Chapter 19
NINETEEN
The Drinking Spot was housed in an older building that locals from both sides of the town limits had described as charming.
The slope it was placed on added to its curb appeal.
The entire building was built into a sloped lot that dropped below sea level between the sidewalk out front and the parking lot out back.
It should have been called The Drinking Slope, not the spot.
Though from the front, it appeared to be normal.
It was only at its back that the bar seemed lopsided, half of the structure raised on aged brick with the back parking lot butted up to the loading bay and the back door. Neither were elevated themselves, but two of the three windows that dotted the back wall were placed higher than the rest.
Maybe seven or eight feet off the asphalt, following the incline upwards along the side road that led to the main street.
A clusterfuck of architecture that, for some reason, had been since been labeled as a cute quirk.
Jack had noted all of these details before when trying to come up with a plan to beat Cassidy’s Place’s competitor.
What he’d never seen before as part of his surveillance was what was currently going on at one of those higher windows.
Ethan Castings was standing beneath a window at least six feet off of the ground while Benny De Carlo was stuck firmly inside of it.
“What the actual fuck?”
Jack pulled his truck up to the left of them and kept the engine running. He jumped out and hesitated a second to really take in the scene.
Benny was dangling head-first out of the window.
He was folded at the waist and had both arms stretched down, hands planted firmly on Ethan's shoulders.
It was not what Jack had expected to see, even after Ethan had hurriedly explained that Benny had pulled a “Winnie the Pooh” and gotten stuck trying to climb out of a window over the phone.
Though Jack still had no idea why Benny had tried to climb out of any window. Let alone one at The Drinking Spot.
“What the hell?” Jack asked in bewildered greeting. Benny's face was beet red. “Are you okay?”
Ethan was quick to respond in his best friend’s stead.
“Benny can't talk too loud because his bottom half is hiding in the utility closet,” he said. “So come over here and switch places with me before my shoulders fall right off, and then we'll explain.”
Jack was just as quick to do as he was told. Benny made a little yelp as Jack took his hands from Ethan and transferred them to his shoulders.
“Thank God,” the two said in unison.
Ethan shook out his shoulders.
“Your height feels so much better,” Benny added, voice just above a whisper. “No offense, Ethan.”
“A lot of offense taken considering you told me you weren’t going to do anything stupid and instead of leaving you, I stuck around and suffered for you.”
There was no real anger there, which was good, because Jack didn’t think fighting with Ethan for Benny while Benny was stuck in his competitor’s window would make anything less complicated.
He tried to look upwards at Benny. Dark hair fell against the top of Jack’s head. He couldn't see Benny’s gaze from the new angle beneath him, so he gave the question to Ethan.
“Can someone please explain why we’re breaking the law here?”
Ethan stepped in close, but Benny’s whisper fell against his head first.
“Are we really breaking the law if we were breaking out of this place and not into it?”
Ethan narrowed his eyes.
“I wouldn’t trust the legal know-how of the man who tried to flee through a damn window so he wouldn’t get caught. Especially when the front door exists.”
“Listen, I had no idea I'd picked the one window in this whole damn place that's higher than God,” Benny muttered back. “Plus, this would have been fine had I not gotten my pants caught on the damn window and then we wouldn’t have—”
“There is literally only one window back here at a normal height!” Ethan protested.
“Both of you hush,” Jack interrupted. “Fight after one of you isn’t stuck in a fucking window.”
Benny’s grip tightened on his shoulders, but both besties quieted.
“You said your pants are stuck, right?” he asked the guy on his shoulders. “I’m assuming you can’t pull yourself back into the utility closet then?”
Jack felt movement as Benny shook his head.
“We think his pants are caught on something weird on the inside sill,” Ethan jumped in.
“He tried to undo whatever it was with his hands earlier but couldn’t make it budge.
He tried to fall onto me but then he knocked the blinds off with his legs.
So I don't know what he's really stuck on now, but we were afraid we’d break the window if we kept trying. Or someone from inside would hear him and call the police and break the internet again with Benny De Carlo antics.”
Benny sighed.
“I also tried taking my pants off,” he added. “Clearly it didn't work. The angle’s all weird.”
“And no one’s heard you two yet?”
Jack had driven to the back lot as per Ethan’s instructions to use the For Rent office’s access road next door. That way no one from the front of The Drinking Spot could see his mad dash to help the awkward calamity just outside.
Still, surely someone on staff would make their way out to the parking lot at some point. A smoke break, a staff shift, or a lull in the music that was just long enough to finally let them hear the wiggling panic of a man stuck in one of their windows.
Ethan, however, shook his head.
“The owner is running the bar solo before his bartender gets in at six and there's only a cook in the kitchen. Thomas said they get really busy around five and, until then, everyone coming in is a ‘sweet, sweet bonus.’”
There was annoyance in Ethan’s voice.
It was nothing compared to what Jack felt flare in his chest.
“Thomas Bleuth is here?”
If the owner of The Drinking Spot caught one of the bartenders of Cassidy’s breaking out of his business?
Well, Jack wasn’t sure what would happen.
He couldn’t imagine it would be good for business.
Never mind Benny’s already-in-the-spotlight reputation.
Ethan was right—the internet would have a field day with this one.
“Yeah, he told us to call him Thomas, or, rather, he told Ethan to call him Thomas,” Benny whispered. “He spent the entire time hitting on him because he knows I’m gay and thinks we only move in flocks.”
Ethan rolled his eyes.
“Which was why I was the perfect distraction while Benny here went sleuthing in the back,” he added. “He assumed Benny left while I dazzled him with literally one joke and a few smiles.”
“But why were you sleuthing?”
The last time Jack had seen Benny he’d been holding him in post-hand job bliss.
He didn’t understand how Benny holding his dick had turned into Benny holding his shoulders, ass stuck through his enemy’s window.
It definitely wasn’t helping that Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dee-er were acting as if the inconvenience was on par with a flat tire or their favorite drink being sold out at the grocery store.
Before Jack could get any more answers, or ask any more questions, a car came into view, driving the same way he had come in.
Jack was two seconds from yanking Benny out—adios, window and Benny's pants—and throwing everyone into his truck and flooring it out of there, but Ethan threw his hand out to stop him from doing anything.
“Right after I called you, Callum called me. I'm a terrible liar,” he fumbled out. “I told him you were on the way, but he’s Callum and that’s Benny so…”
Benny sighed again. The pressure against Jack’s shoulders shifted.
“If I was naked, this would just be a stress dream.”
Callum parked on the other side of them, effectively blocking in their awkward situation, and jumped out of his Camry with a look caught between wonder and worry.
He wasn't the only one.
A young boy with giant glasses and a wide grin jumped from the passenger’s side and took in the full scene at his side. Jack assumed it was the boy he often watched over, Justus. Both were wearing gym shorts and baseball caps.
Callum shot his first question at Jack.
“What in the Sam Hill is going on?”
There was an accusatory tone to it.
“Don't look at me,” he defended. “I only just got here. But I think the gist is that Benny here’s hung up on something in the utility closet he was hiding in and we can't pull him out of the window until we get him unstuck. Unless we want to break the window.”
“Which I would prefer we didn’t,” Benny offered.
The boy took a quick step closer and went straight to whispering.
“Do the people inside know you're hanging out their window?”
Jack shook his head.
“No,” he answered for them. “And we kind of want to keep it that way if we can. Which means we need to hurry and fix this situation now.”
To his credit, Callum nodded.
Then everyone locked their gaze in on Jack. Even Benny's hair shifted, so he must have angled his chin down low to try and look too.
Congratulations. I’ve been promoted to a very important employee.
Jack didn’t sigh.
He planned.
“Okay, first, we need someone to go into the room he's in and get him undone.
Then they need to make it out through the front door again because there's a camera pointed at the back door. You said you distracted Thomas before?” He looked at Ethan.
“Can you do it again, make sure he doesn't leave the front room?”
Ethan straightened his shoulders and pushed his chest out. The only thing he didn’t do was salute. “It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
Jack nodded to Callum.
“While he does that, do you think you could get into the utility closet Benny’s in? There's only the owner and one cook on shift right now, and both should stay in the front.”
Callum didn’t skip a beat.
“Are the bathrooms near the room you're in?” he asked Benny.
“Yeah. The beginning of the hallway. The storage room is next to them. I'm in a closet in that room.”
Callum suddenly looked guilty as sin.