Page 47 of Keepsake
I shouldn’t have come.
As we ordered drinks, I could feel Zach giving me the side-eye. “You okay?”
“Sure.” I moved a little closer to him. If I couldn’t lean up against the wall and regain my composure, he was the next best thing.
Our drinks were served by a freckle-faced kid with a barbell in his eyebrow. I sipped my beer and scanned the place for a calm place to sit or stand. It didn’t help that there was a shrieky pop tune on the stereo. “My ears are bleeding,” I muttered.
“It’s hurtin’ me, too,” Griff said. “Zara would never have tolerated this shit on her shift.”
A broad hand landed on my shoulder, steering me toward Griff. “Wait here a sec,” Zach said. Then he disappeared.
Two minutes later he returned. And a minute after that I heard the opening strains of “Snow” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers over the speakers.
“Oh, yeah,” Griff said. “That’s a big improvement.”
I tipped my head back, and it bumped into Zach’s comfortable shoulder. “Did you do this?”
He shrugged, taking a sip of his beer. “Someone once told me that nothing bad ever happens when the Chili Peppers are playing.”
The corners of Griff’s mouth twitched. “That’s sounds like something Wild Child would say.”
“Because it’s true! Hey, look…” I pointed at a high table across the room where three women were getting up.
“On it,” Zach said, sliding away from me again. He stood guard over the table until the women were clear of it. Each of them in turn gave him a very appreciative glance as they passed by.
Griff and I wove through the crowd, and I sat down on one of the stools beside Zach. “We need a fifth seat,” I pointed out, but Griff shook his head.
“I’m going upstairs to say hello to Zara and baby Nicole. Kieran and Crash-n-burn can have the seats. I’ll be back in an hour. Or less if Zara is wiped.”
“Doesn’t her baby sleep?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” Griff said with a smile. “At her whim, you know? She’s a charismatic little redhead. Keeps Zara on her toes.” He left, and I settled in for some people watching as my favorite band played over the sound system.
Feeling more comfortable, I suggested a game of poker.
“You’ll probably take my money,” Kyle grumbled. “I’m told my poker face sucks.”
“We’ll play for pennies,” I suggested, pulling a deck of cards out of my bag. “And we’ll work on your poker face.”
“I don’t always remember the hierarchy of the card combinations,” Zach admitted.
“That’s okay,” I said, shuffling. “Consider it practice.”
We played our way through a pitcher of beer. Kieran won, but only on silly luck. As it happened, Zach had a hell of a poker face.
“Uh-oh, Zach,” Kieran said with a chuckle. “Look who just came in.”
“Great,” Zach muttered, picking up his beer.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, turning toward the door. All I saw was two young women—barely college age. They were heavily made up in that way that a teenager sometimes does when she’s still figuring herself out. And they were both smiling a little too hard, too.
It was painful to watch.
Kieran’s eyes twinkled as he took a pull of his beer. “The curly-haired one has a thing for Zach. And when she gets drunk, she tries to climb him like a ladder.”
Kyle laughed. “If only. She tries to mount him like a bull on a heifer. I’d let her, if it was me.”
Kieran shook his head. “Evenyouwouldn’t go there. Too young, too drunk…”
