Page 58 of Roses Are Dead
He nodded like he didn’t quite believe me and was trying to convince himself. Then his face changed. “How long were you living with Carl?”
Too long? “A month.”
I waited as the span of time sunk in.
His face paled. “You were there.”
I nodded slowly.
“Fuck.”
I rubbed the dent in the rail. “Consider us even. I didn’t see or hear a thing.”
He pointed the bat at me. “Make sure it stays that way.”
“Get that thing out of her face.” Bear shoved the bat away and pushed Whoosh from his perch on the bar. He landed with a stumble, but covered it with a tirade of expletives. They ended with, “What took you so long?”
Wolf stepped in. “Stand down… prospect.”
Whoosh’s face colored. “Sorry. To both of you. Bear, I’m sorry.”
Wolf noted the dent in the brass rail. “You did this?”
His face reddened. “Yes.”
Bear interrupted, “Next time, just make it their head and save yourself some scratch.”
“I was trying not to add to my kill count,” Whoosh protested.
Both Wolf and Bear snorted. Bear went as far as mocking the last two words.
“KC,” Wolf muttered.
Bear stopped laughing. “It works.”
“Well, KC, what you did was effective. And you managed okay. Where the fuck is that dickhead, Hammer?”
Whoosh, I guess now permanently dubbed “KC,” pointed to the far end of the room.
“Hammer! Get your ass over here,” Bear yelled.
The man practically ran across the room. He stopped short, glancing nervously between Wolf and Bear. “Sorry man, I was watching your girl, but we were short-handed.” His pause fumbled his apology. “Whoosh was watching her.”
“That’s KC now. You’ll call him that, and we’re patching him in tomorrow after the run. You good with that, KC?”
The guy, formerly known as Whoosh grinned. “I’ll try not to let it go to my head.” His eyes shifted to me, then to Bear. “We need to talk.”
“Everyone needs to talk to me. I’m fucking tired of talking, so it’ll have to wait.” He reached for my glass. I put a hand over the top and protested, but he tugged it away anyway.
“I haven’t checked it since that girl took it. You shouldn’t?—”
He chugged down the entire glass like it was water. I stifled any protests and let him joke and talk over me with his “brothers.”
The four who’d cleared out the guys harassing me returned and slapped Bear on the back. As if that were a cue, he turned and wrapped an arm over my shoulder, weighing me down. “This is my girl, Rose. Mine.”
Then he leaned in.
The smell of whiskey was strong on his breath. “Play along,” he said right before kissing me.
