Behind Your Back - Cameron Chelsea M.. Страница 50

Saige texts me that night when I’m stuck at work catching up with everything, to tell me her parents want us for an early dinner on Sunday this time.

I race from the office straight to Cash’s place.

“Sorry I’m late. I got stuck at work.” Baz hands me a beer and I crack it open and take a grateful sip. I would love to drown my sorrows in a shot glass again, but I can’t do that now. I need to be on my game. Be sharp. Be on the lookout.

“All systems are go for the surveillance this weekend,” I say. Cash has already filled them in, but I’ve got the exact day and time now.

“Just don’t fuck it up,” Baz says. I get it. I really do.

“I’m not going to fuck it up. We’re almost there and then we’ll be out of town,” I snap. Silence fills the room. Nobody seems to want to argue with me. I take a deep breath and try to get myself under control.

“Let’s go out,” I say. The only time we’re all together is when we’re in Cash’s office. It’s nice here, but it can feel a bit like a cave sometimes.

“Are you serious?” Row asks. “Isn’t that against every single rule we’ve ever made?”

“Yes. But I think we need to live a little more outside of the job.” They all look at me as if I’ve lost my marbles, but then Track grins.

“Hell yes. Can I pick the place?” Baz makes a choking noise.

“Fuck no. You’d probably pick some strip club that’s only dudes.” Track looks scandalized, but it’s definitely true.

“Are you so insecure in your sexuality that you can’t go look at a naked man? Baz, I’m shocked.” That causes Baz to put Track in a headlock and they have to tussle it out for a few minutes.

“It’s risky, but if we take separate cars and go somewhere that’s out of the way, we can do it,” Hardy says, ever practical.

“I think it’s worth it,” I say.

It takes an hour to plan the damn thing. There are just a lot of factors to consider. I am beginning to think my impulsive idea isn’t worth the effort, but the guys seem excited. I can’t say why just going out as a group is so special, but we’ve just never done it before. Maybe we need to loosen the reins a bit. Maybe we shouldn’t go after such big marks.

The bar we pick is actually Row’s suggestion. He seems to always know some shady people wherever we go. We take three cars, and show up at different times. I’m in the first group to arrive; the place where we pull up is nearly an hour outside of the city and looks like it’s held up with toothpicks and spit. Definitely nothing to write home about, but I bet the beer is cold and the music is loud.

“What a shithole,” I say and Row glares. He heads in first with Hardy and me following. The interior is filled with stale smoky air while Tom Petty bleeds into my eardrums. Besides the bar, there are a few tables, a pool table and a dartboard. This is where men who are short on luck come to drink their sorrows away. It’s perfect.

Row secures us a table in the back, under a flickering light. No one even looks up at us, and I can feel Hardy scanning the room to make sure we’re good and no one is watching us.

“Clear?” I ask. He nods and we sit down. Row brings us two pitchers of ice cold cheap beer and the next two groups finally arrive. Since this was my crazy idea, I volunteer to be a DD on the way back and limit myself to one glass of the stuff. Hardy and Track also volunteer. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great either.

“The only thing that would make this perfect is if there were a few pretty girls,” Baz says, looking around. There are a few women here, but there here with either husbands or boyfriends.

“Don’t pout, it’s unbecoming,” Track says with a wink. Baz just scowls at him and keeps drinking. Back at Cash’s, we made a rule that talk of work was off-limits both for purposes of having a good time and security. You never know who’s listening.

“I keep thinking that someone is going to jump us,” Cash says, looking around warily. I find this comical, because he’s definitely the biggest guy in here.

“Stop acting so squirrely,” Row says, bumping Cash with his shoulder. “Just relax.”

That’s easier said than done, but my one beer, I find my shoulders releasing some of the tension that lives in them all the time.

“I’m just saying, I wouldn’t kick her out of bed,” Baz says about the latest female celebrity hot mess.

“You wouldn’t kick anyone out of bed,” Row says, rolling his eyes. “You’d fuck anything with a vagina.”

“I don’t discriminate. There’s a difference,” Baz says. He and Row are well on their way to getting wasted and Cash isn’t far behind them.

“Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you were someone else?” Cash says. For someone who is generally happy, he sometimes gets maudlin when he drinks. This appears to be one of those times.

“What the fuck are you talking about? You can’t know what your life would be like if you were someone else, because you’d be someone else,” Baz says, as if it’s obvious.

“No, I get what you’re saying,” I say. “What kind of person you’d be if you got to live someone else’s life.” I used to wonder that. If my father hadn’t be a criminal and got my mother all wrapped up in his web of lies and blood. If my father had just been a banker, or a car salesman or a professor?

“There’s a lot of debate about nature versus nurture. They’ve studied identical twins that were separated at birth and then reunited and found that a lot of their traits are similar, even if they’ve been raised under completely different circumstances,” Hardy says, bringing the science.

“And who decides that person gets a shitty life? Who’s in charge of that?” We probably should have cut Cash off, but he’s too far gone now. He slumps on the table, taking up most of it and nearly knocking everyone’s glasses down.

“I just wanted to work in IT and get married and have a dog,” he says, so quiet almost no one can hear him. “But then my life had to go to shit.”

We all look at each other.

“Shitty stuff happens to everyone. Some people get more shit than others, but at the end of the day, we’re all speeding toward the same end game. Everyone dies,” Row says and Cash glares at him.

“That’s depressing.”

“The truth is most of the time.”

“Why don’t we play pool?” Track says. He’s our morale booster when Cash is out of commission.

I play Row, Hardy plays Baz and then Track (the best player in our group) plays all of us and wins. Cash is still not doing so hot, so we prop him up against the wall and start pouring water down his throat.

No one seems to notice us, or pay attention, but we’re all still on alert. Some of the patrons of this establishment clearly have criminal records, but then so do we.

Hardy is getting a refill on water for Cash when he bumps shoulders with a guy who clearly wants to start something. I had the feeling something like this would happen, but as the night wore on I thought we’d get lucky. Not so much.

Hardy turns to the guy and says something in a low voice. The guy guffaws and turns to his buddies. Clearly, he’s doing this all for show, but Hardy just steps toward the guy and then suddenly he’s on the ground. It happens so fast it doesn’t even look like Hardy touched him.

The guy screams as Hardy calmly walks back to us.

“I think it’s time to go.” I throw Cash’s arm over my shoulder and Baz gets his other side as we make a hasty retreat, the guy and his buddies screaming murderous threats at us. Hopefully they’re all so wasted none of them will remember this interaction tomorrow morning. But I have a feeling the asshole on the floor is going to be wondering what the hell happened.

“Did you have to drop him like that?” Row says. I can tell he’s pissed that the night has come to an end. I throw Cash in the car with Baz and then hop behind the wheel with Row and Hardy as Track drives the other car. We all leave at once, but vary our driving patterns so we arrive at the garage where we keep the cars at different times.