wanted a smoke now.
22
Channing
My phone buzzed on my desk.
Heather: Have to close tonight. Suspended Suki.
Well, shit.
Me: I’ll come there when I’m done.
It was a quick response.
Heather: TY
Friday night at my bar was busy. Our regulars usually came during the day and on weekday evenings, but the weekends were a different matter. Or they had been lately. A lot of younger customers were starting to travel over from nearby colleges.
We’d moved the karaoke night to Fridays, which meant it was nuts out there.
Scratch was in heaven, but I didn’t understand his and Heather’s addiction to chaos.
I liked disappearing to the warehouse with my crew, my girl in my arms, my sister and her crew with us, and a good whiskey next to me. That’s what made me content.
Though all the customers out there meant money. That was always a damn good thing.
Since it was close to midnight, I could head out. Grabbing my stuff, I locked the office behind me and started through the crowd. There were a few skinny chicks in the hallway. Their eyes got big when they saw me. One leaned toward me while her friends started talking to each other, their heads ducked down, but still watching.
I gave them a small wave, but kept going.
A few guys called out greetings as I headed to the bar.
People stepped back, parting for me as I went. Once or twice, someone drunk stumbled into me. Their friends hissed, but I just steered ’em back. It was a bar. People were going to be drunk. That was the purpose.
All my guys were busy behind the bar, and so was Scratch as he filled orders for the servers. We didn’t always use the girls, but it had become more of a regular thing on the weekends. I stepped to the side as one filled her tray with beer bottles.
Scratch saw me and raised a hand. “You heading out?” he shouted.
They couldn’t hear, not with the music blaring, but every one of my guys glanced over. I nodded to each to confirm that they were doing what I wanted: working at Tuesday Tits. I didn’t need them for anything else.
I raised my voice to my cousin, “You need me to stay?”
He shook his head, scanning the bar. “We’re staffed tonight. We should be fine. You off to see Heather?”
I nodded. “I can stay, for real.”
“Nah. I’m good.” He motioned for the door. “Go be with your woman. We got it.”
“Call if you need anything.”
I turned for the door as Moose called my name. He ducked out from behind the bar, but stopped and said something to Scratch. My cousin nodded and Moose motioned he’d follow me out. We weaved around the waitresses.
The two bouncers outside the door dipped their heads to me.
“’Night, boss.”
“Have a good one, boss.”
“Night, guys.”
Moose went with me as I started up the block.
I frowned. “What’s going on?”
He looked up and down the street, which was empty, before taking out his phone. He handed it over.
“I meant to let you know before, but we got slammed at the bar. Traverse texted.”
I looked at the screen.
Traverse: Soon.
“Demons haven’t been in town since you tangled with Richter,” he added. “I know we struck a deal with Traverse—we help him take control of the Demons, and they steer clear of Fallen Crest—but I don’t feel good about this.”
It’d been a little over a month since the fight went down, but I hadn’t been concerned. Traverse checked in once a week with me, just sending a quick text. He was supposed to let us know when he needed us.
I gave Moose the phone back. “You think he’s planning something else?”
“I don’t know.” He frowned, rubbing a hand over his bald head. “Chad said his aunt had a vision about us.”
“I thought it was his mom in the nursing home?”
“It is. This is his aunt, through his daddy’s side. The gypsy one. Ginger.”
Of course. “What’d she see?”
“That we were double-crossed.”
“She said it in those terms?”
Moose looked up. “No. She said she saw a horse being ridden backwards with red paint dripping down its back, a knife in its rear haunch. But according to Chad, that means we’re going to be up shit creek. What if something
happened to Traverse? What if while we’re waiting for them to call for help, we’re actually giving them all this time to get more backup here. That could happen. Richter’s a snake.” He shifted, his hand scratching at his chest. “And, I mean, you know.” He looked away, but I still heard him. “Chad’s aunt’s been right before.”
Right.
“When she said a feather was flying away, we don’t actually know that meant my dad was going to prison,” I reminded him. “That particular asshole’s never been called a feather before.”
“I know, but she said it had ‘father’ vibes to it.” He dropped his fingers for the quotation marks and cleared his throat. “You get my drift.”
I stared at him. Then I stared at him again. Hard. Because he was an idiot.
Moose avoided my gaze. “She predicted Chad would go to prom with Melanie Fina.”
“Everyone predicted that. They were dating.”
“Ginger Gypsy dreamed about a fire burning around Chad.”
I shook my head. “Melanie Fina gave him gonorrhea. His aunt predicted his burning STD.”
“Whatever. There’s enough of a history. I think we should take her seriously.” Moose’s neck was getting red. The side door had opened, and another pair of eyes was watching us.
“You…or Congo?” I asked.
At the mention of his name, Congo jerked back inside. The side door slammed shut.
Moose sighed, glancing over his shoulder. “Look, we’re all kinda on the same page with this one. It’s been too long. Traverse should’ve called by now. You’ve been all happy in the land of Heather’s pussy—”
“Watch it.”
“—which we understand, because you two are adorable right now, and I can’t believe I just said that, but you get my drift. You’ve been happy, and we didn’t want to push you out of the zone.” He faltered.
I narrowed my eyes. “But it’s time to get pushed out of the happy zone?”
“It is.”
My very large, very trustworthy best friend finally regarded me fully. He’d been voted the spokesman for the crew, and maybe they were right. Maybe it was time to drive to Frisco and get a look for ourselves at what was going on.