Page 21 of Underground Prince

It was only when the driver pulled into traffic and I found myself next to a guy who’d just dared me not to jump him that I decided I might be doing something stupid.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

I wondered if he was going to show me more of the illegal poker underground, or provide me with a lesson of how high the stakes would get the deeper I went. Maybe he’d utter words of warning before I wouldn’t be able to turn back. Little did he know I didn’t care how far down he took me. He could introduce me to the devil and I’d still ask, “So what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

The numbered streets of the city were counting down, and changing from green signs to maroon. The roads were narrower, increasing in potholes and cobblestones, and pedestrians brushed against our vehicle as the walkways became denser and people spilled out of storefronts and onto the roads.

He’d taken us downtown. My territory.

Theo nodded to the driver to pull over. He held his hand out to me, but feeling rebellious, I avoided it and clambered out on my own.

He laughed under his breath—I think. It may have been a grumble.

Standing in front of me was a type of building I’d become wildly familiar with since moving to the city: brown brick with a fabric awning, LED sign in the window flashing the most popular (or most sponsored) ale, bumps and grinds of faceless figures gyrating on the other side of the plate glass windows, and thumping bass.

A bar.

A basic, wooden, sticky, divey bar.

“Come on,” he said.

Automatically, I moved in behind him. Theo saluted to the bouncer and I followed suit. I felt the bouncer’s study of me on the back of my neck, tickles of curiosity that pricked the tiny hairs as I passed him.

Theo found two recently vacated stools in the corner, his mere presence causing a college guy who also spotted said stools to do a wide U-turn.

“You’re a regular here,” I observed as I took the seat he offered me.

“How’d you figure?” He raised two fingers at the bartender before settling in.

I gestured at the bouncer behind us. “Hulks bowing down to your authority, skinny almost-adults flailing about as soon as they spot you, the usual.”

The corner of his lips twitched. “Aren’t you about the same age as these ‘almost-adults’?”

“Excuse me, but I am an adult. My I.D. says so. Twenty-two.”

If I actually believed he was capable of it, I would’ve said he guffawed right then. “And that…boy…was?”

I waved him away. “Totally underage. This is exactly the kind of bar that my—uh, that I snuck into when I was nineteen, too.”

“Ah,” he said as two bottles were slid over to us. “So your years of adult experience have jaded you already.”

“Your sarcasm is palpable. How old are you, anyway?”

He held the bottle to his lips. “Guess.”

I hated guessing games. “Forty-one.”

He nearly spat out his beer. “I think I’m insulted.”

“You should be. Do I spot…oh, I do. Gray hairs, even in this pitiful light.”

He lowered his bottle to the bar. “You’re kind of an asshole.”

“Yep,” I said, grinning.

“Twenty-seven,” he said, and his voice was so close, so warm, that the tingles spread like wildfire across the side of my face and I thanked anything listening for this pitiful light, so Theo would be blind to the heat he’d caused.

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