Nightlife (Cal Leandros #1)(16)

Shaking my head, I demurred, "Nah. Keep it. It's not like I was busy. Besides, it was entertaining." I gave him an amused grin. "A learning experience." Samuel was an easygoing guy, companionable, and had some stories that would curl hair. Bad-boy band antics, most of them, from drinking binges to the sexual escapades of the mighty Khan. The singer had apparently never met a groupie he didn't like or a booze he didn't love. Mixing both had led to the occasional arrest and a frequent-flyer card at the free clinic.

Samuel returned the grin and checked a heavy chrome watch. "You'll get to live the experience in about an hour. Just keep nine-one-one on speed dial. Last place we played, we had to call in the Jaws of Life to get Genghis out of his leather pants." Polishing off his soda, he retrieved the money and stuffed it in the tip jar. "You earned it. Thanks for the help, Cal. I've got the sound check to do. Catch you later." He gave an easy wave and moved across the bar, half disappearing in the gloom, a shade among the shadows.

"Mmmmm. Delish." Meredith appeared at my shoulder, her pointed tongue touching her upper lip. "All strong and confident. Smoldering. A big juicy stallion."

I snorted caustically. "Hell, Merry, you thought the UPS guy was a stallion too until you found out her name was Sherry."

"It was dark, okay?" Miffed at my lack of enthusiasm for her man watching, she flounced off to bus Jerry's empty bottle. While she was there she wiped up a lake of drool that was forming under Jerry's unconscious, slack-jawed face. There was nothing like a dedicated customer. I hoped he woke up in time for the band, because I was willing to bet he'd be the audience, the sole head-banging member. Leather-boy Genghis and his Horde were going to be some disappointed, not to mention destitute, rockers. Hey, wasn't like I hadn't warned Samuel.

Three hours later Samuel and his pals proved me wrong. I wouldn't say the place was wall-to-wall people, but it was as packed as I'd ever seen it. Niko said nearly the same when he drifted up beside me, phantom silent. "It appears someone has raised your bar from the dead. This may qualify as a miracle even in the eyes of the Vatican."

"Yeah," I said briefly as I leaned, arms folded on the table in one far corner. I gave the opposite chair a shove, pushing it into his hand. "All this time I thought this place would never amount to anything without some decent booze or basic hygiene. Turns out all we needed was a new band."

"Wouldn't you require an old band to qualify this one as a new one?" Not waiting for a smart-ass answer to an even more smart-ass rhetorical question, he flowed smoothly into the chair and promptly made the sign of the evil eye at my dinner. "Get thee behind me, Satan."

I ignored him and continued to give my heart a run for its money with the fried sampler platter from the restaurant next door. Fried cheese, fried peppers, fried potatoes, and the topper, fried potatoes with cheese and peppers. It was the lowest common denominator of all the food groups and I was enjoying every life-giving molecule of grease. "How went your chat with George?" I said around a mouthful. "No go, huh?" There was an unmistakable, to me anyway, tension around Niko's calm eyes. Luck sure didn't look to be a lady tonight, more like the bitch she always was.

"She wouldn't speak to me. Her mother wouldn't even open the door," he confirmed with a grim twist to his mouth.

"And you didn't kick it down? What the hell kind of ninja superhero are you anyway?" I waved to Meredith across the room and pointed to Niko. She nodded and headed for the juice in the fridge. Niko wasn't much on alcohol and considering our mom, that was understandable. About things like that, he'd always been smarter than I was.

"I suppose I'm the kind that doesn't terrify teenage girls and their mothers."

I curled up the corner of my mouth at his disgruntled tone. "Yeah, they'd take away your cape for that."

Meredith slithered up at that moment, probably saving me from retaliation in the form of either a brisk butt kicking or a more lackadaisical steel toe to the shin. She put a glass of cranberry juice in front of Niko and draped over his shoulder like a silicone-enhanced orange tabby. "Nikki," she purred, her breasts threatening to swallow his neck in a loving embrace. "I haven't seen you in weeks. I'll start to think you don't love and adore me."

My brother's eyes slid back toward her with all the resignation of a man on death row, then returned to me with a roiling wrath that would've dropped a charging boggle in its tracks. I took pity on him. "Hey, Mer, I'm almost done with my break. Watch the bar for me for a few more minutes?"

She gave a long-suffering sigh that had the mounds of her breasts rising to smothering proportions. Niko was a man caught in an erotic avalanche. Giving him a lingering kiss on his cheek, she disappeared into the milling crowd, calling out over her shoulder, "You owe me, Cal."

"Get in line," I murmured. Pursing my lips, I turned my attention back to Niko and gave a low whistle. "I almost lost you there, big brother. Nearly had to send in the Saint Bernards to dig you out."

"What I cannot fathom," he gritted between clenched teeth, "is why she doesn't feel the need to include you in her voracious affections."

"Probably senses my inner slimy monster," I grunted philosophically, wiping the grease from my supper on my bartender's apron.