Page 16 of Phantom
Bucky held up his hands and just walked away, not providing an answer. I looked back at Nick, concerned that I had pissed him off by nearly picking a fight, but he had an even bigger smile on his face. He took a deep breath and then pressed on. “Last but not least, that heartbreaker there.” He motioned to a man not quite as tall as Paulie, but he was up there. He was leaning against the wall behind the pool table with his arms crossed. “That’s Avery Pairings, our treasurer. As you might have guessed, Bullet can’t do his job right if Avery ain’t doing his job right, so Avery’s sharp as a tack, too.”
Not only that but of all the men in the bar, Avery was the most fit-looking at a glance. I was certain that more than one of the Steel Knights had muscles hiding under their jackets, but Avery was wearing a tank top with the Steel Knights’ sigil on it, and with his arms crossed, his biceps looked like they were about to split his skin. That probably had something to do with why people didn’t play with the money in the Steel Knights’ wallet—they didn’t want to find themselves at the other end of Avery’s fist.
“There’s one other guy, but I guess you’ll see him when you see him,” Nick finished, chasing the sentence with a shot. “Did you get a hold of him, Jonsie?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t notice Jonathan walk back into the bar, but he walked past me to grab a barstool a few down from Nick. “I know you said get him here, but if he showed up like that, he’d just piss you off. I told him to go to sleep, and I let him know if he ain’t in here tomorrow, you’re gonna cut him open.”
Nick nodded with a sigh. “Fine.” He looked back at me. “In any event. We have some celebrating to do! We got us a new member. Let’s get this place up and running.” He pointed over at Avery. “And I’m getting you back for yesterday.” He left the stool, tapping me on my back as he passed me, and made his way back toward the pool table.
After another hour or so, a few bartenders and waitresses showed up, along with a cook, and then around sundown, other Hoppa residents started to show up. I stayed sitting at my table and kept to myself. I didn’t associate with many people outside of Tess when I had lived in Hoppa before, but I went to school and had to make occasional trips to the grocery store to make sure there was food around for Caid and me. The last thing I needed was for someone to recognize me and call out, “Colin,” in the middle of this bar, revealing that the only piece of information I’d shared about myself was a lie.
Tess did her best to mingle, but she was not well received. After trying and failing to involve herself in a few conversations, she came and sat back down at the table I was at. “Why don’t they like you?” I asked.
Tess dramatically reached up and grabbed her breasts. A few guys stopped to gawk at the sight, but I was quick to throw a gaze at them, and they looked away. She released herself and went back to the beer she was working on. “I’d say they’re progressive in that they don’t think women belongonlyin the kitchen. We’re also allowed in the living room now.”
“Hoppa’s not the Women’s Rights capital of the world,” I said.
She shook her head. “No, it is not.”
“How’d you become VP?”
“I fought hard as hell for it,” she replied, and I could hear the insult in her voice. “No one gave it to me.”
“You forget how well I know you, Tess. I know you didn’t let your dad just give you the spot. If I thought that, I wouldn’t have asked.”
She side-glanced me and then smiled. “Right. Sorry.”
“Wasn’t there a vote?” I asked.
“Yep. My dad laid out all these criteria, and the old VP, he liked me enough. They said if a prospect ticks all these boxes, they should be voted in. None of ’em wanted me in, but I was the only prospect who ticked every single one of those boxes, and I made sure I did. As much as they didn’t want to vote for me, they knew they’d be in violation of the bylaws if they didn’t. So, I got voted in when the VP died.” She glanced over at me. “It was a raid with some real bad guys, worse than the Dogs. He actually had a will written out because he didn’t think we’d make it. He had me named as his replacement. My dad wanted that, too, and the bylaws say two officers, so…” She held out her arms in a presentation of herself.
It was irritating. If a former vice president who wasn’t related to her at all had enough confidence in her to write her in his will as his replacement, why couldn’t these guys respect her? I didn’t press the issue any further because it was clear that Tess didn’t want to talk about it. Instead, I observed the rapidly filling bar. Nick was laughing with some of his guys and the unrelated bar patrons in the corner. The other prospects, who’d come to about ten minutes before the place started to fill up, were all at a table, working on a round of drinks while staring me down. I gave them a nod to let them know that I saw them, then moved on.
Nothing got me too spooked, apart from Taylor. He was circling the bar like a kid on a sugar high. His jaw and fists would clench as he spoke to different groups of people, then all of their gazes would turn in my direction. What he was saying to them, I didn’t know, but easily swayed people were the worst kind to be around. I’d have to be sure to always be on guard, especially when Taylor was around. Whether it was because I was a friend of Tess’ or because Nick had made me a member on sight, he had it out for me. I made an internal promise never to let him stand behind me.
“Do you wanna leave?” Tess asked suddenly.
“Sure. Is there a motel or something around here?”
Her face screwed in response. “Is the bed you slept in last night that uncomfortable?”
“No. I don’t want to impose.”
She rolled her eyes and let out a long sigh, then handed Lockjaw’s leash to me. “Let me go close out, then we can go.”
“Fine.”
Tess stood up and walked over to the bar, and the second she was gone from her seat, someone else sat down in it. I braced myself for trouble, but it was Bullet, the bookkeeper. He had a beer in his hand, and he took a long drink of it before he said anything.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.
I nodded. “It’s fine.”
Bullet looked over his shoulder, then back at me. “How do you and Tess know each other?”
Trying to take this guy’s temperature was difficult. He was about as stoic as I tried to be, which meant he was hiding quite a lot below the surface. “We know each other from high school. I just recently moved back, so I looked her up.”
He took another drink of his beer. “Well, look, from one guy to another, I’m telling you not to trust her. She’s only worried about herself. She always has been.”
