Page 8 of Starshine
“You fuckin’ cheater!” The slur in the man’s voice said that he was past the point of drunk and stumbling straight into belligerence.
“Shut up, Calvin,” the man next to him said. “Not my fault you didn’t think to fold on a dud hand.”
“You think I ain’t got eyes, Jon? I saw you slip a card outta your sleeve!” Calvin snapped.
“Like hell I did. Don’t blame me for betting your rent money, you lush,” Jon scoffed.
Madam Monika hurried out from behind the bar. Her smile was strained as she approached the table. “Lads, you’re starting to scare my girls. Why don’t you-”
Yet whatever she was going to suggest was lost when Calvin pulled a fist back and swung. It was a clumsy hit, but a solid one. It knocked Jon straight off his chair, and Calvin didn’t so much attack as fall on him to do it again.
“Well?” Monika demanded as she turned to Garrett. “Do you want that copper or no?”
It was the permission he’d been waiting for. Garrett immediately set his cup down and got to his feet. He hurried forward, grabbing Calvin’s collar only for the threadbare fabric to tear as he pulled him off the other man. Calvin rounded on him with a snarl, but the drunken strike was easy to block, the second even easier to dodge.
Honestly, the fight seemed a little unfair. Calvin was so drunk he could barely stand, so instead of putting him down flat, Garrett did him a mercy and twisted his arm to lock behind his back. He escorted Calvin to the door, but with the dexterity of someone whose veins were filled with more liquor than blood, the man managed to wriggle free.
“Get offa me, boar!” Calvin snarled. He swayed as he tried to return to his seat, but Garrett had lost the urge to play nice. He brought his arm up, slamming it against the man’s sternum like a tree limb catching a rider at a gallop.
Calvin went down to a chorus of groans and laughter from the patrons of the brothel. Garrett grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him up just to send him out the door with a boot to his ass. It was a little satisfying, truth be told, especially when there were a few cheers from the brothel’s patrons. An excuse to vent some pent-up frustrations.
Yet as he watched Calvin struggle to his feet, shame came riding in hot. For a second, Garrett thought of what might have happened if he had struck a little higher. It could have broken his windpipe. Could have killed him.
A sick feeling curdled in his stomach as he returned to his table. He fell heavily into the seat he’d been given only to realize that Bridgette had returned from her trip upstairs. She watched him from the lap of a different man, and Garrett’s stomach sank even further when he realized she must have seen the whole thing.
It shouldn’t have bothered him. Everyone in Frostcliff took one look at him and saw a beast. Garrett couldn’t even disagree with them, but for some reason, the thought of Bridgette witnessing that violent part of him sat like a thorn in his side.
A wooden tray was placed on the table in front of him, startling him from his thoughts. It contained a half loaf of bread, a wedge of sharp cheese, and a large bowl of stew that made his stomach rumble audibly. He managed to tear his eyes away from it as Madam Monika lowered herself into the chair across from him.
“So,” she said as she looked him over. “My starshine thinks you would make good security, and after that display, I think I agree.” She held herself stiff in her chair, lips drawn into a thin line as she frowned at him. “Miners are a lonely lot. They pay well for company, but too many of them have a violent streak - one that comes to a head when they add drink to their already hot blood. I don’t tolerate anyone getting rough with my girls, but my last security took a knife between the ribs a couple of weeks ago. I can’t protect them on my own. I need a bigger beast to keep them in line.”
Garrett leaned forward in his chair, shoving his shame and guilt aside. She needed a beast? He already was one.
“Madam, if you pay me fairly and treat me as you would any other man, I will be the beast you need to keep your gentlemen callers in line.”
For the first time, Monika grinned. “Well, you certainly look the part. Yet my starshine seems to trust you, and she’s always been a good judge of character. So I’m willing to make you a deal. We all operate on the mine’s schedule around here, so you will be my security detail from the quitting bell until the last caller leaves. You’ll get supper and a copper a night for your services.”
Garrett could barely believe it. It sounded too good to be true, and if his dealings with Giselle had taught him anything, it probably was.
“What’s the catch?” he asked.
“No catch,” she said, her eyes never leaving his. “You will keep an eye out for trouble and will escort out anyone who does wrong by my girls or gets too rowdy. On top of that, at the end of the night, you’ll help clean and close up. But if your hands wander towards my girls, I will cut them off andthenfire you, am I clear?”
Garrett looked at the shrewd woman and didn’t have a doubt in his mind that she would. “Crystal, Madam.”
“Good. Then we have a deal.”
4
Garrett arrived at his first official day on the job well before the mine’s quitting bell. Yet when he knocked on the back door to Monika’s, no one answered. The seconds ticked by, and he knocked again, louder this time. When there was still no answer, his hope started to curdle in his stomach.
He should have known better. Had the Madam offered him the position as some sort of joke? He sighed as he knocked again, already resigning himself to disappointment.
Then the bar on the door slid before Madam Monika opened it, her thin lips pinched into an annoyed frown. She was wearing a robe with a fur collar, her gray-streaked brown hair tied up with cloth curlers. Without the face of makeup she’d worn the night before, Garrett barely recognized her.
“What are you doing here so early, lad? It’s barely past lunch.”
Garrett rubbed the back of his neck. “Apologies, Madam. I… didn’t want to be late.”
