Asher snorted and reopened his laptop. “He means an awesome, kick-ass band. We perform here every Friday if you want to check us out.”
Grin flitting across his face, Pick pointed out the last guy, who was stacking glasses against the back wall. “Last but not least, that’s Mason Lowe. We’re basically related since his woman and mine are first cousins, so I kind of have to play favorites with him.”
“What the fuck ever,” Ten called from where he was taking a chair off a table. “I’m your favorite, and you know it.”
“So have you ever tended bar before?” Noel broke into the introduction, obviously ready to get to work.
I hadn’t even been old enough to drink before I’d been arrested, so no, I’d definitely never tended a bar before.
I shook my head.
His jaw tightened briefly before he asked, “Waited tables?”
“Nope.”
“Of course not.” He rubbed a spot on his forehead and sent Pick a scowl. “Couldn’t have made this even a little easy for me, could you, Ryan? Thanks a lot.”
Pick waved Noel’s resentment away as he seated himself at the bar and pulled out his cell phone to check something. “He’ll be fine.” Then he grinned. “His dad was an alcoholic; he probably knows how to mix most drinks already.”
When Noel sent me a questioning glance, I shrugged. My old man hadn’t bothered with mixing; he’d mainly drunk shit straight from the bottle. But if it helped Noel assume I had any more experience than I did, I’d let him think it.
“We’ll start with the cash register,” he said.
He went over the basics and it seemed easy enough to follow, so I nodded my understanding. Then he pulled a couple of laminated posters out from under the bar. “Here are some cheat sheets for prices and how to mix the most popular drinks. Or you can just ask me.”
Letters and numbers blurred in front of me, but I bobbed my head some more. I’d probably be asking him a lot tonight.
“Dirty glasses go in this rack until they’re ready to be cleaned. When the tray’s full, they go into this sanitizing booster heater here to wash them. And...” He paused. “Hart! What the hell?” He slapped the bar top next to Asher. “We open in five. Put the goddamn laptop away and get to work already. The Taylor Swift eighties dance video can wait.”
“Oh, I’m past Taylor.” Asher grinned as he shut the laptop. “I was watching a Nat Geo documentary on squirrels, and now I totally want a pet squirrel.”
Noel blinked at him. “Are you fucking serious right now?”
“What? They’re freaking geniuses. You should see how they outsmarted this homeowner who kept trying to keep them out of his birdfeeder. I mean—”
Noel pointed. “You need to get laid. Bad.”
Hart wiggled his eyebrows. “Let me borrow your wife for an hour, and I will.”
With a frown, Noel opened mouth to reply, but Hart quickly added, “Or your sister.”
A passing Ten slapped him on the back of the head. “Dream on, fucker.”
Hart shrugged and glanced at me. He smiled briefly before clearing his throat and scratching the back of his neck. “Hey, uh, were you kept at Statesburg when you were locked up?”
I pulled back, my stomach muscles tensing from merely hearing the word. “Yeah.”
“F-House?” he asked, and was there a hint of hope in his voice.
I frowned, curious how he even knew what the prison’s roundhouse was called. “Why?”
He just kept watching me, intently. “Were you?”
I nodded once.
His shoulder dropped an inch. I’m not sure if it was relief or more anxiety I saw in his response. “Ever meet a Miller Hart there?”
I knew who he was talking about immediately, so I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. The similarities in his last name and Miller’s wasn’t lost on me. “The wife killer?”
Asher flinched, but said, “Yeah.”
I shrugged. “We didn’t run in the same circles, but I knew who he was. He got his ass kicked a lot.”