13. Tink
TINK
Treasure, in a white pleather minidress with thigh-high boots to match, looks at Pan like she wants to punch him in the nose.
“A kids’ menu,” she repeats.
“Yeah,” he says, as if he’s just asked for a beer or a lap dance or something completely normal to get at the Mermaid Lagoon. “You know, like for food.”
Then he steps aside a little, and Treasure’s eyes fall to what’s behind him.
To Wendy, sitting on a barstool, her legs dangling. To the skinny form of the dog, practically cowering underneath her.
At that, Treasure does a long, long blink. Presses a hand to her forehead. Then she looks back up at Pan. At Fox. At me.
And maybe I imagine it, but she softens a little.
“I’ll see what we can do.” She narrows her eyes. “But I want a fucking explanation.”
She strides off to the swinging door for the kitchen as Wendy swivels back and forth on her barstool.
We got stares when we came in. Of course we did. It’s early, but it’s Friday, so the Mermaid Lagoon is medium-full. The DJ’s already bumping the music and the lights are pulsing pink and purple.
Perfect place to bring a fucking child. Let alone a kid and her dog.
“Hey, got your text. What’s going—oh.” It’s Kit, slipping in from the entrance and immediately clocking Wendy. “She’s still here?” he adds, in a lower voice, to Fox. Then he frowns. “She’s…here?”
“Said she was hungry,” Fox stage-whispers back to his brother, shrugging. “So we figured—”
“And is that a dog?” Kit balks, eyes wide.
“Nana,” Fox corrects, “and yes.”
Pan looks up from where he’s drumming his fingers on the bar and cocks his head at Kit. “Where’s your stabby friend?”
“Blue?” Kit glances back over his shoulder, then shrugs. “Was cleaning his station, I think. Probably on his way.”
Pan makes a face. “Dipshit. What part of emergency meeting doesn’t he understand?”
“The part where it means doing something for someone else?” I mutter, staring at the Mermaid—Emerald—who’s eyeing Wendy from behind the bar.
“God, look at her skin.” Emerald sips water through a cocktail straw, smoky eyes narrowed. “I’d kill for pores that small.”
I scowl at her, at her perfect cut crease shadow and the easy, long waves of her hair, falling over her shoulders like she doesn’t even notice—which makes me instinctively scratch the back of my head.
“She’s ten,” I point out. “You’re jealous of a fucking ten-year-old?”
Emerald rolls her eyes. “Don’t say fuck in front of a ten-year-old,” she retorts. “That’s fucked up.”
“Can we maybe just agree,” Kit mumbles, “that having a ten-year-old in a strip club at all is fucked up?”
“What the fuck is she doing here?”
A deep voice from just behind Kit, and I don’t have to look to know who it is.
“There he is!” Pan cries, hands in the air.
“Okay, first off, language, all of you. Second off…” He darts a look at Wendy, who’s twisting idly back and forth on her stool, taking it all in, then motions for the three of us to follow him a few steps away.
“Emerald?” He catches her attention, does a little watch her point from his eyes to Wendy, and purses his lips in an air kiss as a thank you.
Emerald, for her part, looks a little put out, and I can’t help but feel a tiny bit triumphant.
Blue wastes no time once we’re a few feet away. “What,” he says, “the fuck is going on here?”
“I, too, am waiting for that explanation.” Kit stares into the middle distance as he speaks from where he’s hunched over a little on a barstool, his wrists between his knees.
I say nothing. Because I’m not even sure I can explain what’s going on.
Fortunately, I don’t have to, because Pan heaves a dramatic sigh and sits up so he’s perching on the edge of the counter. “Well…” He cocks his head, considering. “You know how I lost my jacket?”
I groan. Of course he’s going to start this with his jacket.
“Here you go, honey.” To our right, Treasure returns and plunks something down in front of Wendy—a Shirley Temple, fizzy and syrupy. “Chef’s gonna fry you some chicken tenders, okay?”
“Okay,” Wendy says. “Thank you,” she adds, politely, and takes a sip of her Shirley.
“You’re welcome, honey.” With that, Treasure turns on a dime, strides down the bar, and snaps her fingers right in Pan’s face.
“What the fuck are you doing with a kid?”
“Funny, we were just wondering the same thing,” Kit says drily.
Treasure ignores him. “One of you having baby mama drama or something?” She glances at Blue, who mutters fuck no, only for Treasure’s eyes to widen at Pan. “She’d better not be yours.”
“Seriously, T?” Pan laughs, even as my heart squeezes just at the thought of Pan having knocked some girl up. “I couldn’t even…” He tilts his head back, counts quickly on his fingers. “I’m barely old enough to be her father.”
Treasure glares, folds her arms, and waits. She looks at Pan. Blue looks at Pan. Kit looks at Pan.
And Pan looks at me.
Oh, great. Of course it’s on me to explain.
“We got…kinda mixed up in something,” I say.
“Mixed up?” Treasure repeats, incredulous.
And…yeah, fair, that’s putting it lightly. Because not to be all woe-is-me about it, but I may be the most mixed-up of anyone here.
I don’t want a kid near us. I don’t want a girl near us. I don’t want any unknown factors, any new people, anyone any closer to me than they have to be. I can take care of exactly one person’s problems, and that person is me.
Pan leans back so his elbows are on the bar, and looks up with a grimace.
At me.
I swallow hard.
Okay, maybe exactly two people’s problems.
“The thing is—” I start.
“Krye has a daughter, right?” Treasure interrupts, looking at Pan. “She his?”
Pan shakes his head. “Nah. I mean, yeah, he does have one, but Zuzu’s way older. Wendy here’s got nothing to do with Krye’s whole deal. This was more of a…rescue mission.”
“Rescue mission?” Treasure’s eyes go wider, but Blue interrupts, voice low, before Pan can answer.
“She’s not one of—”
“One of—oh, God, no.” Pan scowls, then frowns. “Jesus. He’s not working ten-year-olds, is he?”
“No.”
The word slips out before I mean it to.
And everyone looks at me. Pan, Blue, Kit, Fox, even Treasure.
Fuck. My throat burns. I shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t know anything about what Hook does or doesn’t do, idiot.
“That’s what I’ve heard,” I mutter, eyes on the toes of my boots.
Stupid. On stage, one of the Mermaids is tap-tapping out in her lucite heels and bends a leg around the pole.
I glance back at the other end of the bar to Wendy, but she’s hunched over what appears to be a game of tic-tac-toe between her and Emerald using olives and maraschino cherries for Xs and Os.
“Okay, so,” Treasure says, impatient and firm, “how did she and her little puppy dog end up in my club, then?” She frowns again. “And why is he all…smoky?”
“Oh, this?” Fox glances down at his hands and arms, which are smudged with black. “Fire.”
“What?” say Treasure, Kit, and Blue in unison.
“It’s…” Pan sighs theatrically. “A long story.” He lowers his gaze, then looks up almost mournfully. “So, you know how I lost my jacket?”
“Oh, for fuck’s—” I mutter. Pan gives me a look that’s half-scowl, half-grin, and throws his hands in the air.
“Okay, so you tell it, then.”
I exhale. Guess it is up to me. So I do my best, starting with…well, Pan losing his jacket, the collateral, the visit to Krye for the cash yesterday, going to Kensington, the bodies, the cops, the return, the fire—“Wait, I thought you were taking her back to her Nana?” “No, no, Nana’s the dog”—and…
“…and now we’re here,” I finish.
There’s a pause.
Treasure’s mouth is slightly open. Kit’s eyes are as wide as Wendy’s were when we first came in here. And Blue makes a short, scoffing sound in the back of his throat.
“We couldn’t just leave her there,” I add, as if that needs saying. But maybe it does.
“Or the dog,” Fox says again.
“So you just kidnapped her,” Treasure affirms, her kohl-rimmed eyes incredulous. “That was your solution?”
“Well—” I stuff my hands in my pockets, casting around for an answer.
“Man, kidnapping is such an ugly word,” Pan interrupts. “It’s more like we just…removed her from the situation.”
Treasure groans. “What the fuck, Pan?” She jabs him in the shoulder with a long fingernail. She turns to me, making my heart stutter in my chest. “And you.”
“Me?” I rasp.
“I thought you were smarter than this, Tink,” she says. “You are the only one of these guys with any kind of common sense.” She leans in and raps on my forehead with her knuckles, like she’s trying to jog something loose.
“I didn’t want to kidnap her,” I say, ducking away from Treasure’s hands. “I just didn’t want her to go to the cops and say, ‘Yeah, that dumbass with bright red hair? He was trying to break and enter, and—”
“So, wait,” Kit says, rubbing his forehead behind his glasses. “What, exactly, is she going to do now?” His voice is low, like he’s worried Wendy might overhear, even though with the volume of the music in here, that’s not likely.
“Yes, please.” Treasure swipes a hand through the air, rubbing her forehead with the other. “What exactly is your plan, here? You’re just keeping her?”
Silence. Just the thumping of the club.
Pan shrugs.
“Sure,” he says, casual and calm like he’s just been asked you’re just having the salad?
More silence. But tenser, this time.
“Are you fucking serious?” Blue all but yells. There’s something in his eyes I’ve never seen before—something beyond irritation and grumpiness. Something more like fury. “No. Take her back.”
“Taking her back?” Fox repeats, concern written all over his features. “To who?”
“Doesn’t fucking matter,” Blue spits. “Whoever’s there.”
Kit laughs. “What, you mean two body bags and a pile of ashes?”
“No,” I cut in quickly, because now I’m seeing where Blue is going, and it feels like a little possibility opening. “To, you know, a social worker or something.”
Fox stiffens. Kit lets out a short, hard laugh.
“She doesn’t have any other family?” Fox looks, for some reason, at me.
“I don’t know!” I screw my eyes shut. “She mentioned her dad, maybe? But…”
Everyone waits.