Page 61 of Iron Hearts
“Don’t mention it.”
The Iron Horse was going to be closing much earlier than it usually did. The party wasn’t ending, it just moved on over to the Broken Spoke where the liquor flowed.
I didn’t move with it, though. Even when some of the guys came around looking for me, I stayed put in my seat at Rarity’s bar.
The sun was getting low when two hands clapped down on my shoulders and tightened, thumbs digging, shaking me back and forth on my bar stool in their exuberance.
“We gonna catch you two later back at the clubhouse?” I lost my tense posture at Renegade’s voice.
Rarity looked up from her cleaning and sorting back behind the bar and smiled, happy-go-lucky, “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve got to run out to Daytona in the morning and I have work here tomorrow evening for a few hours. This was great, though! Thank you guys so much for putting this all together to help us out.”
“Aw, it was to help everybody, really,” Renegade said, sliding up on the stool next to mine.
“Float for the road?” Rarity asked him.
“Yeah, I believe I will,” Renegade declared. “You got any of that birch beer back there?”
“I surely do,” Rarity said cheerfully.
“Rarity, this is Renegade,” I introduced them. “Renegade is the President of our chapter.”
“Hi,” Rarity said. “I kind of figured, you look like a man who’s in charge.”
Renegade laughed and nodded, “I get that a lot,” he said.
She and he bantered a bit while she made his float and handed it over.
“Thank you kindly, Ms. Rarity,” Renegade said.
“I’ll see you guys later, back at the club,” I told him, and he gave me a nod.
“Y’all have fun, whatever you get up to,” he said and took his float and went off to join a knot of Bastards at the top of the stairs.
Suddenly, it was just me and her up here, the next nearest person her friend Gemma over at bar three and a couple of the guys in charge of trash duty and security getting floats fromherand likely shooting their shot.
“So, how much longer you got to hang around here?” I asked her.
She checked her slim silver watch, the band old and stretched to where it slid around her even slimmer wrist and she gave a gusty sigh.
“Not long,” she declared. “Just have some clean up and need to check in with Rob and I think I’m pretty free to go.”
“Heard my name,” a balding older man with a paunch said coming up the back ‘employees only’ staircase around the back of the bar.
“Hey,” Rarity called, tossing things in an oversized trash bag.
“What was the question?” he asked.
“No question,” Rarity said.
“I just asked when she was off and getting out of here,” I said.
“Ah, now if she wants to,” Rob said. “Go on, I’ve got this,” he said.
“You sure?” Rarity asked.
“Girl, with how well this went, I’m thinking about making it an all-ages yearly event so families can come enjoy some good food, good music, and some ice cream – already in talks with the Broken Spoke for them to handle the liquor like this round and close down their kitchen. The whole thing was lucrative forbothof us.”
“We can see about making it a yearly deal,” I said. “Rotate charities for the poker run.”
