Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Dave
“ B eri .”
“Hmm?” I looked up quickly. That’s when I noticed we were sitting in front of the cabin already .
The dashboard GPS picked that moment to announce, “You have arrived at your destination!” And its mechanical voice sounded accusatory .
Leo had shut off the engine, but he hadn’t gotten out of the car yet. He was watching me carefully. “What can I do for you?” he asked quietly .
“Nothing,” I croaked. “I just need…” The sentence died on my lips. I just needed…what, exactly? To rewind my life to the point where I hadn’t fucked up? “An hour ago, my contract negotiation was the biggest thing on my mind. Now I have a problem that money can’t fix .”
“I suppose not,” Leo said, leaning back in the driver’s seat. “Did she ask for money ?”
I shook my head. “I’d pay it, though. That’s really not the problem .”
“Right.” Leo reached across the gearshift and squeezed my shoulder. “Let’s go inside. You can call your sister .”
“Oh, fuck. I’m not ready.” Bess was going to flip her lid. And usually I was such a trouble-free client .
Leo laughed. “Fine. You said you went grocery shopping. Got some sandwich stuff ?”
“ Yeah .”
“Great. I’ll make you a sandwich while you strategize what you’re going to say to Bess. Did she know about Zara?” He opened his door and got out .
“No,” I grunted, unclipping my seat belt. I got out of the car and took yet another deep breath. But it didn’t quell the panic. “There was nothing to tell. We had a lot of sex and went our separate ways .”
Or I thought we had. But Zara had spent the last two years with my …
Panic rolled through me again. I hadn’t ever been this flattened. Not even when the doctor had said that I had to sit out the Stanley Cup finals last month .
We went inside. I took a couple more deep, yoga breaths .
True to his word, Leo puttered around the cabin’s kitchen, whistling to himself and rooting around in the fridge. “Wow, Beri—you weren’t fooling around at the store. I don’t even know what to pick. Turkey and swiss sound good ?”
“ Sure .”
“Mayo? Tomato ?”
“Thanks, rookie,” I grunted .
He set several items on the counter and then stopped to study me. “I know you’re freaking. But it’s going to be okay. If it’s true that you have a child, you’ll deal .”
“I can’t be somebody’s daddy.” The word would hardly form in my mouth. I sat down heavily on a bar stool .
“Why not? I mean, nobody is demanding that you marry her and carve the Thanksgiving turkey every year .”
The ridiculous image made me let out a bark of laughter. “Can you imagine ?”
Leo made a point to survey all the food I’d purchased and then organized in our shared kitchen. “Thing is, I can. You play the lone-wolf role pretty well, but I’m not sure I buy it on you .”
Jesus . The kid was being nice to me, but I wasn’t in the mood for his theories. Buying groceries had nothing to do with raising a family .
“Now, if Zara isn’t the girl for you, there’s no reason to pretend she is. The child won’t care if you’re married, so long as you show your face sometimes. You know you can’t leave your kid hanging in the wind .”
I groaned, because that was the whole problem. I’d spent my entire life hanging in the wind. Whatever a decent father was supposed to look like, I had never had one. “My dad was the biggest asshole on the planet, Leo. Showing my face? I don’t even know how to do that. At a bare minimum I’d need one of those yellow how-to books. Fatherhood for Assholes , or whatever .”
“ For Dummies , you mean? Because that’s what you are. A dummy. Not an asshole .”
“I’m so flattered,” I said in my best asshole voice .
The rookie rolled his eyes. Then he pushed a plate toward me with a well-made sandwich on it. “You’re allowed your freak attack, Beri. Today, at least. But tomorrow you gotta strap on the pads and deal .”
“I’ll need the pads just for Bess.” I took a bite of my sandwich, trying to predict what my sister would say. She was going to be pissed as hell at me for causing drama during contract negotiations. Bess always told her athletes, “This is the month to be on your best behavior .”
Shit. She was going to rip me a new one and then kick me into next Tuesday .
“When are the other guys getting in?” Leo asked, opening a bag of chips .
“Uh…” It was hard to believe that only a few hours ago, I’d been in vacation mode. “Couple hours, maybe. Doulie and Castro are driving up together .”
“Eat your sandwich. And then call your sister after you’re done. Get it over with .”
I grunted at the rookie. But I knew he was right about making that phone call. Even if it was going to be awful .
* * *
“S ay that again?” Bess whispered .
I swallowed hard. “A baby, Bess. You heard me. Fifteen months old .”
“Fifteen…months.” The quiet calm of her voice was scarier than screaming would have been .
“That’s what she said.” I cleared my throat. “The math checks out , too .”
“This is that bartender? Long black hair. Funny name ?”
“Christ, Bess. How do you know this shit about me?” There were some things you don’t tell your sister .
“You talk about her every time you’re drunk , Dave!” she yelled. Finally the yelling had started. “Three different times at least! You just left out the part about the BABY !”
“Didn’t know,” I argued. Still, I felt oddly better now that she was screaming. Sometimes Bess’s anger had to burn itself out like a brushfire .
“You said once that if you ever settled down with someone, it would be someone like her. And I said— why don’t you give her a CALL AND SEE HOW SHE’S DOING ? ”
I held the phone away from my ear to avoid permanent hearing loss. Across the room, Leo gave me a sympathetic look and then got up and went outside to give me some privacy .
“I know I fucked up, Bess.” Not to mention that I didn’t ever remember telling her anything like that. Wisely, I kept that argument to myself .
“You didn’t ever give her your NUMBER? What kind of asshole does that ?”
“She didn’t want my number.” I scrubbed my palm over my face. “She was really clear on the subject. Can we get past the details of how it happened, and get to the part where you tell me what to do ?”
“I need to talk to your lawyer .”
“Right.” Thank you .
“I’ll deal with you later. Text me the address where you’re staying. Do it now. The lawyer will send you some documents.” Click .
My sister actually hung up on me .
Jesus. I hung up the phone and stood up fast. The cabin walls seemed to be closing in on me. I stomped outside. Leo was sitting in a hammock strung between two trees, drinking a beer and poking at his phone. “The cell service is for shit here. I can barely check my email .”
“Welcome to Vermont. That’s why I used the land line .”
Leo dropped his phone onto the grass beneath the hammock. “What did Bess say ?”
“Just some yelling.” I flopped down on the grass. The yelling wasn’t as bad as her disappointment , though. I hated disappointing Bess. “She’s going to call our lawyer and get some advice, I guess. I dunno. I’ll call her back tomorrow or the next day after she’s calmed down .”
“She’ll calm down.” Leo lifted his hand and looked at the wedding band on his finger. “I’m still not used to wearing this .”
“Would Georgia freak if you took it off ?”
“Nah. But I don’t need to.” Leo worried the ring on his finger. “I’m not used to it yet, but I don’t mind it at all. Sometimes it catches the light and surprises me. I think—that can’t possibly be mine .”
“I’ll bet it’s weird saying, ‘ my wife .’”
The rookie laughed. “I like it. ‘My girlfriend’ sounds like we’re sixteen, you know ?”
“Yeah,” I said, although I didn’t really know. I’d never called anyone my girlfriend. Not even when I was sixteen. Leo was what—twenty-four years old? Wearing a ring and happy about it. If Georgia got pregnant, he’d probably dance a jig. “You two going to have kids ?”
“Sure. A soon as I can talk Georgia into it .”
“She doesn’t want kids ?”
“Oh, she totally does. But she feels like it’s too soon. She wants another year or two in her seat as the co-head of PR. And that’s cool. We have plenty of time .”
“True.” My teammate was awfully enthusiastic about procreating. Then again, Leo had a nice family. His parents showed up at home games, smiling in the hallway outside the lockers to greet him after games. Family made more sense to a guy like Leo than it ever would to me .
“What are you thinking so hard about over there?” he asked .
“How I promised myself I’d never be someone’s deadbeat dad. And now I’ve managed to be one without even knowing it .”
“You can fix that, though.” Leo was quiet a moment. “You think you already failed ?”
“Is there any other way of looking at it?” My plan had always been to keep things casual with women. I was a one-and-done kind of guy because I knew long-term entanglements were never going to work out for me. Accidentally creating a child wasn’t something I thought could happen .
The universe should really know better .
“This baby is a year old, right?” Leo asked. “She probably can’t even say daddy. Declaring yourself a failure now would be like having a rough couple of games during the preseason and giving up on making the playoffs .”
I snorted. “But hockey is a game I know how to play, kid. The Beringers don’t do parenthood.” A terrific understatement. My mother overdosed on cocaine when I was five. Then my father beat the crap out of me for nine more years, until people started to notice. He lost custody of Bess and me. We lived with our indifferent but nonviolent grandparents until Bess graduated from high school .
Bess turned out okay, although she didn’t have a husband or a family. Bess thought men were great as long as they were paying her fifteen percent of their major-league paychecks. She was married to her job .
Having a family? Like me, she didn’t seem to see the point .
A memory of Zara chose that moment to smack me right over the head. It had been one of the first times we were together—that night the crazy asshole threw a beer glass at Zara, and I almost had to break him in half. But Zara had handled him. And then we drank a lot of tequila together. That night we hadn’t even made it up to her room. I’d banged her on a bar stool until she’d screamed my name .
Jesus. I remembered it like it was yesterday .
After, though, I’d been holding her, locked into an embrace right there in the bar, breathing hard. She’d suddenly asked, “You’re not married, right? You don’t have a family you’re fucking around on ?”
And I’d said, “Fuck no. And I never will .”
Now I lay back in the grass and put my hands over my face. “I used to be such a cocky bastard, Leo. I think I still am .”
“One day at a time, big guy,” Leo said, crossing his legs in the hammock. “Today isn’t the day to make a lot of important decisions. Give yourself a minute, okay? And let your teammates get you drunk tonight .”
“Sounds like a plan .”
“It’s what we do,” Leo said, looking up into the canopy of the trees .
“That’s right,” I agreed. My team was the only kind of family I understood. And when one of us had trouble, the rest of us were good at circling the wagons around him. I guessed it was my turn to be in trouble .
“Love you, man,” Leo said. That’s the kind of guy he was—the kind who could say things like that .
“You’re a good kid,” I said in return. Because I wasn’t the kind of guy who did endearments. Never had been, and never would be .
* * *
A few hours later we were sitting like ducks in a row on barstools at the new bar, The Gin Mill. Me, Leo, and our two new arrivals—O’Doul, our team captain, and Castro, another chipper youngster .
“To Beri!” my team’s captain said, lifting his shot glass. “We’ve got your back , man .”
“Thanks, O’Doul. I really appreciate that.” My teammates had decided we needed to go to a bar to properly christen this new complication. So here we were .
“You guys want to run a tab?” the bartender asked, leaning on the bar in front of me. He looked a little familiar, but I didn’t think I’d met him before .
“Sure,” O’Doul said, pulling a credit card out of his wallet .
“Ooh! The captain is springing for drinks. Somebody got a nice contract extension,” Castro said .
The bartender took the card but then paused. “It’s Vermont night, but you need to show a driver’s license to get the discount .”
O’Doul shook his head. “We’re not local. Charge us the full freight .”
The bartender left us alone, and Castro gave a happy sigh. “All problems are more easily solved in a bar,” Castro declared .
“Not sure that’s true, man.” I took a sip of my beer. “But it’s good to be here with you guys, anyway .”
To their credit, neither O’Doul nor Castro had laughed or made a big fuss about my crazy news. They both hit me with one-armed man hugs, slapping me on the back and asking what they could do to help .
Maybe I was the world’s biggest asshole, but I had some awesome friends .
“You’re right,” Leo said, tracing the condensation on the outside of his beer bottle. “Since this whole thing got started in a bar .”
“So we’ve come full circle.” O’Doul chuckled. “Drink up , men .”
Castro, O’Doul, and I tipped our shot glasses back and swallowed. Leo had appointed himself the designated driver, so there was no tequila for the rookie .
The tequila burned my throat in a good way. And, damn. I hadn’t chosen the drink, but it sure as hell reminded me of Zara. Whatever poetic randomness had put tequila into O’Doul’s head when he’d ordered our shots, I wouldn’t question. But it made me nostalgic for that more carefree time. When Zara had thought I was a fun fling. Before I’d helped derail her life .
Easy , I coached myself. She was going to be okay. I’d make sure of it. It couldn’t be easy being a single mother and a business owner, though. I wondered how she did it at all .
I wondered a lot of things .
“This is a great bar,” Doulie said, glancing around at the exposed brick walls. “Good vibe. And it’s nicer than that little place we hung out last time we came to Vermont. The Mountain Lion .”
“The Mountain Goat ,” I corrected .
The dark-haired man behind the bar grinned as he set a bottle of beer down in front of Doulie. “I’m definitely giving the Goat some competition.” He put a fresh beer in front of each of us. “You boys need anything else right now ?”
“No thanks,” I said .
“Guess we can’t go to that other bar, anyway,” O’Doul offered. “It would be like returning to the scene of the crime, right, Beri?” The captain laughed at his own joke .
“She doesn’t work there anymore,” I said to shut down that particular discussion .
The bartender gave us the side-eye as he wiped down the counter. His mouth got weirdly tight, and he studied me in a way I really didn’t like. But I was probably just being paranoid .
“Anyone want to shoot some pool?” I asked, hoping for a change of subject .
“The tables are busy,” Leo said, jumping off his stool. “I’ll put some quarters down to get in line .”
“Good rookie.” O’Doul chuckled. “He snaps to attention. You should be more like Leo,” he said, teasing Castro .
“Oh, please,” Castro said with an eye-roll. He was a fun kid. A party animal and witty in a way that women enjoyed. “Nobody can kiss ass like Leo. There’s no point in trying .”
“Thing is,” I said, taking a sip of my beer. “Leo isn’t an ass-kisser. He means all the shit he says. He’s really that nice .”
“Not all of us can jump over the bar if it’s set that high,” Castro argued. “Maybe you should try to lead by example .”
“I’m nice,” I argued. “Nice ish . I’m at least as nice as Doulie , here .”
“But I hit people for a living,” O’Doul pointed out. He was our team’s enforcer as well as the captain. “If I was too nice, they’d fire me .”
“Excuses.” Castro shook his head in mock disbelief. “And now you’ve gone and gotten yourself a girlfriend, too. Making the rest of us look bad. And Leo is married at twenty-four. That leaves me and Beringer to be the wild men. And he knocked up a local girl already, so there’s no topping that .”
“Castro, Jesus,” I muttered. He was only trying to be funny, but hockey players could be pretty crude .
“ The fuck ? ”
The bartender was staring at us with a strangely electric intensity. No—staring me down. He had both hands planted on the bar, and he leaned in like he might jump over the thing and take a swing at me .
And now I knew why he’d seemed familiar. This guy was the older, macho male version of Zara—all dark eyes and fire .
The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I heard Castro’s chuckle die in his throat. “Aw, shit,” my teammate whispered. He might be crude, but he wasn’t dumb .
“Something the matter?” O’Doul asked slowly .
“I need to know who it is you think you’re joking about.” The bartender pointed a finger right at Castro’s chest. Then he lifted his chin in a challenge .
O’Doul lifted his chin in a matching gesture. “We’re just teasing my teammate here. A little gallows humor.” Nobody knew how to square off for a fight like O’Doul. I felt myself growing wary .
“ Gallows humor ,” the bartender spat. “About a local woman? That’s low .”
Nobody had said a single word against Zara. But this guy wasn’t in the mood to go over the finer points of our banter. “Sorry, man,” I said slowly. “We’ll take it down a notch .”
“You’ve been around here before?” the guy asked, turning his angry eyes back to me .
“Not to your bar, no,” O’Doul answered for me .
The bartender’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “I’m talking to the redhead. You’re not local ?”
I shook my head .
“Been to Vermont much? You know Zara Rossi ?”
“Oh, shit,” Leo breathed, rejoining us .
“Oh shit is right,” the bartender echoed. “You got a name?” he asked me. “How about a phone number .”
“Slow down, now,” O’Doul intervened on my behalf. “You want to be pen pals with my teammate or do you have any real business with him ?”
I reached a hand out and palmed O’Doul’s puffed out chest. “It’s okay, Doulie. Maybe our new friend wants to tell us who he is to Zara, and we can have an actual conversation and not a pissing match .”
The man scowled at me. Then he turned his head and barked out a command toward the other bartender at the far end. “Smithy! Cover for me a while.” Then he stalked to the end of the bar and hopped over it, dropping to his feet beside Leo. He stalked closer and stood in front of me, his arms crossed over a puffed-out chest. “You and me are going to have a talk .”
“We should have gone to a different bar, maybe,” Leo mumbled .
“You’re her brother,” I said, stating the obvious. “She has four of them .”
“Four?” Castro yelped. “You’re in deep shit now .”
“Come with me,” Zara’s brother said, turning toward the door .
Doulie put his beer down on the bar and followed the guy, uninvited. I didn’t need my guys to trail me outside. In fact, it would have been easier if they stayed out of it. But there was no point in saying so, because that’s what teammates did. O’Doul wouldn’t let me take a punch alone whether we were wearing skates or not .
“I don’t get to finish my beer?” Castro asked. “What a rip .”
But he was just trying to lighten the mood. He set his bottle down and moved toward the door, too. I had to hurry to get there first. I pushed the door open into the Vermont summer night. It smelled so freaking good here. I’d never get used to it .
“What, do your friends follow you everywhere?” Zara’s brother snapped when O’Doul stepped outside after me .
“Depends,” I said. “You seem to want us out of your bar, anyway .”
“You’re not leaving until you tell me your fucking name .”
“Do you have one, too?” I asked. “Let’s all share .”
That must have come out extra snarky because the guy launched himself at me, grabbing my shirt .
About a half-second later, O’Doul had pulled him back, trapping him in a hold. “Calm the fuck down , okay ?”
“Whoa!” another man said, stepping out of the shadows to join our tense little gathering. “You want to let him go? I’m off duty right now, I haven’t seen my brother in three months, and it would be a pain in the ass to arrest you .”
“It all depends on whether your brother’s gonna lunge at my teammate again,” Doulie said calmly .
“Alec, don’t lunge,” the new guy said, sounding bored. This was another Rossi brother—a younger one. Ben . His name leapt into my mind, because I’d seen him before. He and Zara had gotten into an argument right in front of me once .
Fuck my life .
“But you all have ten seconds to tell me what the fuck is going on,” Ben added .
O’Doul loosened his hold, and Alec shook him off. “They were at the bar talking some smack about getting a local girl pregnant. Look at him ,” Alec said, pointing at me. “Tell me I’m not crazy .”
The newcomer’s eyes widened. He gave me the same quick scan I’d given him a minute ago. “What’s your name?” he asked me .
“David Beringer,” I said immediately, just to piss Alec off .
“ Spell it .”
“B-e-r-i-n-g- e - r .”
“With an ‘e’?” He tipped his head back toward the stars. “Fuck. An ‘e.’ Why didn’t I figure that out ?”
“ Benito ,” Alec demanded. “What the hell are you talking about ?”
“We searched for him,” Benito said. “We searched through a whole lot of Davids from New York City. Barrister. Barrier. Barer. Currier. Carrier. We never got the name right .”
“But Zara knew my name,” I argued. “I put my ID in front of the security camera…” The sentence died away as I tried to figure out how to finish it. Before we banged for the first of many times .
Benito gave me a stare. “Took Zara a couple months to realize she needed to know who you were. That footage was long gone. We tried rental-car records and cabin rentals, too. No name like yours came up anywhere .”
“I rented everything,” O’Doul grunted. “His name wasn’t anywhere .”
“We figured it was something like that,” Ben said with a sigh .
But his brother Alec still looked like a bomb waiting to explode. If possible, he looked even angrier at his brother than he’d been at me. “You were looking for him? Zara told you his name ?”
Ben put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Yeah. She didn’t want to talk about it , okay ?”
“Except to you .”
“I’m in law enforcement,” Ben said quietly. “Who would you ask if you needed to find someone ?”
Alec’s jaw remained clenched .
Ben, who I had decided was the calmest member of the Rossi clan, turned his attention back to me. “So now you’re back in Vermont ?”
“For a few weeks , yeah .”
“Did you, uh, see Zara yet ?”
I smiled in spite of my tension. “This afternoon. Walked into the coffee shop and there she was.” I cleared my throat. “We talked for about sixty seconds. The shock hasn’t worn off .”
“I’ll bet.” He crossed his arms, rocking back on his heels. “Come around back and have a beer on the house. We’ll talk .”
“Hey!” Alec argued .
His brother turned on him. “You really want to start off like that? I know you’re pissed off for your little sister, but she wouldn’t want you to be such an ass to the father of her child .”
Father . The word sent a fresh chill down my spine .
“Do we really know how Zara feels?” Alec challenged. “Maybe she hates his guts .”
Benito rolled his eyes. “The evidence suggests she liked him at one point .”
Alec clenched his fists and growled .
“Go back to your customers.” Benito pointed at the door. “I’m going to sit on the deck and ask Mr. Beringer a few questions .”
Without another word, Alec stomped back inside .
“Well,” Ben said, holding out a hand to O’Doul. “I’m Benito Rossi. You’ve met my brother Alec .”
“And it was a pleasure,” O’Doul said drily .
Benito shook everyone’s hands. Then he waved us around the side of the building toward the deck. “I’ll be right out to sit with you,” he said before following his brother inside .
“He’s loading the shotgun and calling the minister,” Trevi joked as we walked toward the deck .
“What’s your ring size?” Castro teased .
O’Doul just chuckled. “And to think we almost stayed home tonight .”
I said nothing. We all took a seat at a round table with a hurricane candle on it. The air was cool and the frogs were singing their tune. I’d forgotten about the frogs .
“Nice place when people aren’t trying to kick your ass,” Trevi said .
“Be nicer if I hadn’t abandoned my beer,” Castro complained .
“So go inside and order a round,” O’Doul suggested. “I’m running a tab .”
But before Castro could make it through the sliding glass doors leading into the bar, Benito emerged with a tray, a full pitcher, and five glasses. He sat down with us and began to pour. “So what do you all do for a living ?”
“Hockey,” I said .
Benito handed me the first glass with a thoughtful frown. “ How’s that ?”
“We play hockey,” I said. “For the Brooklyn Bruisers. I play left wing .”
Benito looked around the table. “Professional hockey players ?”
“Yup,” O’Doul said .
Benito snorted and shook his head. Then he raised his eyes up to the sky. “Oh, Zara. Really ?”
“She didn’t tell you?” I asked, and then I realized. “She didn’t know .”
Ben shook his head slowly .
“She didn’t know? ” Castro yelped. “What did you tell her you did for a living ?”
“I didn’t ever say .”
“Why the hell not ?”
I gave my head a shake, and Castro clamped his mouth shut. They wouldn’t understand that Zara and I had experienced a rather unique month-long tryst. Sex, conversation, and very few personal details .
Benito ran a hand through his hair. “So you just happened to come back to Vermont for another vacation. And you ran into Zara ?”
“That’s right.” I dug another business card out of my pocket. “Does somebody have a pen?” When Castro handed me one, I wrote my cell phone number on the card. “Here.” I handed it to Benito. “I didn’t get a chance to give Zara my number today. The conversation we had was really, uh, short .”
Ben studied me, his dark features appraising. “Where did you two leave it ?”
“How big a dick were you?” Castro clarified .
Thanks, buddy . “Just, I dunno. Medium-sized.” Everyone laughed, even Benito. “I was just surprised. And so I said I’d call my lawyer.” Benito flinched. “That’s all. Zara bolted after that. I’ll apologize to her when she’s ready to hear from me. You can give her that number on the card. The printed one goes to my agent, so I added my own .”
He nodded, tucking the card into his back pocket. “All right. She’s my next call.” He took a deep drink of his beer. “But before I go, there’s something you need to understand about my family .”
Beneath the table, Castro nudged my knee. His face said, Here it comes !
“Zara has four brothers,” Benito said. “And two uncles. And we’re horribly overprotective of her, even though Zara is the toughest girl alive.” He smiled fondly. “But when Zara got pregnant, she didn’t tell a soul what had happened. So that led to a lot of speculation. Some of it really bad .”
“Why?” I wondered aloud. “Why not say that she and I had a fling for a while, but we were shaky on the details ?”
Benito shrugged. “She’s fiercely private. You kinda have to be in my family. It’s a self-defense mechanism. But also she was embarrassed. I mean—she insisted that there was nothing awful about the story. That she wasn’t protecting anyone. But my family has more testosterone than most, so it only gets you so far .”
“ Okay ?”
“I just wanted you to know that there’s been a lot of speculation .”
“So he won’t be too surprised when the next brother slugs him?” O’Doul asked, his question dripping with skepticism .
“Something like that.” Benito smiled again. “I haven’t seen my sister in way too long. So if you’ll excuse me, guys.” He drained his beer and stood up .
“Good night,” Trevi called before he walked away. “That coulda gone worse,” he said when we were alone again .
“The man brought us beers,” Castro pointed out. “And I haven’t seen a shotgun yet .”
“The night’s still young,” O’Doul said, and everyone laughed .