Chapter 29 The Cork Toss
Riley
The indignation that drove Riley to the tavern faltered as soon as she stepped foot inside.
Shit.
Calla was there. The whole reason she’d stayed away in the first place.
Before she could even think of backtracking out in the open again, a gruff voice called out, “Riley! Finally, you show up.”
And just like that, several eyes were on her.
Only one pair made her skin prickle. Blue and deep and cutting.
A breath shuddered out of her as Calla’s eyes pinned her in place.
Maybe she’d ‘forgotten’ on purpose. She hadn’t been near Calla since their last swimming lesson and already she felt parched, as if she’d been depriving herself of something fundamental to her continued well-being. Then her brain caught up to that voice.
Riley blinked at Thorian. “You’re talking to me?” she asked, her voice pitching high in alarm.
He chuckled, low and rough, and she stared at him as if he’d sprouted another head. Was Thorian being friendly?
“Yeah, I’m talking to you,” he said. “Come over.”
Riley eyed him suspiciously, lingering on his half-bitten-off ear.
It was healed and scarred over by now, but she’d been the one to bite that chunk out during the mutiny.
There was no way this wasn’t some sort of trap.
She flicked a glance at Calla and caught the amused upturn of her mouth.
That faint smile hooked itself right into her gut and pulled until Riley’s feet were moving of their own accord.
She stopped a full foot away from the bar, because despite Calla’s alluring presence, Riley still had some self-preservation instincts.
Thorian flashed her a grin full of teeth. The flickering lantern light played shadows on his face and made the scar splitting his beard look downright ominous. “What? Scared I’ll bite?”
Riley scoffed, and slowly, she inched closer, sliding onto the stool next to Calla’s. Right on the edge, boots braced against the creaky floorboards and ready to spring if Thorian made any sudden movements.
“You’d have to catch me first, big guy,” she said, never taking her eyes off him.
He grunted in something like acknowledgment, then raised his eyebrows, folding his thick arms. “Did you want something?”
He was baiting her. But Riley already knew about the ‘game’, and that some bottles were sour. A faint stink of vinegar hung in the air, making her nose wrinkle. Still, she said, mistrusting, “A drink.”
His lips curled in a smug smile. He jerked his head back at the shelves lined with dust-coated bottles. “Pick your own poison,” he said.
Riley eyed him, and then the shelves. “What happens if I pick wrong?” she asked.
Thorian shrugged. “You taste it, if you dare. Gotta make sure it’s wrong, aye?” he asked with a shit-eating smirk. “Or you can go back outside.”
Riley relaxed. So this was the game. Pick a bad bottle and be forced to taste your own failure before being allowed to pick another? That wasn’t going to be an issue.
She called Patch out of his hiding place with a soft whistle. His fur stuck out at odd angles as he crawled up on the bar–she didn’t miss Thorian leaning back in caution–but his whiskers twitched in interest as he looked at her, sensing mischief.
“Pick a good one for me, will you?” she asked him sweetly.
Calla tilted her head at that. Thorian frowned.
A few pirates scoffed in disbelief. But Riley just grinned.
She and Patch had survived on dubious scraps for years.
He knew what would make her sick. The command was a little vague, but he chittered quietly in response, so she picked him up and went behind the bar, setting him on one of the shelves.
Cautiously, he walked out of her hand, his wiry tail tickling her palm, and nosed about the bottles.
He scurried past some, lingered by one before changing his mind, and then–his tiny claws scratched at a squat and square bottle in the far back corner.
A smear through the dust revealed the dark glass beneath.
Its label was nothing but a ghost of ink, but the liquid inside glowed deep amber, almost red in the light.
Back around the bar, Riley set the mystery bottle in front of Thorian with a decisive thunk. “This one.”
“Huh,” Thorian said, looking a little impressed. Then something worrying happened. His smug smile from earlier. It was back. Smugger than before. “That just made things more interesting.” He grinned at Riley’s confused look. “You never asked what happens if you pick right.”
Shit.
She didn’t have to swear out loud. It must’ve shown on her face, because the other pirates started snickering again.
Thorian considered her for a moment, then his grin spread wider. “I think that bottle’s worth a cork toss,” he said, bending to pull out some chipped cups and one already opened bottle from under the counter.
He set all the cups in a triangle and uncorked Riley’s chosen bottle, filling up the one in the middle.
The rest of them, he filled with a clear liquid whose smell alone made Riley’s eyes water–sweet and sharp and wrong.
Moonshine. Bad moonshine. He flicked the cork at her, and she almost fumbled it straight onto the floor before trapping it between her palms. Great start.
“If you want to test my skill, just hand me a dagger,” Riley challenged.
A cork was stupid. They were bouncy. Unpredictable.
Her chances of hitting anything smaller than Thorian’s big head with it from a distance were as good as a coin toss.
A cup among many was a recipe for disaster.
He wanted to kill her. And Calla was just watching, her amusement growing. Riley glared at them both.
“Aye,” Thorian said. “But that’d be no fun for the rest of us, would it?”
The rest of the crew laughed and cheered in solidarity.
“You know the rules, yeah? Your cork falls in, you drink. You hit the mark, you get the bottle. You miss entirely, you’re out of the game, and we split the bottle between us.”
Well. That was an interesting interpretation of the cork toss.
But between Calla’s watchful gaze, Thorian’s challenging one, and the crew’s simmering amusement, Riley’s lips tilted in a smirk.
If nothing else, this was a distraction.
And getting drunk off bad moonshine still meant getting drunk, didn’t it?
“Fine,” she said.
Thorian’s grin grew. “Five feet back.”
“Five?!”
He shrugged. “It’s a good bottle.”
“How bad are the other cups?”
There was a glint in his eye as he said, “You’ll just have to see, won’t you? If your aim’s not entirely shit.”
Oh, he was baiting her.
With a huff, Riley clutched the cork in her hand and counted the steps back, feeling the material between her fingers.
It was light. Uneven. The pitch seal was old and crumbly, and if it bounced off one of those rims, there was no telling which way it would land.
She tried to scratch at least some of the pitch seal off with a nail until Thorian clicked his tongue. “No cheating, eh?”
“Fine.”
The tavern hushed as she took aim, and she tried to focus.
Even though Calla was distracting just by being there, and Thorian’s head made a far more tempting target.
But no. She needed the drink for more than shits and giggles.
This was important. Just as she flicked her thumb to send the cork into the air, someone cheered loudly, startling her.
The cork fell into definitely not the right cup.
Riley glared into the crowd, staring daggers. Half of these pirates weren’t even drinking–they were just here for the show.
“Well?” Thorian asked.
Riley redirected her glare at him. “What happened to no cheating?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I didn’t see anything happen. Did any of you?” he asked the rest of the tavern.
The pirates just laughed, and Thorian gave her a pointed look.
These fuckers. No wonder most of the crew sat outside with no drinks.
But Riley wasn’t walking out of here without that bottle. It was a matter of pride now. She stomped over, fished the cork out of the losing cup and downed the mouthful of contents in one gulp.
The liquid hit her tongue like a punch, and pure fire poured down her throat. Her whole chest lit up like a struck match, and a roar of laughter rose from around her as she gripped her chest and coughed her fucking lungs out.
“This is fucking foul,” Riley wheezed. “Fucking shit.”
Swearing didn’t help, but it made her feel better–and the pirates laugh louder. Even Calla hid a laugh behind her fist. Assholes, the whole lot of them.
When she was done shuddering in disgust, Thorian asked, “Again?”
Riley’s face set in a determined scowl. “Again.”
When she set aim this time, she locked her muscles tight.
The dirty trick from earlier shouldn’t have worked in the first place, but she’d been distracted, and on edge, and not taking this seriously enough.
She wouldn’t make the same mistake now. She focused until all she saw were the cups.
Until she felt nothing but the wobbly cork between her fingers.
She rolled it, studied it, and felt its weight.
Then she leaned on her best assets–her hands, her reflexes.
She’d swiped countless coin pouches from clueless marks.
She’d picked hundreds of locks. She could throw a fucking cork in a fucking cup.
Riley sent the cork flying.
Her heart raced as she watched it in motion, still tasting her previous failure on her tongue. She winced as the cork bounced. Once. Twice. Then balanced, impossibly, between two cups.
“What the fuck.”
The whole tavern stilled. Even Thorian looked at a loss.
“Well, that–”
A single finger–pale blue, elegant–nudged the cork into the winning cup.
Riley blinked. At her cup. Then at Calla. At the faint, conspiratorial smile on her lips. A sudden urge to kiss her rose from the very depths of her.
Thorian crossed his arms, frowning. “I said no cheating.”