Page 64 of Indigo Sky

I understood he hadn't known me for a long time, but I’d thought he at least knew my character well enough to recognize that I wasn't an asshole.

"It’d better not be," he said, swiping the water bottle from off the bar and twisting the cap off. "I like you, but don't think for a second that means I won't fuckin' kill you."

I stared him down, rolling my lips between my teeth and fighting the urge to jump over the bar to wrestle him to the ground. Maybe I'd gotten too comfortable here. Maybe I'd thought too quickly that I'd earned a place of respect by handling that asshole. My pride was wounded; what I’d thought was a solid friendship with Saul was too. So, after a moment of seething and battling my decision to make another comment or not, I grabbed my water from off the bar and made my way around to the door. It was almost time for the club to open, and I had a job to do.

"Don't you worry about me, Boo Bear," I grumbled in his direction, unsure if he heard or not. Completely oblivious to just how right he was to be worried after all.

***

Kate met me outside that night. It was the first time I'd had any moment alone with her since our date at the diner, and she wasted no time wrapping her arms around one of mine as I escorted her through the parking lot to her car.

"You didn't come in," she noted, looking up at me, her eyes glistening in the light from above.

"Yeah, sorry," I said.

Truth was, Saul had wounded my pride so much that I hadn't found the strength to face him again. I guessed I was worried he would say something else. Or maybe I was just worried he'd seen something in me I didn't.

"You okay?"

I sucked in a deep breath and wiped my hand over my mouth, determined not to be annoyed in her presence. It wasn't her fault, and the last thing I wanted was for her to believe it was.

"Yeah," I said, releasing the air from my lungs. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just tired."

Her gaze fell to the asphalt beneath our feet as we walked. She'd parked farther from the door than usual. She had come in late, after the club already opened, and walking through the parking lot felt too vast, leaving us open and exposed. The feeling of being watched itched along my skin, not unlike the feeling I'd had the other night, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

"Did Saul say something to you?"

The unexpected question tore a laugh from my chest. The sound rang through the open air, the rumbling of cars from the highway off in the distance.

"Yeah, actually," I said, the tension in my shoulders relaxing just a little. "He didn't seem too happy with something happening between us."

We neared her car as she shook her head and released my arm from her hold.

She fished her keys from her duffel bag as she began to speak in a rush of anger. "Saul needs to mind his own fucking business.”

"He's just looking out for you," I replied, defending the guy even though I'd spent the better part of my night annoyed with him myself.

"Yeah, well, where the hell was he when the last guy failed to tell me he was married before fucking me?"

A memory of Saul asking if I was single flashed across my mind. He had said the last guy they’d hired had an affair with one of the girls and hisold ladycame in to make a scene. I hadn't expected Kate to be that girl, nor had I expected the news to feel equivalent to a slap across the face despite knowing that it shouldn't have. I hadn’t known her then. I wasn’t allowed to be bothered by the past, as if I’d laid some kind of claim over her.

I guessed I was quiet for too long, too stuck in my own head, and she turned to look up at me.

"He had worked here for about six months before we started dating," she explained, answering questions that had never been asked. "We went out for a few weeks before anything really happened. I had no idea he was married; he never wore a ring or anything. His wife came in a couple of weeks after and raised hell. She’d had no idea he was even working here at all, which …" She released an incredulous huff of a laugh. "I don't know. I have a hard time understanding how you can be married to someone and have no idea that your spouse is gone every fucking night until two, three in the morning. But … whatever. Anyway, that's what happened. We were never a serious thing, and I don't want you now thinking that I make a habit of sleeping with the bouncers because he was the only one."

I forced out a choked laugh as I glanced over my shoulder at the darkened front of Midnight Lotus. "Well, I would hope so. Wendy would do more than just raise hell."

"Oh God," Kate groaned. "First of all, I can't even think of Saul like that."

"Yeah, I bet he—"

From behind me, the sound of metal clattering against metal rang through the silent night, echoing across the parking lot. The racket had come from the direction of the club, and I whirled around on my heel, stretching my arms behind me, caging Kate in against her car. I looked from one side to another and ahead. No movement could be found. There was nobody around; not a thing looked out of place. But I had heard it, and judging from the frantic thrum of her breath against my back, Kate had too.

"I-it was probably a raccoon or something," she whispered from behind me, her hands gripping my jacket.

"Yeah," I whispered back, still surveying the area around us. "Probably."

Yet I didn’t move a muscle. I watched Midnight Lotus instead, keeping my one eye trained on the building, too afraid to look away. My jacket felt uncomfortable; the air around us seemed to slither over my skin. I was on edge, unnerved, certain someone was out there, watching us from a secluded, shadowed corner. Certain that it wasn’t a fucking raccoon, but a person.

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