Whiskey Sour (Crow Bar Brute Squad Book 3)

by Abby Knox

  "No. I got it," Dash said. "This was a bad idea. I don't know why I keep kissing you."

  Harper's heart fell just a little bit. She had hoped he would have understood exactly why he had kissed her for the third time in one day, even though they couldn't stand each other.

  "Because the kissing is good? Because we're both super horny, and there's a fine line between anger and passion?"

  "I gotta clean up this mess," he said. "I'm sorry."

  "At least let me bring you a new box. Free. My moms won't even miss it."

  "Of course, they'll miss it. Anyway, the wholesale price isn't that bad. It's gotta come out of my paycheck. Declan's going to find out when he sees me cleaning up, and if it looks like I'm stealing inventory, I'm fired."

  She laughed. "Don't be silly, it was an honest accident, and my moms will just replace it, no questions asked." Harper began texting Lora right away, but Dash wasn't having it. He gently but firmly grabbed her by the upper arm and escorted her toward the back door.

  "Go home. This is not your mess to clean up."

  Harper buttoned up her coat. "You're ridiculous," she said.

  Dash said nothing as he marched her to her car parked on the street at the end of the back alley.

  "Can we talk about this, Dash? What the hell is going on with you? With us?"

  "Get in your car; I'm driving you home."

  She tried to argue, wanted to remind him that that would mean a walk in freezing temperatures back to the bar for him, but he wasn't listening. Something was seriously off with Dash, even more than usual, and she allowed him to accompany her home.

  When they arrived at her house and parked in the drive, Dash ran around and opened her driver-side door. He then walked with her to her front door.

  Harper stood there with the door open and looked him up and down. "Go back to work, Dash. I'm home now."

  "Good," he said. "And you're going to stay there. You don't need to be out so late by yourself."

  She checked her phone. "It's eight o'clock."

  He said nothing but stalked away to the sidewalk and disappeared down the street.

  Chapter Seven

  Dash

  * * *

  After the 2 a.m. last call, and after Dash had cleaned up the enormous mess in the storeroom, Declan gathered the staff around to brainstorm ideas for the bar. Determined to try new ideas to attract a wealthier clientele who would buy more expensive drinks, the owner bounced his ideas off the group. But the guys present that night were already exhausted. And Dash was so far up in his head that his irritation with Declan was turned up to 11.

  "I have a list of ideas to boost our business. Next week, we're going to host a ladies' night at Crow Bar," Declan said, tucking his sharpie behind his ear.

  The entire Brute Squad shouted their objections.

  "Are you trying to put a target on their backs?" Levi asked.

  Declan leveled a deadpan stare at the oldest of the squad. "I don't know what you mean. I have been trying to attract better clientele, but that doesn't seem to be a welcome strategy with this group, either. I have an idea. How about I close the bar, remodel, rename it, rebrand it and raise the prices? And then when that works, maybe the four of you left on staff might get a raise."

  Dash squinted at Declan. "Why don't I believe you about the raises?"

  Holden, who was helping the servers bus the last of the tables and sweep up, offered, "I know, how about a pool tournament? That will bring in traffic."

  Declan pushed. "In my experience, people don't buy drinks, but they do hang around all day not ordering a single thing."

  "Better than putting the women of this neighborhood out on display," said Dash.

  "Fine. We'll put a pin in the ladies' night idea. How about a charity auction?"

  Levi blinked at him. "What, like a bake sale? Shit, yes, my YaYa would be all over it. Just say the word, she'll handle it, top to bottom."

  Declan held up his hand to tell Levi to slow down. "No, not that. I mean a dating auction."

  "That's a terrible idea," Dash blurted.

  Billy chortled. "What, you afraid your new girlfriend isn't going to show up to bid on you?"

  All the guys turned to look at Dash with raised eyebrows.

  "The fuck are you talking about, William?" Ricky asked.

  "Harper. Didn't I just see you shoving your tongue down her throat in the storeroom?" Billy answered.

  Dash shot Billy a death glare.

  Levi shouted, "Whoa! Right on."

  "Billy, I'm gonna fucking kill you," Dash seethed.

  "I didn't do anything! I didn't even tell anybody that you guys were bumping uglies so hard you busted a bunch of her mom's liquor all over the floor!"

  Declan piped up. "Excuse me, what now?"

  Holden covered his face. Levi hooted. Dash felt as furious as a rodeo bull, and Billy was the one taunting him with a red flag.

  "Don't talk about her," Dash seethed, making a run for Billy's midsection.

  He barely registered Declan asking, "But can we talk about the bill for the spilled whiskey, though?"

  Dash tackled Billy to the floor. He didn't particularly enjoy setting his friend straight with a wrestling match at the end of a shift, but it had been a whole 24 hours since the last time they sparred. So much had happened in that time, and Dash had a lot of frustration built up. Plus, Billy was overdue for an ass-whooping.

  Dash had Billy pinned to the floor, but Billy cackled underneath him. "I didn't say anything bad about her, relax, lover boy. She looked like she was into it."

  After popping him across the head with a medium amount of force—not enough to do any damage but enough to get his point across—Dash told him again to keep his mouth shut.

  "I've had enough of your bullshit," Dash said.

  "Dude. Everyone in this room has seen the way you and she are blue balls for each other. Just go get her already and put the rest of us out of our misery!"

  He'd heard this running joke before. His friends had told him repeatedly that Harper drove him crazy because of some unrealized feelings for her. But he'd never taken it seriously. After everything that had happened, he knew they had been right all along. And maybe it was time to stop being so closed off about it and defensive. If someone could channel defensiveness into electricity, they could power the entire neighborhood. Dash and his friends and neighbors all thrived on it.

  Maybe these walls and that temper of his was not only preventing him from being happy, but perhaps he was making everyone else miserable around him.

  Feeling taken aback for the first time by something Billy had said, Dash got off of him and stood up. He reached down and helped his friend back on his feet.

  "Billy, that might be the smartest thing I've ever heard you say."

  Walking around Dockside at three a.m. is not advisable at the best of times, but Dash was so pent up he needed to walk.

  With no thought to whether he might get jumped by someone with a bone to pick, he headed straight back to Harper's house.

  The sudden appearance of a man in black on the sidewalk as he neared Harper's house almost derailed his one-track mind. Almost. Clergy had a way of doing that.

  "Father O'Brien, what are you doing out here? It's fucking—I mean, it's three in the morning!"

  Fr. O'Brien explained that he had just come from visiting a grieving family in the neighborhood whose loved one had passed in the middle of the night. Dash shivered at the memory of the moment his dad had died in isolation, an image that still haunted him. Fr. O'Brien had stayed with him and his mom and Holden through the entire ordeal, and Dash had been grateful for that.

  "You shouldn't be out walking this late, Father."

  The priest looked from Dash to the house adjacent to where they stood and back to Dash. "I could say the same thing about you, Lynwood."

  Gritting his teeth at the sound of his given name, Dash replied, "True."

  The priest waited for Dash to offer more information, which he d
id not.

  "You know, the one thing I appreciate about this neighborhood is the way we all look out for each other," Fr. O'Brien mused, seemingly apropos of nothing.

  "Yeah," agreed Dash.

  "Especially the way people like our wonderful Harper salt my walkway in the middle of the night. She's going to make someone a wonderful wife someday."

  Oh. My. God.

  "Uh, Father, I…"

  Father O'Brien continued, "And I would hate to see her reputation ruined before she makes such a commitment."

  He meant well, but the older man had pretty outdated ideas. "I would never spread any rumors about Harper or do anything to make anyone think anything bad about her."

  "Oh, I know you wouldn't, which is why I'm so impressed to see you out here, shoveling her snow, while she's fast asleep. It's a very gentlemanly thing to do," said the priest.

  "I don't…I mean I'm not—"

  "Her shovel is in the tool shed, and the key is under the ceramic frog on the back step. I'll be sure to deduct a few Hail Marys for…whatever sins you might have to confess the next time you come to confession."

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. This fuckin' guy.

  But Dash didn't say that. He would never say that out loud. "Sure thing, Padre."

  He watched the priest cross the street and enter his house. Having that feeling that God was watching, Dash did what the priest had more or less told him to do.

  The ceramic frog on Harper's back step smiled at him under the security light as he retrieved the fucking key and opened the fucking tool shed to get the fucking shovel. He cursed his fucking luck and also made mental notes to talk to Harper about the terrible idea of hiding a key under that stupid fucking frog.

  Chapter Eight

  Harper

  * * *

  The house on the corner of Church Street folded Harper in after a peculiar day and even weirder night.

  She unwound from that fascinating and confusing interlude with Dash with a bowl of homemade soup while she watched her favorite baking contest on TV, curled up in a homemade afghan on her hand-me-down sofa.

  A good as her reheated homemade soup was—made with produce from her garden—nothing about the show held her attention.

  It wasn't that she necessarily wanted someone to eat soup with or watch television at the end of the day. But her body just didn't feel hungry. Her mind wasn't interested in TV. Her body wasn't interested in food.

  She clicked off the tv and was about to head to the bathroom when her phone rang. Her heart raced.

  Her heart slowed down again when she saw that the caller was her mom, Lora.

  In that split second, she scolded herself. How would Dash even have your phone number? How would he have gotten it? And why would you feel excited to talk to him after the things he said and did to you today? "Uh, hello?" Lora asked.

  Harper realized she had answered the phone but had been so caught up in her thoughts that she hadn't even said hello to her mother.

  "Hi, Mama."

  "Whoa. Who pooped on your protest march, sunshine?"

  "Huh? I mean. Nothing. I mean, nobody. Argh, forget it. What's up?"

  Lora said, "Hmmm. Something is off with you."

  "Weird first day of work," she said, which was not a lie.

  "Sure, sure. But something is bothering you. I can tell."

  "Dash Fitzgerald sort of…kissed me."

  At first, there was only silence on the other end."Mom?"

  "I'm going to need a minute to process this information."

  Harper yawned dramatically. "OK, you process. I'm going to bed."

  When she finally got off the phone, she felt as if she had dodged listening to yet another lecture about the history between the Ross and the Fitzgerald families. Harper had no time for it at the moment. She had too much on her mind, and she'd rather not think about those underground tunnels where Horace Ross and Jack Fitzgerald had distributed their bourbon whiskey throughout Newcastle with the aid of any number of criminals. The sooner those tunnels got closed up, the better.

  After a long bath, Harper curled up with a biography she'd borrowed from the library but was unable to concentrate. And it wasn't just because of her mother's disbelief about Harper letting Dash kiss her.

  Giving up on her book, Harper went to the bathroom mirror and applied her homemade mask.

  You kissed him back, and you liked it.

  Harper gazed at herself in the mirror and noticed the smile that grew bigger and bigger as she thought about those stolen moments with Dash.

  You don't give a shit about this feud, but you do give a shit about Dash. That has always been true.

  The feud had always loomed like a specter around any success of Horace Ross Whiskey. The generations-old dispute was getting ridiculous now. Sooner or later, the two families were going to have to get over it, and maybe whatever was happening between her and Dash was the key.

  Don't get ahead of yourself, Harper, she thought as she slipped into bed. This isn't a fairy tale. Grudges, like curses, don't just disappear with a kiss.

  Harper was trapped in a dark, tight space. She felt around her but could not identify where she was.

  Her heart raced. The more she tried to feel the floor, the walls, or anything, she felt the space closing in on her as if she were in some kind of giant trash compactor. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The only sound she heard was the panicked silent scream from her dry throat.

  In full panic mode, she willed someone to turn on a light… Her eyes opened, and she lay in her bed. Safe and sound.

  Harper had gotten tangled in her blankets. Catching her breath, she calmed herself down, then straightened her blankets. "I must be losing my marbles."

  It had been years since she'd had a nightmare like that. She didn't believe much in dream interpretation the way her mom Desiree did, but Harper planned on asking about it the next time she saw her.

  As calm as she felt after realizing the claustrophobia dream was just a dream, she still could not sleep. But it was too late at night—or too early—to call anyone to talk it over.

  After a few more tosses and turns, the chirping of her phone startled her.

  "Who in the world, what time even is it…"

  When she saw who was texting, her entire body felt comfortable in the bed once again. How strange, she thought.

  "No worries if you're asleep. But in case you're up, I'm here. If you want to talk about stuff."

  Harper sat straight up in bed and called him back.

  When he answered, he sounded as if he was struggling physically. "Ungh…hi. You're awake."

  "Bad dreams. What are you doing?"

  "Urgh…climbing up to you so you don't have to get up and let me in."

  Um…what?

  "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and I've heard lots of dumb shit from you before."

  "Can't talk. Climbing. See you in a bit."

  Thoroughly awake and confused, she rushed to the window and threw it open. There he was, climbing her iced-over oak tree right outside her bedroom window.

  She had no words. Leaving the window open, she sat back down on the bed and wrapped herself up in blankets. And waited.

  After what seemed like an ice age, Dash appeared at her window, looking banged up. He climbed inside over the sill and pulled her window shut. The only thing about this that made sense was him removing his wet shoes and setting them next to the radiator.

  "Dash. What in the world…"

  "Just let me say something first."

  She listened and tried to forget about the preposterous idea of climbing up her window. Preposterous and probably an attempt at being romantic somehow? She could never figure him out.

  She scooted her feet up and wrapped her arms around her knees under the blankets, and listened.

  "I need to tell you why I'm such an asshole, why I keep sending you away from Crow Bar.

  "Ralph Girardi and his capo are in jail, but there are people arou
nd still working for them. People who are keeping his businesses running. Me and the guys are trying to keep our ears open. We're keeping an eye out for any word on someone called The Recruiter. It's bad. Real bad."

  Harper's stomach somersaulted. "Are we talking about a human trafficking operation? Do you think that's what's behind the case of those missing women?"

  "I don't know for sure, but…I think so. That's why I keep trying to get you to calm down and be quiet. If you're too loud, they might try to shut you up. And if any of them laid a land on you…I don't know what I would do."

  Harper heard the crack in his voice as he said those words, and she let them hang in the air before responding.

  She knew he was wrong. Harper knew that the only way to solve these crimes was to stay loud. Spread awareness. Let them know that the citizenry was not afraid of them. She did not try to argue with Dash, though. She was so tired of arguing.

  "Why didn't you just ring my front door?"

  "Because I didn't want anyone to see me."

  "You're ashamed to have people think you have a boner for me?"

  "No. Because Fr. O'Brien's rectory is right across the street, and he's already had a talk with me about protecting your reputation."

  "Why do you care what he thinks?"

  "I don't!"

  "The cuts on your face from climbing my tree would indicate otherwise. I could have just let you in the back door."

  "As I said, I didn't want you to have to get out of bed and come downstairs. Maybe I like a romantic gesture."

  She smiled. "I doubt that very much."

  "Okay, fine. Maybe pain turns me on."

  She let her mouth fall open. She wouldn't judge, but she sure felt surprised to hear Dash talk about himself that way.

  "You are the toughest nut to crack all the time. And now here you are, climbing my tree, sitting in my room, talking about enjoying pain? Excuse me if I need a minute."

  "I get it," Dash replied.

  Harper could not understand at that moment why the implication of pain turning Dash on made the walls of her sex tremble, why her undies began to feel wet, why these otherwise comfortable pajamas felt constraining.