I felt something and looked back to my man to see he was no longer chuckling and his eyes were on me.
I read what was in his eyes so I knew I’d never make him say the words. That wasn’t how we worked.
But he was telling me I’d been right.
I knew that already, but it still felt good to get it from him.
I gave him a small smile, slid off my stool, and wandered across the room as I heard Millie say to Zadie, “Your turn, darling. Show Boz all we Judd girls can bring it.”
“You got it,” Zadie replied.
I didn’t look their way.
I made it to High, watching him tear his eyes from the action and bring them to me.
I took a breath and sat down on the couch, close.
I barely had my ass to the seat before he curled his arm that was on the back of the couch around my shoulders.
Then, casually, like we’d done this countless times before, he lifted his beer and took a tug.
I let out my breath, slouched in beside him, lifted my feet, and rested them on the coffee table.
We watched Zadie miss.
Her face fell with disappointment.
“Boz is so totally gonna blow it,” Millie declared. “You’ll get him next shot, sweetie.”
Zadie’s face brightened as she looked up at Millie and smiled.
“Thank you,” High whispered.
I pressed my lips together.
Then I relaxed into his side, his arm curling tighter, and I whispered back, “You’re welcome.”
Boz missed.
Millie sunk her ball.
So did Cleo.
And after that, Zadie won the game for the Judd girls.
High
“Holy crap!” Kellie shouted, pushing through the door in front of them. “This place hasn’t changed a bit.”
“Shots!” Justine cried, following her.
Veronica turned eyes over her shoulder to him and she muttered, “Taxi night.”
But she already knew it was a taxi night.
This was because the ride most of them came in was not the ride they’d go home in.
High just grinned at her as he guided Millie through the door after Veronica and Justine, hearing Elvira say from behind him, “This used to be Chaos?”
“Oh my God, this place is totally seedy,” Lanie replied. “I love it! We finally have a local that’s not the Common Room even if it’s miles away.”
They all moved in, expanding into the nearly-devoid-of-bodies space.
High did it holding Millie close and the instant they were inside, his gaze went to the bar.
Reb was staring at them, eyes big but face tight.
He bent to his girl’s ear.
“Grab a table, babe,” he muttered there. “I’ll get the booze.”
She looked from Reb to him and nodded.
She disengaged, glancing at Reb again, then following her girls to the table, her Chaos sisters, Tyra, Lanie, and Elvira following her.
Tack, Hop, and Boz followed High to the bar.
Reb met them there.
“Rumor’s true,” she said bitchily to High.
“Yep,” High replied.
She looked from High to Millie and back to High.
When she got his eyes, she declared, “You are one lucky motherfucker.”
Apparently, rumor wasn’t only true, it was thorough.
“Yep,” he repeated.
She glanced among them and announced, “Inflation didn’t escape Scruff’s, assholes. So don’t think I’m a cheap date.”
“Eleven beers, bottle, whatever’s cold, eleven shot glasses, and a bottle of tequila,” Tack ordered.
“Don’t got table service,” she warned, starting to pile shot glasses on the bar. “You boys are gonna have to cart this shit to your women.”
“Just serve the drinks, Reb, without the attitude, you got that in you,” Boz shot back.
“You lose your memory?” she returned.
“You don’t got that in you,” Boz surmised on a mutter.
Reb didn’t reply. She turned to the shelves at the bar’s back and nabbed a full bottle of Patrón.
They hadn’t asked for top-shelf Patrón but none of the brothers stopped her.
“What’s takin’ so long?” Elvira called.
When she did, Reb frowned at Boz before asking, “What’s that about attitude?”
Boz decided not to engage.
It was a good call.
The men carted the shit to the table.
The women drank, babbled, and cackled.
Kellie hit the jukebox.
Roscoe showed with a biker groupie. Pete showed alone. Snapper showed, also alone. Malik showed to join his woman. And through this, Reb’s meager regulars hit the joint.
Millie had been right. She needed Chaos back. It was plain to see.
Justine took her turn at the jukebox and then women lost their minds and sang Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” at the top of their lungs while the men grinned and Elvira glared, mumbling, “One a’ you boys needs to get a sister up in this joint so I can counter Bon Jovi with some Fiddy.”
It was then, feeling it, High turned his attention back to the bar.
It was not a surprise Reb had her eyes on him.
She also had a shot in her hand.
She lifted it his way, then she threw it back.
After that, she set the glass aside and moved, frowning, toward a man at her bar.
She was happy for him. For them. That was what she was saying and that was all either of them were going to get even if it was Millie who talked High into taking Chaos back to Reb’s dying bar.
High turned his attention back to his girl. She had her arms thrown around Lanie, who had her arms thrown around her. Millie’s head was thrown back and her mouth was open, loudly shouting the words to a song whose popularity, after decades, never died.