Caesar groaned. “No. None of that. That was a bad one. Just soda, probably. Tanner sometimes orders seltzers that taste like fruit. Yuck.” He made a gagging noise. “No thank you. Just no.”
“For that alone, I am going to go order one and wrestle you to the ground until you drink the whole thing.” Tanner took off his guitar case and set it down, while next to me, Caesar jerked up.
“Number one, you couldn’t take me down to make me drink that shit. Second, are you going to play tonight? Been too long.”
Tanner stretched out on the couch, placing his feet on the coffee table in front of him. “Maci asked.”
“Thanks for asking, Maci.” Ace squeezed my hand. “He had stopped playing. None us were exactly sure why, but it’s great to have him playing again.”
“I…” I cleared my throat. “I can’t take credit for him playing, just for wanting to hear him.”
Ace sighed. “He doesn’t play for us anymore.”
“Here.” Griffin pulled out a board game from under the table. “We haven’t done this in a long while. Let’s play. That is, if you want to, Maci.”
I’d never seen that game before. My board game repertoire had to do with whatever they played with us in school when we were very young. I hadn’t even seen one in more years than I could remember. My mother sometimes played cards, but it was mostly so she could giggle her way through taking off her clothes with whatever bozo she’d brought home for the night, the week, whatever.
He passed me the game, and I looked at the back of the box to read the directions. Scanning the words, I read fast. Basically, we were going to each get cards that would create a character. Then we had to argue why our character could beat the character of the person sitting next to us on the left. In the end, everyone would vote.
It was different than rolling dice and connecting four or whatever. I passed Griffin back the box. “Sure. Looks like fun.”
That must have been what he was hoping for, because his smile was huge. Ace whistled through his teeth. “Ooph. The valedictorian must think that you’re a worthy opponent. Like someone else and his music, he doesn’t play with us anymore.”
“Maybe we’ve all been a little bit bored.” Caesar lounged lazily next to me. His eyes were barely slits.
I touched his knee. “You okay?”
“I don’t sleep very much. Sometimes it catches up to me. I’ll be struck with adrenaline any minute, and then I’ll be more fun.”
I wasn’t concerned with how fun he was or wasn’t. “Maybe you should go home and get some sleep.”
“That’s where I’m the least tired. My father is away for a long time, and I have a hard time sleeping when he’s gone. I don’t sleep that well when he’s there, either, but it’s worse when I know he’s absolutely not around to control the surroundings, so to speak.” He shrugged. “It’s fine. By tomorrow morning, I’ll seem relatively normal. I guess I really don’t need that much.”
We all needed a certain amount of rest, that much I knew. We could go long periods of time without it, but eventually, it caught up in tricky, nasty ways. I knew it from personal experience. “Take a nap now. The couches are comfortable.” More comfortable than my bed, if I were being honest.
“No.” He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “First of all, you’re here with us, and that’s a treat. Second, I don’t sleep in public places. That’s called being vulnerable, and I am never that, if I can avoid it. Only certain people get to see me while I’m not alert, and there are too many people out there in the bar area whom I would never let see me like that.”
The door slid open, and the woman who must have been Wanda came inside carrying a tray with a bunch of sodas. “Sorry it took a few minutes, boys. Big crowd out there tonight. A lot of hopefuls.”
Rowan shook his head. “Not that. Not in here. Not tonight. We’re cutting that off right now. I promised her not to say too many things she couldn’t ask about. That goes for all of us, including you, Wanda.”
She set down the tray and laughed. “Oh, honey, start asking questions and fast. I know they’re cute, but these five are trouble. Good trouble, for now.”
Tanner jumped to his feet. “Thanks for the soda.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll pay you in a bit.”
“Yes, you will.” She waved her hand by her face. “How can you stand how hot it is in here?”
“Games.” Griffin held up the box. “Let’s play now.”
Five
“Does everyone in the whole bar know what I don’t know?” I had to ask. This was all getting to be too much. “Are you in the mob?”
“The mob?” Ace’s eyebrows shot up. “I like that one. And no, they don’t. They absolutely don’t. Wanda doesn’t really know what she thinks she knows.” He sighed. “Don’t leave. Let’s play.”
I guessed it wasn’t the mob. Fine. If I were too stupid to live, like one of those heroines that I screamed at to run away, then so be it. Tomorrow, I would figure things out.
The door swung open again, this time with a bang. Four of the guys who had been sitting outside not drinking—the ones I thought I recognized—stood in the doorway. They were tall, all of them, and strong. That much was clear. They were also incredibly pale. When was the last time they’d been in the sun?
Whoever they were, the guys really didn’t like them. The tension in the room increased tenfold. Caesar was wide awake now.
“What do you want?” Rowan grabbed the board game from Griffin and opened the box. He started piling the cards out on the table. Although he’d spoken to the newcomers, he hadn’t looked at them. The others were, but not Rowan, like he couldn’t bother to raise his gaze.
“Hello to you too, cousin.” The man in front walked a few more steps inside the room. “We saw you come in with a girl. Thought we’d make sure that you were behaving yourselves. Can’t have you five getting into trouble, now, can we? Since we’re all going to be listening to you soon.”
Caesar put his arm around me. It was an odd feeling. Ace and Caesar both held me. Still, it seemed important when he’d done that, and I had enough self-preservation from years of the men my mother brought home to know when I was in danger. I just stayed still and silent.
“Not so soon,” Griffin answered. “Or did you lose the ability to count?” He held up his hands. “We have uninformed company, so unless you have something generic to say, go do whatever you were going to do tonight and leave us alone.”
He took another step inside, although his two companions didn’t move. “We could inform her.”
“Do it and see what happens to you.” This time, it was Tanner who spoke. “Whatever you think, you’re nothing to them. Nothing. And we may still be who we are, but we matter. You don’t. Make me unhappy and see what happens, I dare you.”
Ace rose. “Come on, we’re leaving.” He extended his hand, obviously toward me, and I took it. He squeezed our fingers together. “Leave her alone. Don’t look at her or even think about her. She’s nothing to do with this.”