Page 25 of The Kings of Kearny

Chapter Eight

Iwas ten minutes lateto work. After getting home from visiting Gran, I sat down on my couch and promptly fell asleep. I hadn’t planned on falling asleep, but the second my head hit the back of the couch, the sleeplessness of last night and the stress of this morning hit me like a ton of bricks.

Now I was paying for it.

I hated being late. I had a drill sergeant in basic training who lived by the phrase “If you’re not fifteen minutes early, you’re late.” Unfortunately, it was one of those things that stuck with me, and knowing I was running behind with no hope of clocking in on time had put me in a foul mood.

Our shift manager for the night was a big Irish bastard named Jimmy O’Keefe. He was a King and one of Charley’s buddies. They served in the first Iraq war together. Everyone else on staff hated the guy. He didn’t do anything during his shifts other than drink free beer and bullshit with the customers. Every now and then he’d bark a command at one of us from his barstool to make it look like he was in charge, and if we didn’t hop to it, he’d jump up and holler in our faces like he was still an active-duty sergeant and we were his knucklehead troops. Come last call, he was the first one to slip out the door, leaving one of us to close up in his place. He was usually so late to work that it was a minor miracle he’d beaten me in.

“You’re late,” he barked as I rushed past him.

“You’re early!” I yelled back.

From the dumb look on his face, he didn’t get it. I left him to stew it over some more and headed toward the bar. Nina was already behind it, slinging pint glasses, and she raised a brow and eyed me over the tap. The place was packed even for a Saturday. I was supposed to be replacing a woman named Judy, who was pushing sixty and still bleached her hair with peroxide from the corner store.

“You’re fucking late,” Judy said.

I stashed my stuff beneath the bar and started logging into the register. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“I’ve been here since noon,” she said, coming right up to my elbow. “My feet are fucking killing me.”

My temper snapped, and I whirled on her. “I already said I’m sorry. What else do you want from me, Judy? I’m not apologizing again.”

The thing about being a five-ten woman with some muscle on my frame was that I could be one intimidating bitch when I put my mind to it. Judy was nearly as short as Nina, and as I loomed over her, I saw a spark of fear light in her rheumy blue eyes.

She took a measured step back, chin held in a hard line, and glanced to her right. The bar was shoulder to shoulder, and we had a crowd of witnesses to this altercation. She had to serve these assholes the same as I did, and if she lost face now, they’d run riot over her during her next shift.

I took a deep breath and shoved my anger down. “Look, I had a shitty day, and nothing I can say will change the fact that I was late. I’m sorry for snapping.”

“Just don’t do it again,” she said before stomping off.

Nina sidled up on my other side and watched her leave. “Nice save.”

“Thanks.”

I punched a few buttons on our digital register harder than was strictly necessary as I tried to get my temper under control. The speakers chimed, and my server ID flashed across the screen, telling me I was clocked in.

Nina leaned close and dropped her voice. “I thought you’d be in a better mood after the night you had.”

My spine stiffened. I glanced down and saw a lecherous grin on her beautiful face. “Who told you?”

She started counting off her fingers. “First my sister texted me. Then I heard it from Sally when I took over her shift”—she nodded toward the bar behind me—“and then Rob and Steve and Derek asked if I’d known you and Jakob were fucking.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That I’m your best friend, so of course I knew.” She caught sight of my face, and the humor fled from hers. “So you two really...?”

I nodded.

She smacked my arm and leaned in. “Why the hell didn’t you call me?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “Tell you after we close?”

---