15. Char
CHAR
Play nice, keep your job, and keep tabs on everything.
Fucking hell, what a day off. It felt like weeks had traversed since that meeting this morning that threw our lives into chaos, and yet only a few hours had passed.
We had thirty minutes until opening and we were still moving tables around and trying to figure things out.
DeShawn’s delectable cooking wafted through the bar room, turning me toward his kitchen window where the impossibly wonderful smells drifted from.
It shocked me that they were even trying to open the bar on a day like this, but then again, they had spent a serious amount of money on the place.
Money they expected to get back over time.
I suppose them opening meant they weren’t shuttering the doors of this place for good.
I hadn’t expected to come into work, especially after everything that had gone down.
Dallas and Deacon, both pinning me to the walls of my own apartment as if it were some signature move they were trying to outdo one another on.
Gauge, never really taking his stare off me whenever my back was turned.
I kind of knew how he felt, though. Because as I stood there, watching him haul those tables on his shoulders like they weighed nothing, I wondered what it might feel like being tossed over his shoulder.
I’d never been tossed over anyone’s shoulder before.
Stay focused. Cut it out.
I cleared my throat and made my way over to the bar.
If I was going to figure out what they were really up to, I had to stay in their orbit.
Talk with them. Befriend them. Even earn their trust. Because if there was danger circling around us like vultures in the air above our heads, we all deserved to know.
Miss Lilly had poured her heart and soul into this place for well over a decade, and she deserved to know.
Yet still, even as I grabbed liquor bottles off the mirrored shelves to wipe them down, I couldn’t get my mind off that article I had found.
I mean, an entire police department wouldn’t let a bunch of outlaws help them around town, right?
That didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t as if they could arrest anyone.
Not legally. A citizen’s arrest, maybe. But, with what handcuffs?
With what guns? It ripped me back to my father’s trial as I plucked bottles and wiped them down.
After my father’s arrest, the big issue was preparing for court.
Mom was still fighting for her life in the hospital, and the people all around me were whispering about whether or not I’d be able to testify should Mom die.
Like I wasn’t standing right the fuck there.
And there were some officers who thought I shouldn’t testify.
I mean, no one trusted the fickle mind of a child, right?
That’s what I figured, at least. Want to know the truth, though?
The truth that eventually came to light during my father’s trial?
Those same police officers that didn’t want me testifying were trying to keep my father out of prison because he was their—wait for it—plug.
My father had been sucking down heroin with and dealing weed to half the goddamn police force.
KSSSSSSSSSH.
“Char!”
Someone barked my name, and it made me jump as something wet dripped down my arm. My gaze fell from the mirrored shelves to my hand, and I found whiskey pouring through my fingertips. Broken glass shimmered at my feet, and I tilted my head as I took in the scene in front of me.
Had I… broken it trying to clean it?
“Get over here,” Deacon growled as he grabbed my wrists.
“Ah!” I squealed.
Water started running before he shoved my hands beneath the warm water. Little cuts and scrapes rose to the surface, twinging the water with blood as it dripped off my hands and swirled down the drain.
“Can I get a cleanup back here!?” Deacon bellowed.
“On it!” Dallas called out.
I raised my gaze and found Gauge staring me down with those hazel eyes and that auburn beard of his. His bald head shimmered in the lighting of the bar, and the beard that covered nearly half his face swayed softly to the side as the air conditioning system roared to life.
“You need a first aid kit?” Dallas asked.
“No, nothing looks too deep,” Deacon murmured.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Gauge, though.
The way he held my stare with his. The way his brutish six-and-a-half foot stature froze at the sight of me made me want to climb him like a fucking tree.
His muted face scoured the parts of my body that he could see.
He walked backwards, nonchalantly sliding yet another table with chairs stacked on top of it onto the stage behind him.
Then, he crept closer to me. Closer, and closer.
While Deacon ran my hands beneath some warm water and Dallas continued sweeping up the broken glass at our feet, Gauge approached me.
Slowly. Deftly. His massive body, lumbering with very little sound toward me.
And as he gazed down at me from his perched position, I noticed something.
He had little black dots tattooed along his cheekbones, just above the cut-off point of his beard.
He also had a creeping black tattoo on the underside of his jaw. But, I couldn’t really see what it was.
How had I never noticed his tattoos before?
“You okay?” he asked as he stopped just shy of the bar.
“She’s fine,” Deacon said as he turned off the water.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said as Dallas placed a dry rag over my wet hands, “I’m good.”
“You sure?” Gauge asked.
“She said she’s fine,” Deacon said hotly.
“I’ll be convinced when I hear it from her,” Gauge said, his gaze never moving away from my face.
I nodded as I started drying off my hands. “I’m okay. Just squeezed a bit too hard, I think.”
“Dallas, check the bottles. I want to make sure they haven’t been refilling them,” Deacon said.
I whipped toward him. “How dare you accuse me of such practices.”
“There’s no way you held that bottle so tightly that it shattered,” Deacon said.
“Why? Because that’s only something men can do?” I asked.
He tried leveling me with his glare, but I held my head high. My own father couldn’t intimidate me. Some bearded asshole with a partially shaved head wasn’t going to frighten me. And in that moment, as Deacon and I faced off, I knew that no one could be trusted.
Not even the police.
I was on my own.
“Fine,” I said as I turned away from him, “check what you want. I need to go peek in on the kitchen anyway.”
With the rag around my hand, I made a beeline from behind the bar.
I didn’t stop moving until I pushed through the flapping double doors that led into DeShawn’s little slice of heaven.
The smell of his cooking preparations made my stomach growl.
I sighed with relief the second I felt the three of those men’s gazes disconnect from my body.
And as I leaned against the wall, I drew in the beautiful scent of freshly sliced vegetables.
Before M.J. came barreling through the swinging double doors as well.
“Girl, are you good? Let me see your hand.”
“I’m fine,” I said as I wrapped the rag tighter.
“There’s blood on that rag. Now, give me your hand,” she said.
“Hey,” DeShawn said as he pointed with his tongs at me, “there can’t be no blood in my kitchen.”
I shot him a look. “There’s no blood in your kitchen.”
M.J. snatched the rag from me. “The red on this tells me otherwise.”
DeShawn wiggled his tongs toward the double doors. “Out, before I have to disinfect this place from top to bottom.”
“Please, just a few minutes before I go back out there.”
M.J. searched my face. “What did they say to you?”
“Please, DeShawn. The three of us really need to talk anyway,” I pleaded.
He turned away from the grill. “Five minutes, in the pantry. Let’s go.”
“Thank you,” I said breathlessly.
He shuffled both me and M.J. into the pantry before slipping inside himself. I hoped that the guys wouldn’t find us. That they wouldn’t fling the door open and ask what the hell we were doing.
Thank fuck, there was a first aid kit in the pantry.
“Perfect,” M.J. said as she pulled it off the shelf.
“I really don’t like those guys,” DeShawn glowered.
“Me, neither,” M.J. said as she popped the kit open.
“We have to do something,” I said.
“Hand,” M.J. demanded.
I didn’t fight her and simply outstretched my arm. “You know they can’t be trusted.”
“Not as far as I can throw them,” DeShawn muttered.
“Keep your voices down,” M.J. hissed.
So, I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Is there anything that we can do? Anything at all that will oust them and get Miss Lilly back?”
“Girl, do you know what they paid for this bar?” DeShawn asked. “I love this place, but not even I would come back after being handed five cool mils.”
M.J. snickered. “You got that right.”
“We’re just going to let this happen, then?” I asked. “We’re just going to let them come in, change everything, and infiltrate our home like this.”
“I just work here,” DeShawn said.
M.J. wiped at my hand. “You’re right, the cuts are only superficial.”
“Told you,” I said with a grin.
“I’m still gonna gauze and wrap you up, though. Especially if you’re bartending tonight.”
“You think they’re gonna let her bartend with her hand like that?” DeShawn asked.
M.J. shrugged. “She won’t have a choice, they fired the girl we were trying to train to help bartend a bit.”
My eyes widened. “Is that why I haven’t seen Raquel yet?”
“Yep,” they both said in unison.
Shock rolled over my body. “But—but why?”
“They asked Miss Lilly a question, and she answered instead,” M.J. said.
I balked. “So they fired her!?”
“Shhhh!” the two of them hissed together.
“Jesus, can you be any louder?” DeShawn whispered harshly.
M.J. shot me a look before she finished up with my hand. “There, all better.”
“Thanks,” I said as I looked down at it.
“You okay?” M.J. asked as she placed a hand on my shoulder.
My blood boiled. My veins shivered. My brain felt so hot that I just knew it would start leaking out of my fucking ears.
Dick measuring. That’s all these assholes were doing.
Peeing on their fucking territory to try and establish dominance.
That shit wasn’t gonna fly, however. This wasn’t their home, it was ours.
It was mine. And just like I had defended my home as a child, I’d defend it now.
But, maybe I didn’t have to do it alone.
“If there was a way for us to take back the bar and get them out of here, would you do it?” I asked.
DeShawn’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”
“M.J.?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said without hesitation, “I would.”
“DeShawn?”
His gaze danced between the two of us before he rolled his eyes. “You know I’m on board with whatever the hell you’ve got concocted.”
I smiled. “Perfect. Come up to my place after we close down. Bring some food and drinks just in case you’re questioned.”
“And what will we be doing once we get up there?” M.J. asked.
I shrugged as I made my way for the pantry door. “Just… hanging out and talking. We haven’t done that in a while, right?”
“Right,” DeShawn said.
I opened the door. “Can’t wait to hang out later, you guys.”
And when I opened the door, who was standing there?
None other than Dallas himself.
Hovering.
“Everything okay?” he asked with that telltale smirk on his face.
I held up my hand. “Found a first aid kit.”
His eye twitched. “I thought you didn’t need one.”
M.J. slipped out from behind me. “Best friend trumps boss any day of the week.”
Dallas slid his gaze down my body. “Right. So, what’s your reason for being in the pantry, Chef?”
DeShawn slipped out and headed back toward the grill. “Moral support.”
“Right,” Dallas said as his gaze stared off toward DeShawn.
“Anyway,” I said as I slipped around the man, “better get back to the bar.”
“You can’t bartend with a hand like that,” Dallas said almost immediately.
I didn’t bother looking back. “Then, you guys shouldn’t have fired the bartender I was training up.”
I headed back toward the bar, only to find Gauge still hauling those tables around on his back like a fucking fiend.
I couldn’t help the way that I stopped and stared.
I’d never seen a human being with so much strength curled up into one’s muscles before.
They bulged from beneath the arm hems of his t-shirt, and the veins running up his forearms called to my tongue as I jammed it into my cheek.
The bar lights slid off that shaved head of his, and the auburn beard hid most of a jaw I’d have bet was all hard angles underneath.
He didn’t look at me. He never looked at me for long.
But I’d caught those eyes of his earlier, hazel, caught somewhere between green and brown, and warm in a way that the rest of him absolutely refused to be.
Dear Jesus, the man was a walking flame.
Hot as hell, and swift to burn if one got too close.
I barely made it back behind the bar before I reached for a rag to continue cleaning the bottles down.
That is, until someone snatched my gauzed wrist up.
“Hey!” I exclaimed.
Deacon whipped me toward him. “Don’t you dare get blood on these drinks tonight. They’re the only decent thing in this place.”
I ripped out of his grasp and closed the distance between us, glaring up at him with anger I hoped he choked on.
“If you ever touch me without my permission again, not even the police will be able to help you.”
He smirked. “I like a woman with spice. Better be careful with that attitude, though?”
“Or, what? You’ll fire me and turn my apartment into an extension of this place?”
His temple pulsed, and I knew I was right.
“My God,” I said as a giggle fell from my lips, “you guys are more predictable than I thought.”
His silence spoke volumes, and I couldn’t help the smile that crossed my face as I turned back toward the liquor bottles.
I felt Deacon’s angry stare on the profile of my face, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking back up at him.
It wasn’t until he moved away from me, his heavy footfalls falling back toward the office hallway, that I peered over my shoulder.
Only to find DeShawn and M.J. staring at me from the kitchen window.
It’s gonna be a long fucking night.