“Tells her he’s playing cards,” Bridgette murmured before her grin turned sly. “Though I can tell you that he has aterriblehand with how much coin he’s about to leave behind.”
Garrett smothered his grin behind his hand. “You want me to come up and check on you?”
“No need to subject you to that,” Bridgette said through a sigh before she smiled up at him. “But thank you.”
She returned to her caller before taking his hand. Garrett watched them go upstairs before turning his attention back to the rest of the room. Though try as he might, he couldn’t stop thinking about those blue eyes twinkling with wicked humor and that flash of smooth thigh.
The last man left sometime after midnight, and the brothel finally closed its doors. Garrett blinked heavy eyelids only to jolt upright when Monika thrust a broom into his hands.
“Not all nights are this slow or end this early,” she warned. “Best hurry up so you can get a good rest. I don’t want to see you dozing tomorrow.”
“No ma’am, I won’t,” he said, though he wasn’t sure how that was going to be possible. He swallowed that thought and obeyed Monika’s silent order to start sweeping.
As Monika cleaned up behind the bar, the girls who needed to brought down their sheets for the laundry. Bridgette was last to toss hers into the basket by the door. She yawned as she took a fresh set from the pile that had been left out on the counter before she caught his eye across the room.
“’Night, Garrett,” she called.
Madam Monika shooed her off with a glare, and Garrett stifled his smile but quickly lowered his eyes back to his work. When he finished sweeping, the Madam called him over to the bar. The stacks of silver and copper that the girls had earned made his eyes widen. And the Madam had said that this was aslownight.
She plucked one coin from the copper pile and held it out. He went to take it, but the Madam closed her fist around it. Garrett’s braced himself, waiting for her to pull the wool over his eyes, just like Giselle.
“I’m sure she’s singled you out just to gall me, but you don’t need to speak to Bridgette any more than is absolutely necessary,” Monika said. “Understood?”
Garrett swallowed the lump in his throat. “Understood, ma’am.”
Monika gave a curt nod before she dropped the coin in his hand. “See you tomorrow. You can come early again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, taking that last request as a good sign.
He grabbed his pack from behind the bar, tucking his coin into the purse with the half coppers he’d gotten from his week at the mine. He left out the back and heard Monika slide the bar closed behind him. It had a certain finality to it, and after the warmth of the brothel, the chill evening air made him shiver.
There were few places for him to stay, and none of them good. He could try to sneak back into the mine’s barracks, but that would mean risking Giselle’s wrath if he got caught. He wouldn’t put it past her to clap him in irons or hand him over to the constable for breaching the contract he hadn’t even been able to read. It was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.
His other option was to head for the outskirts of town. Find or make a shelter like he had when he had been on the road. His eyes were already heavy with exhaustion, and part of him wondered if he could even manage the trip.
Or maybe… he could just stay here.
He glanced up at the brothel before looking towards the other buildings that butted up to it. All of them were dark and quiet. No one would even notice a lone person tucked into the alley, would they?
Pulling his cloak a little closer around him, he set his pack down in the little stone alcove that sheltered Monika’s back door. It was cramped but quiet, and he sank to sit with a tired sigh. He tucked his pack carefully underneath him, making sure no one could reach his paltry coin purse without him feeling it.
Tomorrow, he’d have to figure out something else, but for now, it was good enough. And knowing that Bridgette was asleep somewhere above him helped him to do the same.
5
“Now, what the hell is this?”
Garrett jerked awake to find Monika glaring down at him, arms crossed. He’d been sleeping so soundly he hadn’t even heard her open the door. He scrambled to his feet, snatching up his pack.
“I-I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Monika’s frown only grew. “You might be more trouble than you’re worth, lad. I can’t be having my security sleeping on my godsdamned stoop!”
Garrett tried to gather a response, some excuse for her to keep him on, but a voice from above beat him to it.
“Then let him stay in the main room.”
His head shot up to see Bridgette leaning from one of the windows. She brushed out her long, silver hair as she watched their conversation. Curious faces peeked out behind her to see what the commotion was about.
