CHAPTER TEN MRS. BUTTERWORTH, SOMEHOW STILL A SYRUP SLUT #2
“You know what? Maybe you’re right.” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “You should go ask her.”
“I’d pay to see that,” Glitch agreed.
“Count me in, too,” Jury said. “Our financial contributions can go toward your medical bills when you need to repair the new one she rips you.”
“Nah, it would be surgically reattaching your junk after she tears it off and shoves it down your throat,” I said.
Grimacing, the prospect put a protective hand over his crotch like he was expecting a sneak attack. “Never mind.”
“Never mind what?” Glitch asked as he popped his head out of my office. His eyes narrowed on the gathered group. “Did I miss my invite to this tea party?”
“No, because you weren’t invited,” Jury said, earning a middle finger.
“And your prospect is just about to ask Lo if she’s a real detective or one from a skin flick,” I tossed in.
“That’s a good idea, Texas. You go do that, and we’ll wait here.” Glitch turned to me. “You got a first aid kit, right?”
The kid held his hands up in a defensive position. “I was just saying she’s hot.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Still didn’t like hearing it.
“If we’re done with the gossip sesh,” I prompted.
Haze got back to work actually moving the little device. Texas carried the coil of wires into my office.
And Jury stayed right where he was.
Enjoying the off-limits scenery.
Clenching my jaw so hard, it was a miracle the damn thing didn’t turn to dust, I followed Glitch into my office.
“I need your password,” he said, taking the seat behind my desk before pushing the keyboard toward me.
I put it in and nudged it back to him.
“Any special folders I should be avoiding?” he asked as he clicked around.
“Not jerkin’ it in my office.”
“Maybe you’re edging yourself. I don’t know what you get down with.”
Ignoring him, I looked at the prospect. “You from Texas?”
Even as I asked, I doubted it. There wasn’t a hint of a twang in his voice. I’d bounced around my entire childhood, including down south. Then I’d spent nearly a year in Austin during my wanderer phase across the country. It’d been long enough to pick up a few vocal habits that were hard to shake.
Like the darlin’ that Lo disliked so much.
“No,” he muttered, confirming my suspicions while not offering an explanation for the name.
That didn’t fly with Glitch. His lips tipped as he ordered, “Tell him why we call you that.”
“I’ve got a birthmark shaped like the state on my ass cheek.” Texas’s obvious discomfort didn’t match with the simple answer he gave.
“Strip searches part of the process now?” I asked.
“Tell him,” Glitch repeated.
“You know how Mayhem parties get,” Texas evaded.
“He would if he ever dragged himself away from work to attend one. And that’s not telling him.”
The kid sighed. “I got drunk and overheated.”
“And?”
“And passed out on the front landing.”
“With?” Glitch prodded.
“Not with. I was just using the Mrs. Butterworth cutout as a blanket.”
“Right. And her cardboard head just happened to be face down on your exposed dick.”
The life-size cutout was originally given to Judge as a joke after O had caught him adjusting himself at an inopportune time. Hollywood had his own drunken encounter with her and some syrup.
“You had a turn with her?” I shook my head. “Mrs. Butterworth will put out for anyone willing to give her a good flip.”
“Not anymore,” Glitch said before kissing his index and middle finger and pointing them to the sky. “RIP, you sticky syrup siren.”
Morbid curiosity filled me to mix with a hefty dose of revulsion.
“No,” Texas hurried out. “Not like that. It got rained on.”
“I don’t remember seeing a cloud in that sky,” Glitch said, giving him a hard time—hopefully. “But we all saw the moon when he scrambled up, we got an eyeful of his pasty ass with that birthmark, and a name was born.”
“At least they didn’t call you Tiny,” I said.
Texas tilted his head before slowly nodding. “Good point.”
“He’s not patched in yet, so there’s always time to… uh… change that…” Glitch muttered distractedly as he started typing.
“Need anything else?” I asked while I still had a portion of his attention. Once he locked in on whatever he was doing on my computer, it would be impossible to carry on a conversation.
“I may need to check your Ethernet cables in the walls. Jury will patch any holes. That cool with you?”
“Try to avoid any of the signed areas,” I said.
It wasn’t about the famous names that’d played at or visited Rye. They were memories. History I didn’t want erased.
A reminder of what I’d built.
“That goes without saying,” he said before handing out orders to Texas.
I left them to it as I walked out into the hall. When I didn’t see Jury, I assumed he’d taken his ass back to Lo, but she was alone at the bar. Her head was bent as she studied the menu. Despite my quiet steps, she looked up at my approach.
Christ, she’s pretty.
Beginning to think Jury has a point.
Case can’t last forever. Maybe when it wraps, I can convince her to slum it with me for a couple hours in the back room.
I dismissed the idea even as I thought it.
“You good?” I asked when she remained silent.
“No.” She tapped the laminated paper. “I’m starving after reading this. Is the food as good as it sounds?”
“Better,” I answered honestly.
Good chefs weren’t always classically trained.
They also didn’t need to exclusively make pompous bullshit that looked like kitchen scraps on a fancy plate.
My crew used fresh ingredients to do bar food right.
And they worked hard to make it something that set Rye above the rest, which was yet another in the long-ass list of reasons the recent fuckery sucked.
Having some jagoff with a clipboard mess with their organized systems and insinuate they cut health-code corners was downright insulting, along with being a pain in the ass.
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” she said.
“You’ll see on Friday.”
“Then studying this so early in the week was definitely a mistake. It’s going to keep me up at night.”
I didn’t let myself think about what else I could do to keep her up at night.
Progress.
Not much of it, though, ’cause I also didn’t send her home or retreat to a different room. I found an excuse to get closer.
“Lemme show you the order system.” Grabbing one of the handheld systems, I walked her through that before doing the same with one of the mounted registers behind the bar. Most of it was self-explanatory, and she quickly caught on to what wasn’t.
Which was saying something because with her standing so close and smelling so good, I did a shit job of teaching.
“Anything else I need to know?” Her tone was casual, but she was practically bouncing on her feet as she discreetly checked the time.
“Big plans again?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“If I don’t catch every red light.” She returned the handheld to the charging station and the menu to the stack before rounding the bar.
I didn’t follow.
More progress.
“Will your people still be working here tomorrow?” she asked.
I lifted my chin.
“I’m going to see Mrs. Hyde tomorrow afternoon. It’ll probably only take a few minutes, and then I’ll come here. You can just go about your day like I’m not even around.”
“That won’t happen,” I said before I could catch myself. I quickly pulled a clarification outta my ass. “You’ll be lucky if the bakery visit doesn’t take a few hours and involve you serving a customer or ten.”
That might not have been what I was initially referring to, but it was still the truth.
Lo didn’t look annoyed at that. Or happy. Or even confused. Her expression was blank as she murmured, “We’ll see.”
“Want me to go with you?” I offered, and for once, it wasn’t me being pathetic. It was me trying to help.
Or maybe protect her.
’Cause I loved that group like family, but they could be a lot to deal with.
She gestured around as she spoke quickly. “You’ve got your hands full. Call me if something happens, otherwise I’ll see you in the afternoon.”
Then, like a fire was lit under her perfect ass, she hightailed it out of the building.