Chapter 10
Ten
You told me to be myself. So I was, and now I have to apologize.
—Romeo to Dru
Romeo
Anger seethed in my gut, and the only thing that kept me from reaching across the bar and pulling the man over to level a punch to his face was the fact that I knew better now than to let my temper get the better of me.
I hated this guy the moment I heard him ignore her drink order.
He’d been decent to us the entire time we’d been here, and I hadn’t altogether hated him. But then he’d treated her like she was dirt on the bottom of his shoe, and I’d started to lose my temper.
That temper was completely gone by the time I watched that smirk light his face when Mable had found out that he’d doused the rim in lime despite her earlier warnings.
Allergies weren’t something that you played around with, and everyone knew it.
The fact that he’d fucked with her like this had me seeing red.
Luckily, Weaver had control of the friend—who, might I add, I liked a lot—and Gentry and Court had control of me.
Which they’d seen that it was needed.
I was one second away from reaching over the counter and shoving that fuckin’ soda gun down his throat full blast until he drowned in it.
“Calm,” Court ordered.
I gritted my teeth as Gentry stood up and placed a phone call.
He spoke quietly, but I knew what he was doing.
Calling the cops.
Fuckin’ great.
The last thing I wanted to deal with was cops—and Gentry didn’t count because he was playing at being a cop.
He could wear the badge and say the pledge all he wanted, but he wasn’t going to ever be one of them.
He spoke quietly, said “yes” and then shoved his phone back into his pocket.
While he was doing that, I stood up from my seat and made my way around the men to where Mable was still in her seat, looking worried.
If I hadn’t known that she was having an allergic reaction, I might’ve actually chuckled at her appearance.
Her lips were so swollen that she looked like she’d gotten an insane amount of lip filler.
But knowing that she hadn’t made me want to shoot Shade.
If only I had a gun on me…
“Whoa,” I said once I got a solid look at her. “You weren’t kidding. Will Benadryl help this?”
She nodded, her eyes now red. “It will. It’ll take a couple of hours, but it’ll go down.”
“Good,” I grumbled.
My heart was fucking hammering, and just looking at her face and lips continue to swell had my entire being on alert.
“If you’re not going to pay for any more drinks, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
Shade’s disgusting words had me turning to regard him.
Was he joking right now?
“Oh, sure.” Mable rolled her eyes. “I’ll just get right on that.”
“You will, or I’ll ban you.”
“You can’t ban me from here.” Mable scoffed, her watery eyes narrowing on the man behind the bar.
And I use the term “man” loosely.
No man worth his salt would do what he did to a woman.
“I can and I will.”
“Sure, sure.” Mable laughed.
I liked her laugh.
A lot.
It sounded like tinkling bells.
Shade hated the laugh, and I could see that plain as day on his face.
He hated her.
What the hell had Mable done to this twat waffle to get him to despise her that much?
My guess was that it had to do with the sister.
That was the only explanation.
Apollo had texted me today to tell me that he’d dug up a little bit about Birdee, but most of it was normal information that most could get from a driver’s license and asking around.
The challenge had well and truly caught Apollo’s interest, though.
I knew that I’d have everything there was to have, because Apollo didn’t lose.
He’d get everything he wanted and then some, and I’d know all there was to know about Birdee by the end of the week.
“You think I’m kidding?” Shade asked. “One phone call and you’re banned for life. I can have you banned from Brussel’s, too.”
“You can’t, and we all know it. If they were made to choose, then they’d choose Mable.” Cody came back into the fray with a zealousness that had Weaver paying even closer attention. “Now, let’s talk about what you just did to my friend, and whether or not we can press charges or not.”
“Charges?” Shade asked. “That was an accident.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Cody disagreed. “I already have Dad pulling the tape, so you won’t get back there and erase it before he does.”
Shade’s gaze flickered. “You have no access to this tape.”
“Dad’s best friends with Toot-Toot, Shade. Do you honestly think that Toot-Toot won’t give him everything he asks for?” Cody asked.
She dismissed Shade and his reply and walked up to Mable, ripping open the package.
“You know the drill, Watts.” Cody shook out two pink pills. “You’ll have to dry swallow these since I can’t trust that fucker to make you a water.”
Mable swallowed them, grimacing as she did.
I crossed my arms over my chest just as Cody said, “Come on. Time to go.”
“You have to be up early tomorrow, though.”
“Why?” Weaver, who I hadn’t realized was paying attention, asked.
“She runs a snowplow business with her family. Her, her mom and dad all run snowplows for the town.”
Weaver’s eyes narrowed. “Can you even see over the steering wheel of a snowplow?”
Cody’s eyes narrowed too. “Can you go fuck yourself?”
My lips twitched.
“I do it all the time,” Weaver said. “But I’m only looking out for your safety here.”
Cody dismissed him and looked back toward me. “If I don’t stay with her, someone will have to.”
I wondered why.
“Let’s just say, Mable has some weird reactions when she takes Benadryl.”
My head tilted. “What kind of reactions?”
“Nothing!” Mable gasps. “I’ll go home with you.”
“You were right, though.” Cody said. “You can’t go home with me. I have to be up in a couple of hours to start working on the roads, and I won’t be able to watch over you for the length of time it’ll take.”
I truly was curious what happened when she had Benadryl.
The way the two of them were talking, it was worrisome enough that she didn’t get to be left alone.
“Come on,” Cody said. “Let’s walk you to the truck. The Hulk can take you back to his place. I’ll deal with Brawny for the night.”
“Brawny can come with us,” I suggested. “But I think you might need to tell me what I have laying ahead of me.”
Before Cody could answer, Mable started shaking her head. “Cody, you promised we’d never speak of it!”
Cody’s lips tightened as she tried to hold back her laughter. “Come on. Let’s get you to Fabio’s truck.”
“Who’s Fabio?” Mable asked.
“Your hair model of a friend,” Cody replied.
Before anyone could move, however, the doors burst open and two uniformed police officers poured inside.
“I got this,” Gentry murmured. “You go ahead and go.”
Gentry knew about our aversion to police officers.
But he was right. Someone needed to have the pulse of the area we were living in. We needed to know if danger was headed our way.
I agreed with him and all, but it still sucked to see him cross over to the dark side.
I did, however, hold up a finger to halt everyone.
“Let me make a phone call,” I murmured.
Weaver and Gentry knew who I was calling, so they didn’t say a word.
Cody, however, looked irrationally impatient.
Maybe she knew something I didn’t, but I needed to get Apollo to look into this.
As the phone was ringing, I took a good, long look at Mable.
She looked drunk, but I knew that she wasn’t.
She swayed slightly beside Cody, and I frowned.
“Hey,” I said as I caught her just as she started to tip over. “You okay?”
“I don’t feel well,” she admitted, her face planting in my chest. “The room is spinning.”
Apollo finally picked up on the fourth ring. “What’s up?”
“The bar that we go to. Toot-Toots. Do they have cameras?”
“Yeah,” he answered without having to think about it. “Why?”
He’d tapped into everything he could locally, so it wasn’t a surprise that he knew whether that bar had cameras or not.
“Can you look at the cameras from around eight o’clock tonight and find Mable and me with her friend and see if something was done to her drink?”
The only time that I could think something might’ve happened to her drink was when I had to use the can.
“Sure,” he said. “Give me five.”
I hung up on Apollo and tightened my grip on Mable.
“Oh, this should be good.” Mable swayed on her barstool.
“Put those muscles to use, man,” Cody ordered impatiently. “Before she falls and breaks her face on the bar. I don’t want to give that pissant the luxury of seeing her fall.”
The pissant in question looked smug as fuck as the officers made their way over to him.
I caught her up by one arm and hefted her over my shoulder.
I could’ve done it bridal style, but the place was packed, and it would be way easier to navigate the people with us being less wide.
She giggled as I walked with her out of the bar.
My phone buzzed in my pocket on the way out.
Pulling it out, I glanced at the screen.
Apollo:
Ran a lime across the rim of her drink before he gave it to her.