Nightlife (Cal Leandros #1)(50)

It was still early enough that we were among a very select group of hard-core alcoholics. I slapped a hand on the bar to get Meredith's attention. "Hey, Merry, hose us down, would ya?"

She finished stacking glasses and moved over in front of us to lean suggestively on the counter. Her skintight, baby-doll T-shirt had a neckline low enough to display the produce far and wide. "Cal, Niko, who's your new friend?"

I should've known. Merry had probably smelled Robin coming five blocks away. New meat. Ding-ding-ding. Of course, it could be interesting. Two predators coming together. We could lay bets on who would get gobbled up first. "Oh, sorry. Meredith, this is Robin… er… Rob Fellows," I introduced less than smoothly.

She leaned further, the twins teetering precariously inside their cotton prison. "Nice to meet you, Rob," she murmured with a throaty purr. "Very nice indeed."

Goodfellow gave her only a shadow of his usual leer, the glance at her overflowing breasts barely lustful. "Not as nice as it is to meet you, my fairy princess. Especially as there is so much of you to meet."

It was almost disturbing, his lack of enthusiasm. This was not the Goodfellow we'd come to know and vaguely tolerate. "Merry, this man needs a drink and fast," I ordered with dark cheer. "Before we lose him altogether."

"We certainly don't want that, do we?" With a practiced and flirtatious flip of her hair she took our choice of poison. She was so enamored of Robin that she didn't even blink at Niko ordering a beer. Granted, it was an imported one, but it was alcoholic and it still gave me a shock to see Niko taking a pull from the bottle.

"No glass?" I touched my bottle to his with a clink. "You barbarian."

"I have every expectation the bottle is cleaner than any glass here," he said with lofty disdain. I couldn't argue with that. I'd washed some of those glasses.

Robin didn't bother with warming up, but instead skipped right to the hard stuff: Scotch straight up. No rocks, no water, hell, barely even a glass. I swapped amused glances with Niko as we watched him go. He'd said Homer had almost drunk him under the table. I didn't believe that for a second. The man, to use the term loosely, could drink. Within an hour he had all but drained the bar dry and wore out Meredith trying to keep up with his demands for more drinks. More people had started to trickle in and she was looking more frazzled with each new customer and every wave of Robin's hand followed by a caroled "Another round, fairy princess!"

Goodfellow was waiting for his latest drink when he finally started to list on his stool. His head ended up on Niko's shoulder, his nose buried in the long blond fall of my brother's hair. The braid was history, courtesy of my freak-out. Robin inhaled and murmured, "Your hair smells good, like warm summer sun."

Niko sighed patiently and shifted him back up onto his stool. Not one to give up so easily, he immediately listed to the other side and took a nosedive in some woman's shoulder-length brown curls. "Your hair smells good," he repeated happily. "Like warm summer sun."

"On that note." Niko stood and stretched. "It's your turn to babysit." He moved off toward the back of the bar and the bathrooms.

Robin used the opportunity to plop down on the deserted barstool. Pillowing his head on his arms, he studied me with half-lidded, sleepy eyes. "Hello," he said solemnly.

The alcohol fumes from his breath alone would give you a contact buzz. I snorted, "Hello yourself, Loman."

"You all right?" Robin's sly, sarcastic mouth was turned down with no hint of its normal irreverent twist.

He was worried, sincerely worried and obviously just as sincerely sorry for what had happened. I had a feeling Goodfellow wasn't used to being wrong. What had happened had really thrown him for a loop, even more so than it had me. In some ways I was relieved it hadn't worked. That probably made me one helluva coward. We hadn't gotten the information we'd hoped for. In fact we hadn't gotten anything except a sore throat and a few bruises. Considering I'd based a lot of hopes on what we'd find out, you'd think I'd be more disappointed. But in the end I think I'd been afraid what I would remember would change me for good and not necessarily for the better.

"I'm all right," I assured him. "I don't remember a thing. Which is about par for the course for me, huh?"

"I'm not so sure you don't have the right idea there." Exhaling, he closed his eyes. "Wish I could forget." Then he straightened, sat up, opened his eyes, and shed the self-pity instantly. "Do you think you'll leave, then? Since we didn't find out anything, I'm sure your brother will be determined to hie for the hills."

I shrugged and took a swallow of my second beer. "Nik's got my best interests at heart, the stubborn bastard. Still, I want to stay. I'm tired of running." Setting the bottle down, I added without much optimism, "I'll talk to him, but Nik is Nik."

"You're fortunate, you know. Having a brother." He ignored the new drink Meredith deposited in front of him. Definitely less enamored of him than she had been previously, his fairy princess gave him a pointed glare and steamed off.

"I know." Revealing genuine emotion to someone other than my brother didn't come easily to me, but this was one of the rare occasions that I let it color my words. "As long as I have Niko, I think I just might survive all this shit."