Jase’s eyes met hers and he grinned. “Oh yes, I’ve heard about Eva.” His smile grew when she blushed.
Charlie cleared his throat, clearly trying to change the subject without being forward. “So, you have some news for us?”
“I do,” said Jase, taking a drink of his beer. “First, you’ll be happy to know the problem from before has been solved. You will never be bothered again, and neither will your uncle, whenever he returns.”
Charlie scoffed. “You got a guarantee on that?”
Jase reached two fingers into a small pocket on his vest and came out with a white business card. He handed it to Charlie. “Here’s your guarantee. That’s the direct line to Henry Oliver, president of the Black Dogs. He has extensive influence, and you now get to count yourself among his allies. If anyone tries to hassle you again, call him, and we’ll take care of it.”
Charlie took the card with a surprised expression. “The Black Dogs Motorcycle Club?”
“Yes, that’s our organization, mine and Will’s,” said Jase. “Will is actually a very important part of our club.”
“Didn’t seem like it the other day,” said Charlie.
Jase sighed and took a drink. “That’s complicated. Everybody goes through dark times. Will’s just going through his. We don’t abandon brothers when they’re wounded. In any case, the club formally apologizes to you both for his, uh… methods. This was unusual for everyone.”
Charlie gave a hearty nod and stuffed the card carefully into his shirt pocket. “That’s appreciated. All we wanted was for things to get back to normal,” he said as he looked at Eva.
Speak for yourself, she thought.
“You should be able to do that now,” said Jase. He finished off the last of his beer, and Eva held up a hand and refused his money when he tried to pull out his wallet. Jase gave her a smile. “Hope you guys have a good evening.”
As Jase rose to leave, the office phone rang from the back room. Charlie jumped up and excused himself, clapping a friendly hand on Jase’s arm as he passed and disappeared around the wall. Seeing an opportunity, Eva called out to Jase just before he got to the door. He turned to her with an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
“Can I talk to you for a minute—alone?” she asked.
Jase looked over her head to where Charlie had disappeared. “Yeah, sure.”
Eva crossed her arms, feeling vulnerable and a little embarrassed. “Look, I don’t really know how to ask this, so I’m just going to come out and say it…” She squirmed a little on her feet. “I’m worried about Will. Is he really doing all right, or are you just telling us that to keep us settled?”
Jase smiled at her and pulled the smoke out of his lips. “I wouldn’t fuck around about something like that. Will’s my closest friend, I want to see him well, too.”
“I know he’s a dangerous man,” said Eva. “Just like I’m sure you are.” She looked around nervously. “I know this doesn’t make any sense, the kind of girl I am… I’m probably not his usual type… but he connected with me. We connected.” She had to pause and take a breath. Jase watched her with patient eyes. “I know he’s not in a good place. But I feel like I got to see the real Will under all that pain. And I… I really care about that Will. Can you promise to let me know if there’s something I can do for him?”
Jase watched her face quietly a moment before he grinned and said, “I can see why he likes you so much.”
Eva’s face flushed with heat. “What? What do you mean?”
Jase shook his head and laughed. “No, no, that’s not my conversation to have, and if you’re Will’s girl, that means you’re smart enough that you already know that, anyway.” When he winked at her, Eva blushed again and she gave him a guilty half-grin.
“I don’t know… but I hope,” she said.
“Will doesn’t exactly have a ‘usual type.’ He’s always been a very… self-sufficient man. So if he’s connected with you, Eva, then I would say don’t worry about all that surface bullshit.”
“You’re not going to kick him out of the gang, are you? You seemed so angry at him before.”
“Well, first, we call it a club. But no, we’re not kicking him out of the club. Will’s made amends. He’s on a good path to getting back to himself, now. He’s just going to have to serve out his punishment, first.”
Eva’s eyes widened and she felt her heart drop. She imagined something horrible and bloody. “Punishment?”
Jase paused, then laughed when he read her expression. “Relax, it just means he has to tend bar at the clubhouse for a few weeks instead of working any of the fun or important jobs. I guess ‘demotion’ is a better word for it.”
Eva let out a relieved laugh. “Luckily, we’ve already given him some practice with that. Although I’m surprised he’s accepting a demotion, to be honest. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who listens to people when he doesn’t want to.”
“That’s the thing. I think he wants to, now,” said Jase. “Not that he wants to put up with demotion, of course. It’s that he wants to be different, and he knows step one is putting up with his punishments.” Jase paused a moment, then added. “I shouldn’t say ‘different.’ It’s more like Will wants to be himself again. The Will he was two years ago.” He nodded toward her. “Which, I would guess, is the same Will you got to see underneath his pain.”
Eva was silent. The thought made her heart ache.
“Maybe you can help him get there,” said Jase. He gave her shoulder a gentle pat and left the bar.
~ NINETEEN ~
“So this is what it looks like on the other side,” said Tommy as he propped up his boots on one of the bar stools and gave Will a shit-eating grin.
Will handed him an open beer and gave him a half-smile. “Don’t get used to it.”
“No way, I’m never going back,” said Tommy with a laugh, clinking his beer against Will’s. They both took a drink.
At that moment, Will didn’t mind the idea of the simple duties of being a bartender. It seemed like a fucking vacation, compared to the turmoil and trauma of the last two years. Already in the few days since the meeting with the cartel, he felt ten times lighter, a thousand years younger. Like someone had finally released the steam building up inside of him so he could breathe and think. He didn’t feel half as angry anymore, and while he wouldn’t go as far as to say he was happy, he was basically a pig in shit compared to how he felt just a week before. He was glad to toss off the heavy responsibility of being a spymaster for a few weeks. He’d come back stronger; he always did.
And now that the clouds in his head had fully cleared, he really only had one desire left: Eva.
He thought about the sadness in her face when he left her at Swashbuckler’s days ago. He hadn’t been back since—had been in no shape for it, really. After the cartel meeting, Will went back to his house and slept for fifteen hours, a deeper sleep than any he’d had in months. He woke up and met with a fresh disgust for the living conditions to which he’d subjected himself, and immediately began cleaning up the mess he’d been living in. It was like his brain was running at full function for the first time in two years.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about her—far from it. Not ten minutes passed by, it seemed, without something as simple as her name popping into his head. It was only that Will was suddenly awake to his own sickness, and self-preservation had to come first. The man he used to be, the one he wanted to be again, kept a tighter ship than this. The man his grandmother raised was better. He had to dig that man out from the ashes of the fire.