Page 49 of Bullet
“All right, I won’t bug you about it anymore. Just let the record show, I’m Team Seneca,” I said.
Avery nodded with a snicker as he returned to his work. “Noted. If I’m done being grilled now, you seem like you’re in a better mood than last night.”
“Yeah. I talked to Celia, and we worked it out, at least as much as things can be worked out with her, so I’m seeing her on Saturday.”
“Good luck with that.” Again, his tone was jaded.
I couldn’t blame him though. Things with Celia and I had been very back and forth. Internally, I made a decision to discuss Celia less around the bar until things were a little more stable for us. Avery at the very least, but probably also Seneca at this point, had invested some interest in my happiness and well-being and didn’t need to hear about all the push and pull. They’d still see us hanging around whenever Celia came to spend time with me here, but I could practice being a little more aloof until I was more confident about where we were going.
“Bullet.” I looked over and Seth was standing in the doorway behind the bar. “Can you come here for a sec?”
“Sure.” I stood up, tapping Avery’s back as I went, and made my way back to the warehouse. Nick was sitting at the table and there were papers spread out everywhere. I walked over and took my usual seat as Seth sat down as well. “Hey, Nicky.”
“What’s up?” he replied. “I hope I didn’t interrupt.”
“Nah, just shooting the shit with Avery. It’s weird seeing him when the sun’s up,” I said.
“I know what you mean. He’s getting us more money though, so I’m fucking glad to see him doing it. Anyway, I wanted to run something by you that Seth found.” He shifted one of the reconciliation books toward me. It used to be my daily work, but I hadn’t actually looked at it in about a week with Seth working like he was. “I know we were trying to shift funds around and not get a check cut for another couple of weeks still to start the project, but I’m itching. He thinks we can shift some things around by paying some expenditures in bulk, six months or a year at a time, and it would free up some money to cut the check in the next few days. What do you think?”
I looked over Seth’s work and was impressed with the ways he was identifying to flow money in and out that didn’t leave the club in such a tough spot each month. It was the take-the-big-hit-all-at-once versus smaller hits throughout the year and was actually a much better method. There were notes with quotes and his communications with our vendors already, and it seemed like he had it all worked out.
“Yeah,” I said. “This seems like it’ll work just fine.”
Nick slapped Seth’s arm. “There ya go, buddy. You’re killing it. This is working out even better than I thought it would.”
A smile crossed my face as I looked across at Seth. “This is good work.”
“Thanks, Bullet.”
Nick, Seth, and I discussed a few more money-related things, then we split up to do our own work for the next few hours. Eventually, the rest of the members and prospects showed up, and then the bar was already starting to fill up as early as late afternoon. It was a typical bar night, and there was nothing too exciting to stick around for, so once Nick had settled into a game of pool for the night, I snuck over to Avery and invited him to grab dinner somewhere quieter. He was talking to Seneca at the time, who we invited along as well, and Seth seemed bored by the crowd, so I grabbed him, too.
We left the bar and went to one of Hoppa’s hole-in-the-wall diners and ordered the best of their greasy food.
“Man,” Avery said. “It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve done this. It’s the club or home for me lately.”
“Same here,” Seth said. “I love my new job, don’t get me wrong, but I’m a little tired. It’s nice to just come get some food and the fact that my ears aren’t ringing from the constant murmur of the bar is nice.”
“This is where a clubhouse will come in really handy,” I said. “There will be tons of places where we can go to escape the music and chatter. I’m with you guys, I’m not a people person, so getting away for a little bit is nice.”
“You’re not a people person?” Seneca said in a high-pitched, overly dramatic voice. “Ineverwould have guessed.”
“Ha ha,” I responded.
“So, wait,allyou guys do is hang around the bar?” Seneca asked. “No rival-gang trips? No heated battles in the desert?”
For myself, and for Seth and Avery as well, that probably brought our most recent run-in with the Unchained Dogs screaming back to us. “Well, we don’t seek that stuff out, but it has a way of finding us,” I said.
“Listen,” Avery told Seneca, “you don’twishfor interactions with the Unchained Dogs. Their president is loony toons. If we didn’t have CJ when he showed up last time, whoo, that might have not gone so well.”
“CJ?” Seneca asked.
“Colin Jones. He was running with the Unchained Dogs but went on the run from them and came here because he and Tess were friends as kids. They fell in love and ran off to God knows where,” Seth explained. “He was tough though, and fucking terrifying.”
“You got your ass kicked by him, right?” Avery asked.
Seth frowned. “That’s an understatement. You all weren’t there, but we collapsed on him and he turned into a Goddamn tornado. You think I’m dynamite, that guy went from zero to sixty. The crazy thing was, it didn’t take him long, and he didn’t even break a sweat. That was when I was first like, ‘All right. I’m not fucking with that guy anymore’.”
“So, Tess ran off with him? That’s kind of sweet, bad news for Nick though,” Seneca remarked.
