Page 3 of Bartender Mate

Then, a few weeks back and right after my thirtieth birthday, life took a turn.

Forcing me to face some cold, hard truths.

You could love a person but not their behavior.

They could love you and still let you down in the worst possible way.

The insipid shadow which had been stalking my beloved uncle his whole life had been biding its time. After all, the game was at its juiciest when you could taste sweet victory only to have it snatched away again at the last minute, right?

Uncle Frank started getting moody and secretive all over again. Got to drinking during his shift and taking off right after. I wanted to call him out but I didn’t want to lose the newfound sense of connection and camaraderie we’d built. It had felt like the golden years of old, when my uncle had first come to live with me and been my rock during the stormy seas of my grief, and I wasn’t ready to let go of my hope that this could be our new norm.

The problem with loving an addict is that they can only hold off their darkness for so long.

Still, I owed Uncle Frank everything. He’d swept in to look after me once my parents had died. Kept me sane that first year and made sure I had everything I needed to grow up safe, keep doing well in school, and even to follow my dream of going to college.

Ultimately, though, his demon broke free.

Wrecking the sort of gleeful havoc the devil himself would’ve been proud of.

Now, I had no choice but to fight back alone, because losing this final battle to my uncle’s dark legacy wasn’t an option. Claiming his life on an icy mountain road would have been bad enough, but it hadn’t been the end of the bad news I could feel bearing down on me like an avalanche.

Uncle Frank was barely cold in the ground when those fuckers left their wee note–threat, more like–skewered to the pub’s front door with a switchblade. Thanks to the person I missed most in the whole world, I’d been thrown straight out of the pot and into the fire.

Tears pricked my eyes and I brushed them back in a hurry. I didn’t have time to mope. Didn’t have time to rail against the unfairness of it all. I had to do what I’d always done. Make good of a bad situation. And this… well, this was a very bad situation.

Instead of crumbling under the added pressure, I marched into Valhalla’s Pass United with my head held high.

* * *

“How much?!”

Spittle was flying in my direction but I was beyond caring. I sat there calmly and took his rage like a champ, though my own was not far below the surface.

“I thought you” –Mr Curmudgeon, the indignant bank manager, spluttered and held up an admonishing finger and pointed it at my chest– “were coming in for a bridging loan to cover your uncle’s funeral expenses, young lady! Which, under the circumstances, I was leaning towards trying to accommodate. But this? This is simply preposterous! You expect me to extend your loan by how many hundreds of thousands of dollars?!”

I clenched my jaw then breathed out real slow. Counting to ten. When I was reasonably sure I wouldn’t shout straight back, I gritted out my reply. “One hundred and fifteen thousand, to be exact, Mr Curmudgeon. Half of the current bank valuation of my home and place of business.”

The bank manager was already shaking his head, his infamously short temper replaced with fake sympathy and he breathed out a steadying breath of his own.

“I’m sorry, Tess, but my hands are tied. In deference to your late Uncle Frank–who you know was a dear personal friend of mine–I allowed this meeting.” Mr Curmudgeon’s jowls jiggled and wobbled with lament as he sat back and rested his sweaty hands on his fat belly. Dear personal friend, my ass. Try, former gambling buddy. Gods, how I hated this pompous man. “I assumed your uncle’s recent funeral expenses put a strain on your business arrangement with us. However, as I told you at the last meeting when you came in with your renovation plans last month, we simply cannot extend your loan any further. You will have to come up with the investment you need in some other way. And, I might add, perhaps you should look at more frugal solutions.”

With a growl, I slapped the I.O.U. note in its crumpled envelope on the bank manager’s desk. The broken wax seal made the open top flap of the envelope wobble and sag, forlornly, in the wake of the rushing movement. “It’s not for renovations.”

Mr Curmudgeon stared at the swaying seal as though it were a rattlesnake ready to strike. “Is that… the Drakon Hunters seal?” I nodded. With difficulty, the old goat pulled himself together with a shudder and tore his eyes away to fix me with a no-nonsense look. “And what, may I ask, is inside?”

“An I.O.U. Signed and dated by my late uncle for Last Chance Bar.” The man looked like he had to force himself not to flinch at the news. I leaned forward, staring the bank manager down, willing all of the ramifications of this development to sink in. “Only, my late uncle doesn’t own all of Last Chance Bar, does he? You’ve seen the deeds. He only ownshalfof it. Which means, you would be demanding half of your payments moving forward from the Drakon Hunters Motorcycle Club. And something tells me they are not so easy to shake down.”

Mr Curmudgeon swallowed, hard, sweat popping off his brow however he kept his gaze rooted to my own as if by not looking at the offending documentation he could will this new plight away.

Not so funny, now, is it fucker?I thought grimly.When the demon takes a chunk out of your hide as well as mine.

“So I am asking you, Timothy, real nice like” –I smiled, showing plenty of teeth– “to give me that additional loan so that I can get that scum to back the fuck off my business. And, by happy coincidence, protect your interests as well.”

For a single, bright moment, the guy holding the keys to my one get-out-of-jail-free card seemed to be considering my offer, until a text came through on his cellphone. He looked down, blanched an even paler shade of white, then shook his head.

“I’m real sorry, Tess,” Mr Curmudgeon sighed, sounding defeated and not at all like his usual pompous self. “But this time my hands really are tied.” The bank manager’s eyes were glittering with true sympathy when he raised his head and shrugged. “Maybe having the Drakon Hunters MC as your new business partners won’t be as bad as you think?”

I stared at him in shock, absolutely dumbfounded that he could even suggest such a thing. Me? In business with bikers? Fuck off.

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