“Yup, and you can bring us another round when you have a sec, doll,” Boone answers before I can, a smirk plastered on his face. “Cheers!” He clinks my glass and sucks back his drink.
I follow suit, gritting my teeth against the slight burn of hard liquor. It slides down my throat without too much bite, though, so I’m guessing it’s not the four-bucks-a-shot bar-well vodka. Still, I’d rather just have a beer.
“How can you afford coming to places like this?” I hold up my glass. “Drinking this.” Boone makes the same amount as me and it’s nothing to brag about. Sure, our cost of living is low, renting in southeast Portland, but living like Boone isn’t cheap. I don’t even want to think about the bill this ass**le’s going to stick me with tonight.
Boone answers with a one-shouldered shrug. “I buy one, two drinks max. Rust always picks up the tab. I’m his favorite nephew.”
“Aren’t you his only nephew?”
Another middle finger answers me.
Three vodkas later, I’m feeling tingles coursing through my limbs. Boone slaps the table and slides out of his chair. “Come on. Don’t say anything stupid around these guys, all right?”
I roll my eyes at him as we abandon our seats and head through the growing crowd, toward the back of the club. The crowd thins the farther we go, until we’ve reached a section with five alcoves and one roped-off area. Very VIP. Boone stops at the last one, a large, round leather booth with dim crystal pendants hanging from above and heavy black curtains around the sides to add to the secluded feeling. Four men are seated within.
“There he is!” Rust slides off the end to throw an arm around Boone’s shoulder. “Thought you weren’t coming tonight.” I’ve met the tall blond man exactly twice before, for two minutes apiece. He’s the money behind the garage but he leaves the actual garage operations to his manager, Steve Miller, a 250-pound man with a long, scruffy beard and abysmal people skills.
Boone jerks his head back the way we came. “Just hanging up front with Jesse for a bit.”
Rust’s sharp blue eyes land on me—the same blue as his nephew’s. He reaches out to offer me a firm handshake, his gold watch catching a glint of light from above. “How are things going at the garage, Jesse?
“So far, so good.”
He gestures at the two empty chairs pulled up to the outside of the booth. “Top-ups?” He reaches for the bottle of vodka—the label in some foreign language with a weird alphabet—that sits in the middle of the table. I can’t say I’ve ever seen an entire bottle of hard liquor sitting on a table at a bar before, but I guess that’s how the rich roll.
And these guys stink of money.
As we take our seats and Rust pours, I scan the three other guys sitting around the table. Two are talking quietly on cell phones. The third, a lean, blond guy with angular features, dressed all in black, in his late thirties by my guess, gives the glass in front of him a hard glare while he rolls what looks to be a wedding band around his ring finger.
Now I know why Boone likes hanging around with these guys. He loves the stink of money.
“From what Miller tells me, my nephew’s not full of shit. Miller’s never seen anyone work so fast before.” Rust pushes my glass—almost overflowing—to me. “And I hear you might have my Corvette running again soon? No one’s been able to get that lemon working.”
I’m unable to smother the proud smile. I’ve been fiddling with engines since I got my first wrench and a dirt bike at nine years old. I used to sit on the bench in the garage and watch my dad work on his ’67 Mustang. The car I ended up finishing before he sold it. It was just a hobby to him. To me, it was a calling. The guys in high school shop used to call me the engine whisperer because I can fix anything; it doesn’t matter how complicated or how broken.
Regardless, I try not to act like a douchebag about it, so I play it off with a shrug. “I like classics.”
“Luke was telling me. You’re looking to get a . . .”
“’Sixty-nine Barracuda. Black.” No hesitation with that answer. It’s what I’ve wanted since I was seven years old and saw one race through Main Street back home on rodeo weekend, its black paint glistening after a car wash. It’s what I’ve been saving for. It’s the reason I’m driving a piece of shit now. Another year and it’ll be mine.
“Huh. That’s a good one.” Rust nods slowly, seemingly impressed. He lifts his glass in a toast and then gestures to the man in black across the table. “Well, my business partner here, Viktor, may have some extra work for you.”
I turn to find steely blue eyes already fixed on me from across the table, in a hard face that doesn’t appear accustomed to smiling. He sure as hell isn’t smiling now.
“Yes . . .” This guy, Viktor, pulls out a single cigarette and lighter from his shirt pocket and proceeds to light it up. “Perhaps first you could tell me about yourself. Rust has not shared much.” An accent touches his words, though I can’t identify where it’s from. Either way, he doesn’t sound particularly friendly. He must not be from America. That would explain why he thinks it’s okay to light up in a public establishment. That or he’s just ballsy as f**k.
I shrug. And then I hear my dad’s voice inside my head, ordering me to stop shrugging. Criminals and half-wits answer with shrugs. “Not much to tell. I just love working on engines is all.” There’s not much else Rust could tell this guy because there’s not much his nephew knows about me. Despite Boone and I living together and going to school together, we stay out of each other’s personal lives. He’s too self-involved to ask and I’m too private to offer. He knows I’m from mid-state but he doesn’t know I’m from a small town northwest of Bend, called Sisters. He knows my parents still live there and he’s overheard enough arguments over the phone to know that our relationship is rocky, but he has no idea that my dad’s the sheriff and my mom is a reputable surgeon. He knows I have a twin sister named Amber who’s a nurse, but I sure as hell am never introducing him to her.
I glance at Boone, not sure what else this Viktor guy expects me to divulge. Boone’s unusually quiet, though, his eyes bright and curious as he watches the man. In awe. Probably memorizing his style. If Boone starts smoking in our apartment, I’m going to kill him.
When I turn my attention back to Viktor, I see that he’s no longer focused on me, but on a spot behind me. Through a puff of smoke, two words laced with anger emerge. “You’re late.”
The guy to Viktor’s left slides out of the booth just as a waft of perfume catches my nose. It’s a nice enough smell and somehow familiar, but it’s way too heavy. I like a hint of perfume, where you’re not sure you caught it the first time, and you have to lean in closer, maybe dip your head into her neck, to catch it again.
A young woman in a flashy dress and too much makeup slides into the booth. Her side profile makes me think she might not be legal. Maybe a head-on look would change that assumption, but she hasn’t turned her face from the guy for one second. “My hair stylist took longer than expected,” she explains evenly.
“And you were incapable of calling?” It’s not even anger in his voice now. It’s ice.
“My cell phone battery died.”
“Of course it did,” he mutters, picking up his glass and swirling the clear liquid around, his jaw visibly clenched. “Why is charging your phone battery so difficult for you to remember?”
She sighs, like she’s tired. “I don’t know, Viktor. But I’m here now, at your demand.”
He butts his cigarette out on a plain white plate sitting on the table. And then his hand shoots up and slaps her cheek so fast that I almost miss it. It’s not a big slap—more of a sharp tap—but he does it, all the same. “Thirty minutes late.”
I shift uncomfortably in my seat as I watch this domestic scene unfold in front of us. If anyone else is bothered by it, they’re hiding it well, carrying on their own conversations.
She hesitates and then, when she speaks again, it’s with a more contrite tone. “Yes, Viktor. I know. I’m very sorry.”
“You complain that I don’t spend enough time with you, and then when I ask you to meet me somewhere, you make me wait and accuse me of being demanding.”
A gaudy diamond band sparkles on her delicate hand, catching my attention as she touches her long, straight hair. The color makes me think of Boone’s giant tub of peanut butter back home, as odd as that is. “Do you like it?”
“No, not particularly.”
I can’t keep my eyebrows from jumping at that one. I may be only twenty-four, with minimal relationship experience, but isn’t there a golden rule that you lie with these kinds of questions if you want to get laid?
“Do I look fat?” “No.”
“Am I ugly without makeup?” “No.”
“Are you attracted to my friends?” “No!”
Viktor takes a sip of his drink and then, staring at the liquid within, murmurs, “What am I going to do with you, my beautiful wife?”
Five long seconds pass, where I watch her watch him without blinking, her right hand balled into a white-knuckled fist on the table, and then Viktor leans in and lays a slow kiss on her lips. Despite her stiff demeanor, I feel the air shift around me with the affection, as if she just avoided a catastrophe. Hell, I feel like I just avoided a catastrophe.
His finger twirls a strand of her hair. “At least you did not cut it.”
She gives a half-hearted smile and then shakes her head. “Just wanted to try something new.”
“Viktor . . .” The thick-necked blond guy to the right nudges him, covering his phone with one hand while he spews off a bunch of words in a foreign language. It allows his wife’s attention to flicker over the other faces at the table. Striking reddish-brown eyes suddenly land on me. They rest there for one . . . two . . . three quick seconds, before she shifts her gaze to the vodka bottle in front of her.
And I realize that I’ve been staring at her for way too long. I quickly swing my attention to Rust and Boone’s conversation.
“How much longer before I can start running the garage?” Boone asks.
“Not until you learn how to balance a tire properly,” Rust throws back. “Don’t think I didn’t hear what happened with the Cayenne.”
“Ah, f**k. That wasn’t my fault! Miller distracted me with . . .” I wonder how long it’s going to take Boone to figure out that Miller is gunning for him. He knows that Rust has no use for two managers. Once Boone’s ready, Miller’s out. The forty-eight-year-old—who’s as abrasive as a Brillo pad against your cheek—is in no rush to let that happen.
Either way, I’ve heard this story before and I don’t need to hear about Boone’s dumbass mistake again. My eyes drift back around the table. The guy to Viktor’s right is off his phone now and leaning in to tell Viktor something. I can’t hear what they’re saying but both of them look agitated, Viktor’s finger tapping the table repeatedly. His attention seems fully occupied.
Maybe that’s why I hazard another glance at his wife.
Maybe that’s why I find her blatantly staring at me.
Her expression is hard, disinterested. She’s probably bored, sitting in this booth with a bunch of men and no one to talk to, no drink offered, nothing to do but twirl that flashy wedding band around her finger and fiddle with the top of her sparkly blue dress. She certainly put effort into her appearance, a dark layer of blue swiped across her eyelids and bright red lipstick painting her full lips. She has perfect, high cheekbones. The entire package looks impeccable and rich, and yet also somehow cheap.
A sudden hand on my shoulder makes me jump. I look up to find Priscilla hovering behind my chair. “Did you want another drink?” She obviously hadn’t even checked the glass in my hand; otherwise she’d know it’s full and that question was stupid. Given her eyes are on Viktor, it’s safe to say I’m only an excuse for her visit here, anyway.
“No, thanks. Can I grab my check when you get a chance?” I’d like to say “close the tab and get me the f**k out of here ASAP,” but with my employer here, I hold myself back.
“Priscilla,” Viktor calls. She managed to grab his attention, after all. To his wife, Viktor utters an abrupt word in that other language, pushing her out of the booth with a hand on her slight upper arm.
Reaching out to touch Priscilla’s shoulder with a degree of gentleness that he didn’t show his wife just a moment ago, Viktor rattles off something to her. She answers him with a coy smile and a nod, obviously understanding him. I don’t miss the smirk she throws toward his wife before turning and leaving, her h*ps swaying way more than they did when she walked away from our table earlier. I’m guessing a guy like Viktor would be right up her alley.