Chapter 38
CARTER
Sawyer climbed into his usual seat, but without his usual smile. Instead, he slammed a brick-shaped paper bag onto the bar, with a loud, satisfying thump.
“Well hello to you too,” I grunted sardonically.
He pushed the brick in my general direction. Even so, I got the impression he was more concerned with pushing it away from him. Like it was radioactive or something.
“What’s that?” I asked tiredly.
“The answer to our problems,” he replied numbly. “Some of them, anyway.”
I hadn’t seen or heard from Sawyer since he took off the other night. Bodie and I knew without even trying that he wouldn’t answer calls, or respond to text-messages. And now here he was, bleary-eyed and uncharacteristically silent. Pushing solutions my way.
It was a simple matter to unwrap the brick. When I did, I couldn’t hide my shock.
“How much is there?”
“Forty grand.”
Several stacks of hundreds rested on the bar between us, wrapped in bands marked with five-thousand dollar denominations. Staring at that much money, I immediately felt uncomfortable.
“Take that, and get us an extension,” Sawyer said simply. “Or hire new fucking lawyers. Whatever it takes, to get the zone variance.”
My heart felt like it was going to burst. I didn’t have to ask where he’d gotten the money from. Just as I knew how difficult it had been for him to get it.
“Sawyer, I’m not taking this.”
“The fuck you aren’t!” he growled, angrily.
“Sawyer—”
“You’ll take it, and we’ll make this place work if it kills us,” he said.
“You can pay it back when you can. Or don’t pay it back — I really don’t care.
Either way, we’re not losing The Refuge over some dumb legal bullshit, after all these years.
” He cleared his throat and looked over my shoulder. “Now… beer me.”
Damn. This was going to be way harder than I thought.
“I can’t beer you.”
My statement didn’t register at first. For the first time since walking in, Sawyer looked around.
“Wait, where is everybody?”
“Not here,” I choked.
“I don’t see Sammy, I don’t see Gus…” his gaze shot frantically to the corner. “Holy shit, no Grizz?”
“No,” I sighed heavily. “No Grizz.”
Sawyer squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them, as if maybe things would change when he opened them again. They didn’t.
“I can’t beer you, because we have no liquor license,” I said solemnly. “We’re completely shut down.”
Once more, my statement didn’t register. Or maybe Sawyer just refused to acknowledge it.
“Remember that meeting with the fire marshal I mentioned last week?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So plenty,” I frowned. “He showed up today, with a whole laundry list of things that need to be done around here. Most of it was shit you and I would never dream of. Hell, some of it I think he even made up.”
“Fuck,” swore Sawyer.
“Yeah,” I commiserated. “The guy was a total prick. But until everything is done, and inspected, he yanked the certificate of occupancy.”
It had all happened so fast, I really didn’t know what to make of it at first. After he left though, I started piecing things together.
Nothing about the inspection seemed even remotely organic.
The way he knew where to look for violations, even those I suspected he was stretching limits on, was highly suspect.
Almost as if he’d drawn up the citations before he’d even gotten here.
“The liquor authority called within minutes,” I went on. “Yanked our license. Standard procedure, or so they told me. I can’t serve anyone.”
Sawyer circled behind the bar, pulled a bottle from the lower fridge, and popped the cap off. I watched him down half the beer, before looking back at me.
“There, you didn’t serve me. I served myself.”
I sighed like the whole world was on fire, which it was.
“Fine. Give me one of those, too.”
The bar was eerily silent, as we stood there downing our beers together.
It looked so different empty. Without the hustle and bustle of people, and having to make sure everyone had a drink in their hand, I was able to appreciate the place for what it was.
History lined every inch of The Refuge’s walls.
My eyes flitted over all the old photographs and other various objects, most of them military themed, pinned to the walls by people long gone.
“So we have some things to fix,” said Sawyer. “Big deal.”
I smiled, appreciating my friend for who he was: a bouncing ball of eternal optimism.
“Even if we did, the inspections are going to take months,” I replied gloomily. “They want plumbing changes, electrical upgrades, gas pressure tests…”
Sawyer finished his beer. I finished mine, and got us two more of them.
“And that’s not even the icing on the cake, I’m afraid.”
My friend laughed. It wasn’t a good laugh.
“Or course it isn’t,” spat Sawyer. “Why would it be?”
“The DOH showed up, too.”
“DOH?”
“Department of health.”
At that, Sawyer balked. “Carter, that kitchen is totally spotless. The way Gus keeps it, there’s no fucking way—”
“They didn’t care about the kitchen,” I cut him off. “In fact, they didn’t even go back there.”
His eyes narrowed in confusion.
“But they did receive a complaint we were running a kennel of dogs and cats in here,” I went on. “Several complaints, actually. Can’t do that while serving food.”
“It was just one day!” cried Sawyer.
“I know.”
“And it was for charity!”
“I know,” I sighed again. “Didn’t seem to matter. Everyone was adamant. They’re citing us, and that’s on top of everything else.”
Apparently Sawyer had nothing more to say. No more brushing off adversity, no more words of encouragement. It made me angry, in a way. Not at my friend, but at the fact he’d been so affected by this.
“Look,” I began slowly. “This whole thing is my fault. I’ve been trying to carry too much, and maybe this place has run its course.”
“Bullshit,” Sawyer grunted.
“I’m serious,” I went on. “The Refuge was built for a reason, and maybe that reason’s already been realized. Between my uncle and my father, it’s gone on way past its expiration date. At this point, there’s too many ghosts.”
“So you’re just giving up?”
The question wasn’t meant to be biting, but it was. It cut much deeper than he intended.
“You had a life before this place,” I told him. “Remember?”
“So did you,” he returned quickly.
Shots fired, the two of us fell even deeper into our own thoughts. A lot of things had happened, bringing us to the place we were now. Not all of them were good. Many of them were events that neither of us wanted to remember.
“Bro,” I sighed, laying a hand on his shoulder. “There are just too many holes to plug. Too many obstacles that need to be overcome. Even if we didn’t get shut down this morning, this place is on borrowed time. It’s fighting the tides of inevitability.”
The silence of the bar was slowly becoming uncomfortable. Without the life breathed into it by its patrons, it just didn’t seem natural.
“You know who did this, right?” Sawyer asked coldly.
I paused before nodding. “Of course.”
My friend’s jaw went tight. He was clenching the bottle so savagely I was afraid it might shatter.
“So are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Sawyer asked.
“Chinese, tonight?”
He flipped me off. So much for trying to break the tension with levity.
Fuck.
Of course I was thinking what he was thinking; I just couldn’t say it. Every cell in my body wanted to track down Cole Kane and beat him absolutely senseless. The way I was feeling right now, I could do it, too. Just like Sawyer, I was tired of being the anvil to his stupid fucking hammer.
But first and foremost, there was Hayden to think about. Anything we did to him would have repercussions in her world. I needed her safe. I needed her protected.
If something happened to her because of something I did, there was no way I could live with myself.
“C’mon,” I offered. “Let’s go home. We’ll figure this whole thing out tomorrow.”
Slamming his empty onto the bar, Sawyer stormed past me in a blur of movement.
“Should’ve been yesterday,” he grunted over his shoulder.