Move the Sun (Signal Bend #1)(57)

Rover was working behind the bar. When he wasn’t around, people helped themselves, but he knew he was expected to serve if he was in the Hall. Now, he came straight up to Isaac.

“Just a couple of Buds, Rove.” Rover nodded and turned to the bar fridge. Still holding Lilli’s hand, Isaac leaned toward Show. “After this drink, we need to talk.” Show gave him a quizzical look, but nodded and took a pull from his own beer. Rover brought their beers; when Lilli took hers with a bright smile and a softly spoken thanks, she turned to lean her back against the bar. Isaac watched her as she took in the Hall.

Her expression took on a rapt cast as her eyes fell on the far corner of the room. He realized what she was seeing and turned around himself to look.

For the most part, the Hall looked like a giant rec room where a bunch of mostly uncouth men hung out. The bar, which was a big, ugly thing with tufted orange vinyl up the sides (and for which Isaac was not in any way responsible—it predated him by decades) and stools upholstered with the same orange vinyl; a large pool table with a blue felt top; a couple of arcade video games and an old pinball machine; several big leather couches and chairs arranged in front of an 80-inch TV mounted on the wall; and a few four-top tables and chairs. The wall décor was lighted beer signs, bike posters, sexy pinups, an oversized bulletin board covered in snapshots, and a wall of framed certificates and plaques of town appreciation. The walls were cheaply paneled, the concrete floor covered in peeling, cracked linoleum. Everything well used, nothing remarkable.

But in the corner Lilli was fixed on was a large chess set, the board itself the surface of a table. The pawns were each five inches tall. The kings and queens, the largest pieces, were each ten inches tall. A game was in progress on the board. Isaac could tell that Lilli knew he’d made the set. He was pleased to see her rapt focus; he was proud of that work.

Chess sets were among the work he did that actually made him some real money. Depending on the wood he used and the carving and turning choices he made, he could get hundreds of dollars for a set that took him a couple of days to make and less than a hundred bucks in materials. He’d once done a set on special order that had taken him a week of fairly focused work, and had netted him a couple grand. But the work Lilli was fixed on was a labor of love. Isaac considered it art. The pieces were turned in an abstract style, and no two pieces, not even the pawns, were identical. The woods he’d chosen were elaborately grained and burled, and he’d spent a very long time picking the right wood, the right orientation of grain, for each piece. He’d made the set over months, when he had time to just play in his shop. It had been a kind of therapy, started right after his father died, when he’d taken over the head of the table.

Lilli turned to him, “Jesus, Isaac. That’s beautiful. Can I—?” She gestured her desire to take a closer look.

“Sure—that’s an actual game in progress, though, so it’d be good to leave the pieces where they are.” He went with her as she crossed the Hall.

“Who’s playing? You?” She brushed her fingers over the white queen, made of a perfect piece of spruce. She was a beauty; Isaac knew it—all spirals and latticing.

“Told you chess was my game. Show and I have one going pretty much all the time. None of these other *s has the head for chess.” He said that loudly enough for the room to hear him, since he was giving them shit. A lot of the men were smart enough, he thought, but they were mostly the kinds of guys who liked their games loud and drenched in booze. Poker was their game. They all knew to keep their paws off the board, though.

Isaac moved behind Lilli and put his free hand on her hips. He kissed the base of her neck, and she leaned back into him. He knew what the room was seeing. He wasn’t touching her rhetorically, but he was glad of the message nonetheless. He kissed slowly up the sleek line of her neck, and she tipped her head to the side to give him full access. When he reached her ear, he whispered, “You play?”

She turned into his kiss, her head resting against his shoulder. “I know how the pieces move, but no, I’ve never really played.”

“You should, Sport. You’d be great at it. Your mind works the right way.” The shit with Ray rising again to the fore of his thoughts, Isaac pressed his lips to her temple. “C’mon, let’s talk to Show.” He put his bottle to his lips and drained it, then he took her hand and led her back. He nodded toward the office to Show, who drained his beer and came off his stool to follow them.

When the three got back to the office, Isaac led Lilli to the couch against the back wall and sat down next to her. Left with the choice to sit three on the couch, stand, or sit in Isaac’s desk chair, Show, after a quick pause, sat in the chair. That was okay with Isaac. He had no need to remind Show who was in charge, and he wanted to be close to Lilli.

“We got ourselves a problem, Show. I need you to hear Lilli out. Can’t leave this room, though. Stays between us three until we’re ready to do what we decide to do.” Without a word, Showdown nodded and turned to Lilli, waiting for her to say her piece. With an uncertain glance at Isaac, she did. She told the story almost exactly as she’d told him. Isaac got the sense that it was the only way she could tell it, almost as if she were reading back a transcription.

Isaac watched Show as Lilli spoke. His VP was several years older than he, and the smartest man Isaac knew. He would have made a good president, too, but he was too smart to want it. Getting him to agree to be VP had taken Isaac a lot of effort. But from the time he was a teen, it was Show he could talk to, Show who had the right view on things. He was the kind of guy who sat back and saw everything. He wasn’t slow to act when action was needed, but he never acted simply for the sake of the action. He was quiet and thoughtful. He’d been in the club for a long time, and he’d seen some heavy shit, but he was content running the feed store and going home at night to his little house, and spending the evening with his wife and three daughters.