Page 5 of A Brother At My Back

“Yeah, in there. Now, Delia! You’re going to miss it!”

“Tiff, what in the world do you want to go in here for?” she demanded and I pressed my lips together, trying to think of a reply.

“I know a couple of them, and I want a drink,” I lied and got out of the car. I leaned down into the open doorway and said, “Don’t wait for me, k?”

“Tiffany!” she called out, as I shut the door soundly. I swallowed hard and walked across the blacktop scattered with gravel to the front of the low, cinder-block building. I dragged open the door, loud music pounding, light spilling out, and without looking back at my best friend, went inside.

My pulse pounded in quick, steady rhythm with the classic rock song while I scanned the crowd, a bunch of surprised and questioning faces turned in my direction. A big man leaned back from the bar and eyed me up and down and asked, “Who you looking for, Sweetheart?” A diminutive woman perched on a barstool in front of him leaned back to look at me from around him. She swept me with a golden gaze, her eyebrows going up.

“Dragon,” I called back. “You know him?”

Laughter met me as a reply and another man next to the big blond asked, “Is she for real?”

“Yo, P!” the big blond boomed out over the room and I saw the man I was looking for stand up over a knot of seated people across the room. He scowled and came around the table towards us and I tensed. The man had a habit of moving like a thunderhead across a room. Intimidating.

“You got a minute?” I called out when he was close, and he cocked his head and jerked it past the bar, deeper into the club towards the back. I swallowed hard and nodded, taking a step forward, he held up a hand and halted me mid-step.

“You look like you need a drink, Sweetheart.” I nodded and he lifted a chin at the woman behind the bar. She lifted her chin and set two glasses on its polished wood top and a bottle of tequila next to them, her tattooed arms full of flowers.

He picked up the glasses with his thick fingers in the rims, pinching them together, and wrapped his other hand around the neck of the tequila bottle. I shuddered, my eyes fixed on his fingers around the neck of that bottle and felt my mouth go dry.

It wasn’t the same grip but that didn’t stop the wave of nausea, or the clear glass from turning brown, the silver label turning red and white. I closed my eyes and breathed slow and deep and when the room righted again I opened them. Dragon’s eyebrows were raised and he jerked his head. I nodded and followed.

He opened a door just past the archway leading to a branch of hallways and ushered me through. I went in and he flipped on a harsh overhead light. It was a bedroom and of course, he probably thought I was here to line my pockets… shit. Maybe this was a bad idea.

I turned and he shut the door, setting the glasses on the scarred dresser top. He poured some alcohol into one and held it out to me.

“Ain’t here for that, are ya?” he asked straight-away, jerking his head in the direction of the bed behind me. Dragon was my best, ah, after-hours, client at the strip club. Paid well, was generally quick about it, and was as respectful as a man paying for sex could be.

“No, um…” I downed the tequila in my glass and winced, making a face and held the glass out. I meant to hand it back but he poured some more. I thought about it a second, downed it, too and held out the glass, gasping out around the smooth burn, “No more, please.”

He took the glass and set it aside then took a sip of his own. He raised an eyebrow and said, “That there was good sippin’ tequila. What’s got you so worked up?”

I pulled the letter out of my back pocket and said, “You said if I ever needed anything, I should come to you.” I swallowed hard. “I hope you, uh, really meant it, because I’m scared and I, um, I don’t know what to do.”

I held it out to him and he scowled, set his glass down and unfolded the paper. His jaw clenched, his brows knitting together as his stormy dark eyes skimmed the page.

“Get comfortable,” he ordered. “This here is going to be a talk.”

I went to sit and he waved me up holding out a hand for my purse. I slipped it over my head and held it out to him and he put it on the coat tree hiding behind the door. He held out a hand for my scarf, and then one for my jacket and, once satisfied, waved me down to sit on the end of the bed.

The letter he set on the edge of the dresser. He came around and dropped heavily onto the end of the bed beside me and looked me over. He reached out and I flinched, knowing what he was going for. He froze mid-motion and said, “Easy, you ain’t gotta hide from me, Sweetheart.”

I held stock still as he traced along the fall of my hair that hid the ruined side of my face before pushing it back behind my ear. I swallowed hard, feeling more exposed than when he fucked my naked twat in the back room at Sugars.

“He how you got that?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered morosely.

“He’s out in a couple of days according to that thing.”

I felt my eyes mist and I tipped my head back, staring at the ceiling. “I know.”

“He knows where you’re at?”

“That, I don’tknow.”

“Okay.” He nodded slowly.

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