Page 16 of Resist

He’d asked her out, she’d turned him down, and he’d moved on.

Good riddance.

She didn’t have the time or desire to date. Because men were douchebags.

Usually repeating that mantra worked for her, but she was having a hard time shoe-horning Coulton into the same category as guys like Jagger, Tiger, and Montgomery. Or her dad or Eli, she mentally added.

She rolled her eyes when she thought about her brother. He’d been absent lately, something that never boded well because he only disappeared when he was losing money at the track, stoned out of his mind, or hiding from someone stupid enough to loan him money.

Which meant when he returned—and he always returned—he was strung out, smelly, and mean.

Too many times in her life, she had wished he would stop coming back, and then she’d feel guilty for thinking that. She prided herself on trying to be a good person overall, but whenever she thought about Eli, her karma took a serious hit.

She glanced at the door again, and then at the time on her phone. Two hours to closing.

Fuck this shit.

She walked over to the lone patron. “I’m closing up early tonight.”

The guy, Rat, was a regular, though she didn’t know much more about him than his name fit his appearance. His nose long and pointy, his mustache limited to a few whiskers, his eyes small, beady, and shifty, and he was always three days overdue for a shower, his greasy hair clinging to his equally greasy forehead. He tended to drink alone, and he only had one expression—resting bitch face.

She half expected him to argue, because it was two hours earlier than the usual time, but then his eyes darted around the tavern and he merely shrugged, reaching into his pocket and tossing a few bucks on the table rather than handing them to her. Even though she was standing right next to him.

She sighed, picking up the cash—which covered his bill, with none left over for a tip—and grabbed his glass. She turned, intent on following Rat to the door to twist the lock, but as dictated by Murphy’s Law, two men walked in just as the other guy left.

“We’re closing early,” she said, meeting them before they could make it more than a few steps inside. Now that she had her nose pointed toward home, there was no going back. All she had to do was endure a couple of shitty remarks from her dad on the way in, then retreat to her bedroom. She was tired enough that even her lumpy mattress felt inviting.

“We’re not here to drink,” said one of the guys, the bigger of the two.

“Well, that’s good. Because you’re not drinking.” Ainsley had spent so much of her life in this tavern that she’d pretty much stopped looking at the guys who came in. Because, with the exception of Thor, they were all a dime a dozen.

However, these two didn’t exactly fit the bill of a Mick’s Tavern drinker any more than Coulton did. Most of her guys were older, no strangers to long work hours, poor diets, and hard manual labor.

These guys—Mario and Luigi, she dubbed them—were worse than that, with their wifebeaters, low-slung, loose jeans, thick gold chains, and enough product in their dark hair that a hurricane wouldn’t mess it up. They were also younger, closer to her age, though she didn’t recognize them from school, which either meant they’d moved into the area, or they’d dropped out early in their educational careers.

Regardless of where they’d started, they were currently standard, run-of-the-mill thugs as far as Cherry Hill was concerned.

Ainsley started to skirt by them, anxious to get behind the bar to grab her bat. She didn’t like the way Mario was salivating like she was a juicy steak. But Luigi, the smaller of the two guys, stuck his hand out, grasping her upper arm.

She scowled and shrugged it off. “Excuse you,” she snapped. Ainsley had learned a long time ago that the worst thing a person could do was show fear.

“Looking for Eli,” Mario said to her tits.

Ainsley rolled her eyes as she lifted her arms, gesturing around the empty tavern. “He’s not here.”

“No shit,” Luigi said hotly, not appreciating her sarcasm. “That guy is slipperier than snot.”

“Not my problem.” She didn’t need what was happening here spelled out. These idiots had clearly loaned Eli money and now they were here hoping to collect. Fuck that.

Mario rubbed his pockmarked chin. “That’s where you’re wrong. Eli owes us money. Thousand bucks. Said we could collect it here.”

Ainsley laughed. “Don’t think so.”

Luigi scowled. “Wasn’t fucking asking.” He pointed toward the cash register. “So get your ass back there and get our money.”

Ainsley didn’t have anywhere near a thousand dollars in her cash register, and given the way Mario was eyeballing her, she got the sense he was hoping she’d come up shy.

Which left her with precious few options. None of them good.

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