Losing Streak (The Lane) Read online

  She didn’t like that, my telling her to run along, but there was truth in what I said and she knew it. I might have been able to get away with some mild insubordination here and there, but she was too new, too expendable, to do the same. The look she shot me as she moved away was as dark as the room beyond the bubble of light that bathed only us behind the bar.

  I shoved the still-snarling beast back down as far as I could. It didn’t want to go and I didn’t really want to make it. But Jackson was finishing up with his last customer and I could tell by the way his body was slightly angled in my direction he’d be making his way over to me as soon as he was through.

  I was so very rarely wrong when it came to that boy.

  “What was that all about?” he asked, leaning back a little against the frosted-glass shelves behind us. Only Jackson could manage to ask a question like that without any ounce of judgment or concern laced in it.

  “Oh, you know.” I shrugged, mirroring his stance. “Girl talk.”

  “Right.” He drew the word out just enough that I knew he didn’t believe me, but not enough for it to be mistaken as outright rudeness. “So, you hear that Joshua came in? He’s in the back.”

  “Yep. Talk of the night practically.”

  “Huh. Yeah, well you know the rumor is he’s looking to fire someone.”

  I didn’t know that, actually. I hardly ever knew any kind of Duke’s gossip. Jackson always did. Sometimes he’d fill me in. Mostly he knew not to bother.

  The look he was giving me was pointed and I shook my head.

  “Don’t even start. It won’t be me. It’ll probably be Frank Sinatra up there on the stand. Should be him anyway. How hard is it to find someone that can actually carry a tune in this town? God, he sounds awful.”

  Jackson pulled a face. “He does. I can’t even tell what song that’s supposed to be.”

  “It was Cash. I think it’s Elton now. Hard to say.”

  “I’m not even sure he knows at this point. He might have when he started, but dude got lost on the way somewhere. I hope he doesn’t try serenading a girl to get her in bed. Shit would not end well.” His eyes, just as blue as my own, but brighter, somehow, clearer, met mine. “Still, you know, just in case—”

  “Hey.” I nudged him in his side. “Knock it the hell off. Whose job is it to worry?”

  He grimaced. “Yours.”

  “Exactly. And I said it’s fine, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, yeah. All right.” He looked out at the floor but I knew, in the way I always knew, always had to know, that he wasn’t really seeing anything out there. Not the shabby, mismatched tables or our two pretty servers forced into ridiculous flapper dresses to match the rest of Duke’s insufferable 1920s speakeasy getup. It matched the insufferable street it was located on, bar-lined and too full of the type of people who called it “Drunk’s Lane” or “the Lane” with a boozy sort of pride. “You, uh, going to Mama’s tonight after you get off?”

  “Yeah.” I frowned, letting my head fall back to rest on the shelf behind me for a minute while I considered the distorted bottoms of the higher-end bottles above me. “Gotta check in, don’t I? Make sure she’s okay after her latest round today.”

  Jackson nodded, a little too stiffly, and I knew what he wanted to say without him having to actually say it. I both loved and hated that ability. It came with so much obligation.

  “You’re planning on going to Fury’s tonight with everyone else, aren’t you?” I straightened, pushing away from the wall completely. “Just go. Don’t worry about it.”

  He mirrored my movements, shooting me an uncertain look, and for just a second I could almost see the kid he’d once been under the face of the almost-man he’d grown up to be.

  “You don’t think—” he started before I cut him off.

  “—Fury’s parties are stupid? Hell, yeah, I do. Hell of a lot of effort for people we see practically every day. Personally, I try my damnedest to stay away from everyone here when I leave. But you don’t need to feel bad about going, aside from your choice of company. Mama would want you to go. She doesn’t want you giving up your life for her.” She has me for that, I didn’t say, nor did he.

  He probably didn’t even think it.

  “Right. No. You’re right.”

  “Of course I am. I always am,” I said with a wink before nodding toward one of the servers heading in our direction. The lights behind us caught the sequins of her dress, in a flashing, nearly hypnotizing way, judging by the way the male occupants of the room watched her swinging hips. “Better go grab Miranda’s order.”

  Unlike Bri he didn’t get pissy. He just slipped into that easy, flirty grin of his and was moving to fill Miranda’s tray before she’d even finished talking. I watched them for a minute, the curly-haired baby brother who looked so much like me yet acted so different, blindly charming everyone he came in contact with. Bri was right. He was good. Good at everything, really, and sometimes I found myself wanting to be jealous, more than the stabs of it I occasionally felt, because it didn’t seem fair that things were so uneven. It was hard, though, to feel anything too negative for too long toward the boy I’d shared a childhood with. Whom I mothered like he was my own because, in a way, he was.

  I had the rest of the world to direct that toward.

  For a lack of anything better to do, I picked up an oily rag and went back to wiping the bar down in a slow, mechanical sort of way. It didn’t really need it—it couldn’t get much cleaner than it already was—but it made me look like I was doing something without actually having to do anything. I was working, but not really. I could justify taking half those tips, only not. I’d fill orders only when I really had to. Besides, we’d get more if I limited my contact with the customers anyway. We all knew that.

  Only my peace didn’t last. It never did for very long. There was always someone around all too willing to fuck it up the first chance they got.

  “Come here often?”

  My head snapped up to glare at the boy who’d slipped in front of me without me having realized it, a cocky smile on his face as he ran a hand through slick, gelled hair. He wasn’t entirely bad looking, best as I could tell in the dim light. Nothing to make me straighten up and take note, but not awful. He looked a lot like every other boy who came into Duke’s on Sunday nights. A college boy, probably, most likely pledged to a fraternity. One who believed in khakis and cheap beer like my mama believed in Jesus and the saints she prayed to.

  I had no real use for boys in general and frat ones in particular. Well. No more use than they had for me.

  I narrowed my eyes at his expectant expression, vaguely aware that not too far down from us, Jackson had stopped mid-pour and was watching me closely. Maybe even holding his breath, hoping that whatever was going on didn’t end with a mess and another customer being dragged off by our hulking bouncers.

  It was good to hope for things sometimes. No matter how impossible they were.

  “What kind of line is that?” I snapped, seeing no use in easing toward that tone. Boys like this one didn’t need the encouragement and anything but instant and complete rudeness was encouragement to them. “That shit ever work for you?”

  His face fell slightly, but I had to give it to him. He recovered almost immediately, that cocky smile reappearing so quickly and thoroughly it was as if it had never gone away in the first place. I had a strong feeling that his were parents who gushed over C report cards, setting him up for a lifelong delusion that he was better than the average he so obviously was.

  “Sweetheart, I don’t need lines. I don’t even have to work. Not to get a bitch in bed or once I have her there.” Frat Boy finished off his speech with a slight chest puff and what I’m sure he thought was his best smolder.

  I didn’t have to fake the mocking noise that escaped.

  “Well,
congratulations are in order, I guess.”

  “For?” It was a purr, unnatural. He had a playbook and he was following it to the letter.

  I slowly set the rag to the side and braced my hands against the bar.

  “You just met the first girl that shit doesn’t work on. Now you gonna order something or you needing me to hose you off? I’m fine with either.”

  “I’d fuck you half stupid.”

  The room around us went instantly and utterly quiet. Even Andrew paused mid-note, having either heard or sensed something was about to go down. But Frat Boy didn’t so much as blink. He stood staring at me, a determined, if somewhat desperate, expression on his face. Over his shoulder, I spotted a group of guys near his age laughing and honest-to-God elbowing each other. His persistence suddenly made a lot more sense.

  “Really now?” I dragged my eyes back to him and made a show of looking him over closely, as if really taking his oh-so-eloquent offer into consideration. “That’s a pretty bold statement. Does it include memory loss?”

  “What?” His nose wrinkled slightly, and something about the sight of it made the bars of my beast’s cage feel white-hot and stretched too tight and too thin, in danger of snapping under the heat and the strain. My nails dug into my palm as I struggled to keep my voice even.

  “Memory loss. You said you’d fuck me half stupid. Well, does that half happen to include memory loss?”

  “Baby, it can include whatever you want it to.”

  I smiled and leaned in closer, brushing the blond curls away from my neck. His eyes immediately fixated on the unobstructed view of my cleavage, just like I figured they would.

  “In that case—” I let the grin fall from my face and fixed him with a hard look as he moved closer as if drawn by an invisible pull, “—I’d still say no. In fact, make that a fuck, no. Now get out of here before I forget how bad I need this job.”

  Frat Boy’s lips thinned almost to the point of disappearing completely, and something fiery and dangerous flashed in his eyes. A sudden flurry of excitement in my chest had me swallowing back a wild burst of laughter.

  “I don’t think you know—”

  “I don’t,” I interrupted, almost gleeful when his nostrils flared. “And that’s the way it’ll stay, lover boy.”

  Jackson took an uncertain step in my direction, as if torn as to what his move should be. There were the roles we wanted to play and the roles that were ours. His would always be the brother who believed he should be the keeper of his older but smaller sister yet knew his place was the kept. Sweet Jackson, wanting so badly to be more than he was.

  Much like Frat Boy in front of me.

  I leaned forward farther still, bracing my hands against the shiny wood between us. Frat Boy was nearly humming with hostile humiliation, clenching and unclenching his fists at his side. Somehow I managed to grin wider, the closest to delighted I’d come since the last brawl I’d both started and finished.

  Few could manage that better than me.

  “But more importantly, Casanova,” I continued, my voice both conversational and cruel, a feat I’d put real effort into perfecting, “you do not know me. Count yourself lucky for that.”

  I had a feeling whatever kind of hold he had on his temper was just as precarious as the one I had on mine. He wouldn’t be able to control it much longer, and then I wouldn’t have to control mine. It’d have a target that didn’t come with any kind of risk or real consequences. Those were my favorite kind.

  “Fuck you, you stuck-up bitch.” He said it low, too low to be heard, and yet in the near-silence of the still-watching room, it seemed to echo as if shouted.

  I didn’t hold back the laugh this time.

  “I think we established that that’s on the list of things definitely not happening.”

  Then, in that space between blinks, his final ounce of control slipped.

  He damn near leaped the small distance left between us, hands outstretched, as though he planned on coming over the bar or dragging me over it to him.

  Jackson yelled out something that sounded like “Oi!” An outbreak of hurried, frantic activity erupted as customers shifted back out of the battleground and others rushed forward to take their place, maybe for a better view. Maybe to come to my rescue, seeing a boy that easily outweighed me twice. The ones who knew the truth of the situation, who had seen too many scenes similar to this before, were no doubt shoving through the crowd, counting on Jackson to jump in and start breaking it up for them to finish. But Jackson was never quite fast enough. I doubted he ever would be.

  I’d already latched on to Frat Boy’s short, purposely messy locks and I used his momentum against him. Twisting my wrist around, I brought him cheek first onto the bar he’d probably thought he would be vaulting over. Before he had a chance to realize his position and switch gears from fight to flight, I added my other hand, grabbing the back of his neck and standing up on my tiptoes, putting as much weight as I could down to keep him pinned there.

  I felt rather than saw Jackson’s helpless presence at my side, his hands half-raised as if he wanted to pull me back but knew he was probably better off not. I ignored him, instead pulling Frat Boy closer toward me, taking care to let my nails really get deep into the tender, vulnerable skin of his scalp, knowing instinctively he’d try to fight it, making it that much more painful for him. Using that to my advantage, I bent close to his exposed ear.

  “I told you not to make me forget how bad I need this job.”

  He attempted to rear back and I let him only far enough to slam him back against the wood. Behind him, Mike, the smaller of our two bouncers, had broken through the gawkers and I knew he would let me continue, at least until Jared caught up. Mike loved few things more than a good bar fight.

  “You whore!” Frat Boy snarled and I chuckled.

  “Of course I am, sweetie. I’m a whore with standards. Standards you are far, far beneath.”

  The security officer at our old high school had once shown me how to locate the mandibular nerve along the jaw that connected a bunch of other nerves in the face. She’d said pretty girls who lived in bad neighborhoods needed to be able to protect themselves. I never had to use it back then. Used it frequently now. It could be tricky to find—a person’s head had to be tilted at just the right angle—and you had to sort of dig your thumb in, almost underneath the jawbone where it angled down toward the chin, and wiggle it around until you hit it.

  Frat Boy let out a strangled yelp and bucked in earnest. Hurt like a bitch, having your mandibular manipulated. It was different for everybody, depending on their level of pain tolerance and how merciful the person pressing on it was feeling. But for most, it was as if razor blades soaked in acid were scraping slowly across the length of your jaw and up the side of your skull. It didn’t leave any kind of permanent damage, but it was enough to make you want to claw your own skin off in an attempt to make the pain stop. Which was exactly the effect it was having on Frat Boy, judging by the way he pawed at the wood underneath him.

  I didn’t have much longer. Jared had almost shoved his impossibly large frame through the last of the spectators.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” I continued in a rush, wanting to see this through to the end before he was ripped away from me. “You listening, Casanova? Because I’m only going to say this once.” He didn’t answer, but I plowed ahead anyway. The clock was ticking. “You are gonna reach into your back pocket and pull out your wallet. You are then going to give me the biggest bill you have in there. If it’s anything smaller than a twenty, I’ll reach into my back pocket. Heads up. Sometimes I have to open beers or cut seals off the bottles. What ends up in my hand will be a surprise for both of us. Either one will work to give you a nice little reminder about how to act in the future when a girl tells you no.”

  “You thieving—”

>   I dug my thumb in a little further, and, for a little extra encouragement, wiggled it slightly as I scanned the room quickly, ignoring his thrashing. I caught Mike’s eye and smirked when he gave a small nod of approval.

  “Thief?” I scoffed, turning my attention back to Frat Boy. “Please. It’s a tip. A generous tip, if you value your pretty-boy face. And to show my appreciation, I’ll let you go back to your friends without letting one of my friends take over where I left off.” I jerked his head back, keeping my thumb in place and forced him to look at me. “So what’ll it be, Casanova?”

  It pained him to do so—I could see it in his eyes. But I’d just proven that he wasn’t a match for me, not when I wasn’t afraid to fight dirty. Slowly, grudgingly, he reached into his pocket and with shaking fingers, extracted a crisp fifty from his wallet and held it up.

  “Appreciate it, lover boy.” I snatched it, then shoved him backward as hard as I could. He stumbled slightly and glared as he attempted to straighten himself out. I flashed a grin at him. “Now get. And thanks for buying me dinner. Don’t wait around, though. I’m not gonna call.” I flashed him the bill, wanting to laugh out loud when he let out a sound between a stutter and a snarl before stalking back to the table of his guffawing instigators. They’d never let him live this down.

  Which was exactly what I was hoping for, of course.

  Though the action was clearly over, the rest of the room was still watching, their gazes heavy, one more so than the others. I squinted, attempting to make out the figure at the back of the room, close enough that he’d been able to see everything, but far enough back the line between him and everyone was obvious. For a second, a pang of barbed anxiety shot through me, and I felt my eyes widen. But Joshua King only shook his head and pointed a playful finger in my direction before turning and heading back toward his office. I let out a relieved breath. It was like I had told Bri. We had an understanding, Joshua and I. We might have never spoken of it out loud, and I wasn’t entirely sure the whys of it, but there was no denying it existed. So long as I mostly kept myself in check, he’d turn a blind eye to the times when I didn’t.