Instead of answering me, she whirled around and went to put the beers back in the cooler. I waited until she came back out, and made her lead the way out of the kitchen back to the bar. I had been gone long enough that the band was done with their set and that meant a crowd had gathered and Dixie was standing behind the bar trying to catch orders up. I nudged Avett with my elbow and deposited my haul into her hands. I pointed to Royal, who was sitting stoic in the middle of the rush, her head bent down and her gaze locked on the bar top.
“Feed the redhead. Make sure she eats it, and if I ever catch you trying to steal again you’re out of here. I don’t care what I promised Brite or how much it would break Darcy’s heart.”
She gave me a baleful look and muttered just loud enough that I could hear it, “Funny coming from you.”
She wasn’t wrong. It was ridiculous coming from me, so I ignored her and dove into the mess of trying to sort the rush out. It was only half an hour until last call, so it proved to be a little trickier than usual. The weekends at the Bar were getting busy enough since Rome’s remodel that I thought maybe I was going to have to ask him about hiring another server as well as a bouncer. Business was good, and in order to keep it that way we needed to make sure the crowds got service just as good as the battered old veterans that littered the place during the daytime hours.
I tried to keep an eye on Royal. I was worried she was going to try and leave before I could talk to her and before I could judge if she was sober enough to drive, but she was in the same spot, head bent down, eyes focused on the bar, and her water was gone. She had also put a good-sized dent in the food in front of her, so that made me breathe a little easier. She was abnormally quiet and I wished I had thought to grab her shirt for her when I pulled her out of the crowd earlier. She looked rumpled, like she had just climbed out of bed, and that wasn’t doing a thing to help me remember why I needed to get her out of the tailspin she had been in ever since the week before Christmas.
I got last call done. I paid the band and thanked the lead singer for helping me out with the frat kids, and he in turn asked me if I thought Royal would be interested in going on the road with them as a backup dancer. I had to laugh and broke the news to him that she already had a full-time job. I didn’t bother explaining what it was because I doubted he would believe me anyway. I helped Dixie clear the floor, and when we started to move people toward the front doors, I stopped next to Royal’s side and told her, “Hang out for a minute.”
She didn’t respond but she pushed some of her hair out her face, tucked it behind her ear, and looked at me out of the corner of her eye.
I took that as silent assent and helped Dixie get everyone outside and gave her a hand putting all the chairs up so that the cleaning crew Rome hired could spit-shine the place before we opened again tomorrow. Dixie and I had a system since we did this together six nights a week, so it was work that went by pretty quickly. When I was done I went behind the bar, poured myself a Dalwhinnie on the rocks, and took myself and my drink back around the other side of the bar so I could sit on a stool next to Royal. Everyone teased me that I should drink bourbon or whiskey, being as I was from Kentucky, but I preferred the smooth and dirty taste of scotch. It sort of fit since I was both those things myself.
I took a swig of the drink and set it down with a thunk on the bar. I ran my hand through my dirty-blond hair and looked at Royal out of the corner of my eye.
“So this is what you do now? Get drunk, rile up the natives, take half your clothes off in public, and just generally act the fool? ’Cause I gotta tell you, after two weekends in a row of it, I think it’s probably time you find another bar to haunt.”
I saw her shoulders slump and she matched my side-eye look.
“Why didn’t you tell those guys I was a cop?”
I sighed and turned to face her. I really wished she wasn’t such a looker. It made trying to be level-headed and rational around her that much harder.
“Because even though you can carry concealed legally because of your badge, you still can’t be drinking while carrying a loaded weapon. That’s illegal and a headache you really don’t need.”
“All of a sudden you’re concerned with others being law-abiding.” A little bit of her sass was coming back and that was a nice change from her maudlin moping that had settled around her since I pulled her off the dance floor.
“No. I don’t give a flying fuck about others being law-abiding, but you’ve got a job you like, friends that care about you, and you’re way too young to be flushing it all down the toilet. Even if that seems to be your new mission in life. You need to get your shit together, Royal, before you’re too far gone to fix the mess you seem so eager to make.” She was barely twenty-three. That seemed a lifetime younger than me, even though I had a couple more years ahead of me before I hit the big three-oh.
“That’s funny coming from you.”
Second time I had heard that in less than an hour. Maybe I just needed to keep my nose out of it and let everyone learn their own hard lessons just like I had been forced to do. I picked up my drink and took another slug.
“Get it together or don’t, but this is the final warning about bringing that nonsense into my bar. You want to go down in flames, I guess that’s your call, but I’m not going to watch you burn.”
Something flashed across her eyes, something so sad and lost it really made me want to reach out and comfort her, but touching Royal was like touching a live wire and I already had a hard enough time keeping my mind out of my pants and my hands to myself when I was around her. She blinked those long-ass lashes at me, stuck her tongue out to flick it across her bottom lip, and I forgot how to breathe for a second. She did it on purpose. I had no doubt.