1. Duncan #2
She rubbed her face. "Fuck me, I have so many questions.
But first, you're telling me you have, like…
what? Forty…six? Forty-six cousins? Or cousin-adjacent relations?
That you see regularly? Like, you know them, not just a 'this person is my relation but I only see them on Thanksgiving and Christmas' kind of thing. "
"Yes, ma'am. I know them all, I love them all, and I've grown up hanging out with all of them. Most of them either live here or come back frequently. We're a very close family, the Badd and Goode clan."
"No." She facepalmed herself. "Goode? Seriously ?"
I nodded. "Mama Livvie is Olivia Goode. Her daughters all took their husbands’ names which means they're all Badds, so we’re all technically the Badd clan, but we refer to Mama Livvie's whole side as the Goode side, and we're the Badd side. And Goode is G-O-O-D-E, by the way.”
"A family with the last name Goode married into a family with the last name Badd."
"Yep."
"And you have forty-six cousins and a number of aunts and uncles I can't even begin to count."
I laughed, nodding. "Yep. Twenty-eight aunts and uncles."
"And the cousins…these aren't multiples?"
"Well, I have two uncles who are twins—Canaan and Corin, and they married twin sisters."
I had to pause the conversation to serve some customers at the other end of the bar, and then returned to the service bar once the other bartender, Elias, came back from the bathroom.
“The more you tell me, the more unlikely this whole story seems," she said.
I rolled my eyes and laughed. "What possible reason would I have for making this up?"
"I'm not saying you are, I'm just saying it sounds made up." She eyed me, thinking. "When you say ‘Aunt Low's shooting schedule…’”
I winced—I try not to mention my famous family members too much. People get weird about it. "Oh, well, yeah. She, uh…works in the film industry."
She frowned at me. "C'mon, Duncan."
"Hey, you still haven't told me one thing about yourself," I said. “Your name, for starters."
"Rune Rigby."
"Rune?"
She nodded, her eyes already glazing over as she anticipated the questions she must get. "Yes, Rune, as in the pictographs used by the Norse and Germanic tribes from antiquity."
“From antiquity, is it?”
"My mother is a historian specializing in…can you guess?"
"Runes?"
She laughed, the genuine smile illuminating her features with the warmth of amusement, snaring my breath and trapping it in my lungs. "Well, yes, but not runes specifically, but rather the history of Norse and Germanic tribes in general.”
"Why Norse and Germanic? What's the crossover?"
She rolled her eyes. "You're lucky Mom's not here or you'd be in for a hell of a lecture. The short version is that the Germanic tribes migrated west and north into Scandinavia and eventually became the Norse. Sort of. Mostly. It’s complicated.” She waved a hand.
"I honestly don't know too much about it, as I'm not super into history.
If you are, I can get you a copy of Mom's book. "
"What about your dad?" I asked.
"Oh, he's not a historian." I just stared at her until she blinked, and then burst into laughter. “Wow…that was dumb."
I laughed with her. "I mean, it was funny."
"He's…well, he teaches Brazilian jiujitsu, and he's also a strongman. He used to compete, and still does compete once in a while, but not professionally."
I shook my head. "Talk about unlikely. A college professor mother who specializes in an obscure branch of history, and a dad who's a strongman and BJJ instructor."
"That's not as weird as having five million people in your family."
"Sorry, I didn't realize this was a weirdness competition," I said.
"If it was, you'd win," she answered.
"Probably, and in more ways than you can probably imagine."
I turned away to snatch a ticket from the printer and pull the drinks; when I turned back, she was gone. Her drink was there with a napkin over the top to indicate she was coming back.
And when I saw her approaching from the bathrooms, my heart skipped a beat.
Yeah, total fucking smokeshow.
The only average thing about this girl was her height—she's stacked .
Like, damn . I guess it makes sense considering her dad is a strongman, but it's obvious even wearing loose, ripped jeans and a baggy, off-the-shoulder T-shirt that she's built like a brick shithouse.
Which is a weird phrase, now that I think about it.
A brick shithouse is not a flattering object to which to compare someone.
I didn't make it up, obviously, I just think it's odd.
Anyway.
Thick, muscular thighs pressed against the legs of her ripped, wide-leg jeans, glimpses of smooth, tanned skin peeking temptingly through the rips.
Strong shoulders and powerful, toned arms. And again, despite the bagginess of the oversized T-shirt she’s wearing, she couldn’t entirely hide the fact that she had some serious cleavage happening.
I watched her weave through the crowd, blatantly checking her out.
Mainly because I couldn’t not stare at her—the bar was over max capacity and full of hot, single young women, since the Kitty is a bit of a destination bar for the cruise ship tourists who flock to and clog Ketchikan this time of year—yet I had eyes only for Rune.
I caught her eye as she approached the bar; I was about to say something flirty—only my mouth knows what it would have been since it didn't bother informing my brain what I was about to say, though. But before I could get a word out, I saw a big guy slide up behind her and casually palm her ass.
She whirled, instantly furious, and shoved him hard. "Hey, hands off, asshole !"
That's as far as she got, though, because I've vaulted the bar and was shoving through the crowd. I launched my fist past Rune's ear and smashed it into the douchebag's throat, slipping around in front of her in the process.
The dude gurgled, eyes going wide as his mouth flapped like a fish out of water.
I may have forgotten about his friends, though, because I found myself facing four very large, very beefy, half-drunk douchebags from the popped-collar table.
"Uh, Duncan?" Rune said from behind my back.
"It's all good," I said, knowing the ruckus has alerted Uncle Bax at the front—he never misses a trick.
"The fuck was that, bro?" one of the big, beefy, popped-collar golf bro douchebags said to me, bucking at me.
“He grabbed her ass," I snapped. "That shit doesn't fly in my bar." I pointed at the exit. "You guys can get the fuck out. I don’t care whether you've paid your tab or not, just get the fuck out of my bar, now .”
"Or what, bitch ?" he bucked at me again, even though I didn't flinch or take the bait the first time. "What're you gonna do about it?"
"Me?" I said, with an innocent look. “ I’m not gonna do anything. I'm just the bartender."
A massive, hard-as-granite paw latched onto the back of the cocky douchebag's neck.
"The question is what am I gonna do about it," Bax said, in his deepest, roughest, most intimidating snarl.
"And the answer is either you sad sacks of steamy shit get the fuck out of my bar right the fuck now," he squeezed hard enough that the douchebag's eyes went wide with pain.
"Or I'll snap your scrawny little neck and throw you into the fucking Passage. "
The other dudes paled when they took in the size of my Uncle Baxter.
Who, not incidentally, is six feet and two-fifty of solid, brutal muscle.
He also happens to be a world-class MMA coach and instructor, and a former underground bare-knuckle brawler.
He's massive, terrifying, tattooed, and radiates don’t-fuck-with-me energy.
Bax turned the douchebag around to face the exit, pressed a thumb into a trigger point in his side, and force-marched him out. A single threatening glance was all it took for the fucker's friends to make themselves scarce in a hurry.
"Who was that monster?” Rune whispered, still behind me.
"That's my Uncle Baxter," I answered. "He moonlights as a bouncer here on the weekends."
"Moonlight my ass," Bax growled, returning. "Who'd that taint-stain grab?"
I indicated Rune with a nod behind me. "Her."
Baxter faced her. "I'm sorry about that, miss.
We don't tolerate that shit around here.
" He scanned the bar, which has gone silent, looking from face to face; you could hear a pin drop.
"I can and will break faces, folks, so keep your hands to yourself, or make really motherfucking sure the person you're touching has consented.
" He glanced at me. "Her drinks are on the house, Dunc. " It wasn’t a question.
"I thought you were the manager?" Rune asked, watching Bax's broad, departing back.
"I am. But…" I gestured at him. "Like I'm gonna argue? And also, that's our policy in these situations anyway.”
"I could've handled that myself, you know,” she said, heading back to her seat.
"I'm sure you could have,” I answered, climbing back over to the service side.
"But you shouldn't have to. It's our job to provide a safe and welcoming experience. In our bars, no one , no matter what, will ever feel afraid. You should be able to leave your drink on the bar and go to the bathroom without worrying it’ll be drugged.
And you sure as fuck should be able to walk through the crowd without getting groped.
And if you do experience something like that, we're gonna handle it with extreme prejudice.
You gotta set examples of what's gonna happen when you cross the line in a Badd bar.
Namely, you're gonna get hurt. That fucker is lucky he's not visiting the ER to have bones set. "
She nodded. "Well, thank you. Unnecessary, as far as I'm concerned, though appreciated."
It took me a good ten minutes to get through the backlog of service tickets, at which point Rune was counting cash while standing behind her stool.
"Leaving me already?" I asked, clapping a hand over my heart. "Say it ain't so."
She rolled her eyes. "Don't be a diva."
"Rune, wait."
She tosses a small stack of bills on the table and waves without looking back as she heads for the exit. “Goodbye, Duncan Badd."
"Fuck," I muttered, hustling after her. I clapped Elias on the back, stuffing the cash into the tip jar on the way past. "I'm taking five. You good?"
Elias—short, burly, bald, and gay—was closer to my parents in age than to me and had decades of experience behind the bar, so the question was rhetorical.
He nodded as he poured a row of J?germeister shots. "I'm good. Go get 'er, kid."
I ducked under the folding section of the bar rather than lifting it and jogged for the exit—Rune was already half a block away, walking while texting. "RUNE!"
She stopped, turned, and looked up. "You again." She said it with a teasing grin. "You're not kissing my hand again, weirdo."
I held up my phone, showing her the schedule for next week. "I'm off a week from tomorrow."
She blinked at me. "Is that so?"
"Yep."
"Can you get the whole weekend off?"
"Maybe."
"My friend is getting married here in Ketchikan—it's a whole destination wedding thing, and I need a date."
"I'm in."
She quirked an eyebrow at me. "Just like that? Don’t need to know anything else?"
"Nah. Although I am curious—why do you need a date? You can't just go stag?"
She hesitated. "It's complicated."
I grinned. "What's his name?"
"Who?"
"The guy I'm making jealous."
"His name is Hayes Motherfucking Willoughby."
"Hayes Motherfucking Willoughby. Is that his official middle name, or…?"
She rolled her eyes. "Don’t worry about it. You're just arm candy."
“I’m okay with that,” I said with a grin. "I make great arm candy."
"As long as your mouth stays shut, I bet you do.”
Don’t say it. Don't say it. DO NOT SAY IT, DUNCAN BADD .
"If you think me keeping my mouth shut is gonna stop me from charming you out of your dress by the end of the night, you're wrong." I said it.
Damn.
There I go again.
Her eyes widened. “You cocky bastard," she breathed.
She's affected, though. Her eyes searched mine, and her tongue slipped slowly over her lower lip, and she was looking up at me like she had a thousand things she wanted to say all at once.
I stepped into her space, staring down into her sapphire eyes. Leaned closer, and closer, and closer—her lips parted and I didn't think she was breathing. "You've got a date, Rune Rigby," I breathed, my lips ghosting against hers in a whisper of contact.
I stepped backward out of her space, smirking at her, and shot her a wink, heading back into the bar without a backward look.