Games of the Heart (The 'Burg #4)(141)

Now he looked unhappy.

“What’s up?” I asked.

Mike put a hand to the small of my back and guided me to the end of the bar closest to the door. It was Saturday night, still relatively early, but the place was busy.

“I’m rethinkin’ this,” he muttered as we got to the bar.

“Why?” I asked.

“That’s why,” he answered, his eyes pointed at something across the room and I looked that way.

There were two female bartenders. One I vaguely recognized as February Owens now Colton. The other was a blonde who was really very pretty but also kind of slutty. Still, she worked it. Neither of them had been there the last time Mike and I had hit J&J’s. That time the bar was worked by Feb’s brother Morrie and a guy Mike introduced me to as Darryl and the floor was worked by a woman named Ruthie.

At the other end of the bar directly opposite us sat Colt, Joe Callahan and a very handsome man that was also somewhat familiar. Standing around them and definitely with them were two other men and four women. One was Rocky so I suspected the handsome guy was her husband Tanner Layne. One was a stunning brunette. The other two had to be Feb’s friends since forever, Jessie now Rourke and Mimi “Meems” now VanderWal. They were all older than me so I didn’t go to school with them (except Rocky who was older than me but only by a year so I knew her back in the day though, her being older, we didn’t hang).

Even though Jessie, Feb and Meems were not in school when I was, I still knew them. Everyone in The ‘Burg knew them. And not just because Feb was the obsession of a sickwad serial killer that got national attention so she did too. But because back then to now with Feb taking a break by wandering the country heartbroken at losing Colt for-freaking-ever they were people that people knew.

This was mostly because all of those bitches, in their way, were f**king crazy.

But my eyes honed on the brunette.

Oh God, that had to be Violet Callahan.

In short order the news Mike and I had arrived rippled through the group. This instigated, I saw, by Jessie. So I saw it when Violet’s eyes came to me.

She was gorgeous.

“What’ll it be, hot guy and hot chick?”

I tore my eyes away from the woman Mike kind of fell in love with before me. Then I looked to see the slutty bartender in front of us. She was grinning at both of us like someone was telling her the most hilarious joke in the world and she really, really wanted to laugh but she didn’t want to miss the end of the joke by laughing.

“Tequila shooter, STAT,” I ordered and her smile got even bigger.

“Fuck,” Mike muttered.

“I’ll take that to mean two,” the woman guessed and Mike looked at her.

“You’d be wrong. I’m drivin’. Bud, bottle.”

“At your service,” she muttered then bent to open a fridge and pull out a Bud doing this while talking, her eyes never leaving me, “I’m Cheryl by the way, also by the way I know who you are.”

She shoved the bottle under the bar and popped off the cap. Then she set it in front of Mike.

I focused on her. “You know me?”

She reached for a bottle on the shelves behind the bar, tagged it with a shot glass then she slammed it down in front of me and started pouring.

And she also started explaining, her eyes locked to mine. “Uh…yeah. Totally. Your brother was known by everyone and everyone liked him,”

She stopped pouring at the exact right time even though her eyes didn’t go to the glass which meant practice and I thought that was pretty cool.

She kept talking, “Sorry for your loss. He came in a couple of times, he was the shit. That totally sucks and I’m not makin’ light ‘a that. It just sucks. And then there are rumblin’s of trouble. That sucks too. I hope that’s sorted out ‘cause death and trouble sucks even more than just death and death is the worst there is so that’s sayin’ somethin’. Then you light into town and nail down the numero uno eligible bachelor in The ‘Burg in, like, a day. Half the bitches in this place are plotting your murder as we speak. This is seein’ as they’ve been plottin’ to become the next Mrs. Haines for about three years and you killed their dreams, I’ll repeat, in a day. So yeah, Dusty, I know you.”

I stared at her. Then I grabbed my shot of tequila. Then I tossed it back.

When I put my empty down to the bar and after I took in a deep breath, I informed her, “I like you. I need a new best friend. I’ve added you to the top of a list that has one name. Yours.”

She threw her slutty blonde, huge head of hair back and roared with laughter this shaking her big, probably fake knockers that were incased in a skintight tank top. This was a show I was pretty certain every man in the room took in except Mike, Colt, Joe Callahan and Tanner Layne mostly because all their women had knockers that rivaled Cheryl’s albeit not encased in a skintight tank.

Cheryl laughed but Mike muttered, “Fuck.”

I looked at him. “What?”

He looked at Cheryl and said, “No offense,” then he looked at me and explained, “She’s a f**kin’ nut.”

“No offense taken,” Cheryl stated generously.

“So am I,” I reminded him.

“She’s a different kind of nut,” Mike clarified.

Cheryl put her forearms on the bar, her eyes on Mike, all ears. “What kind of nut am I?”