If there was one thing Roarke liked most in the world, it was a damn good party. It wasn’t about drinking and forgetting the night while throwing up over a toilet bowl like the college kids across town imagined parties. This was the good old fashioned kind. They had cheap beer flowing from taps that were replaced the second they kicked, as cold and crisp as the last glass as if nothing had changed. They had dartboards pockmarked with holes from nights gone by, the outer edges of the target far more peppered with shots than the elusive dart in the center. Once Roarke managed to not only hit the center, but land another dart clean on top of it. He got beat up later when he tried to tell some guys he knew and was called a grade-A liar. He relished, however, in knowing that somewhere in that universe of spotted stars across the board, was evidence of his greatest shot to date.
The bar was crawling with nothing but Pharaohs. That’s exactly how Roarke liked it. He liked his bar to be filled with only his friends and family. They’d closed the bar off for the night, telling any teenagers looking for a place that didn’t card and any local drunks staggering in from their AA meetings to fuck off. The place was blasting rock n’ roll straight from the heart of the 70’s and it smelled like cigarettes and cheap beer.
“Maybe one day you’ll get a little more imaginative with your party themes,” Amber said, saddling up to the open seat next to Roarke at the bar.
“This is all you need for a good celebration,” he said, tossing back what miniscule amounts of beer were left beneath the foamy head at the bottom of his pint glass.
“Somehow I don’t think the birthday girl in question would agree,” she said.
“Oh please. If you went out drinking with her for more than just your cheap white wine you’d see her shotgun a whole can of Bud in thirty seconds,” he said, setting down the glass. “Besides, she seems to be enjoying herself.”
They both turned to see their younger sister laughing at something their grandfather said before they clinked their glasses in a cheers and took massive sips from their respective drinks. Her face dazzled with the blush from alcohol and Roarke smiled. He was relieved in knowing there wasn’t much to worry about when it came to her. She could drink, for sure, but she was also like a flower in their family garden of weeds. She was kind, she smiled, she was naive to a fault, and Roarke loved her all the more for it.
He’d also shove his foot straight up the ass of the first man that ever made her cry. So far, she’d gotten out of her first few relationships in life without many mental scars to show for it. But you could only go so long in life without disappointment finding you, even if you had the brightest of smiles.
“Looks like we’ve got a crasher,” Amber said, nodding across the room to a woman Roarke had never seen before.
She was average height with average looking dirty blonde hair that sat well on her head. He was distracted, only briefly, by the low cut of the neck of her shirt before pulling his eyes back up to try and catch her blue ones from across the room. With the exception that Roarke had no idea who she was, nothing about her rang as suspicious. But he learned to never trust anyone that looked just too average to be a threat. He got up and walked over to her.
She seemed to be expecting him because she turned to look at him before he arrived, without a hint of surprise or a look of panic. If anything, she almost looked bored before he got there, though her eyes seemed to light up with something he couldn’t quite place when she finally met his own. It was something like a spark, but for what, he didn’t know or care, at the time.
“It’s a private party lady,” he said.
“I can see that,” she said. “I’m here to talk to Roarke Withers.”
“Speaking.”
She faltered, just a bit. But she got herself back on track quickly, blinking a few times before opening her mouth again.
“I’m a former member of the Caracals,” she said.
“The fuck you doing here?”
His good mood was dampened by the sound of the one word he hated more than anything else in the world. The jolt of anger inside must have shown on his face because she paused again. But, as before, she got her bearings and pressed on.
“Emphasis on ‘former’,” she said sternly.
“Doesn’t answer my question though, does it?”
“Well, if I’m here and not there, I’m clearly jumping ship aren’t I?” she said, getting a little bit bolder. However she imagined this conversation going, this wasn’t it, apparently.
“Why should I take your word on this? You muscled your way into my little sister’s twenty-first birthday party and sat in the corner.” he said, moving in closer to her. “That doesn’t exactly scream trust in my books.”
“I know that the State Troopers found our headquarters at the El Campo House bar,” she said. “I can also tell you that Antonio Chavez is behind bars and they’re in a bit of a power vacuum. That’s why I left. I’m not interested in being caught on the wrong side of a total gang meltdown.”
“So you thought the best escape was coming to a place filled with people that hate you for existing in the first place?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“There’s only one gang worth scouting if it’s not the Caracals,” she said with a shrug.
She leaned back to rest her elbows on the high top table she sat at. In her hand was a half-finished glass of amber beer. He tried not to let his eyes go to the exposed skin of her chest, exactly where he was sure she intended him to look. She certainly had the smarts for a Caracal girl. And whatever nervous energy she’d been wrangling while she was sitting alone had morphed into confidence that he found a little too attractive, even for how irritating her smirk seemed to be.
He opened his mouth to say something else, maybe to tell her to beat it or ask her to follow him to a quiet part of the bar so they could chat. Maybe everything would have been better if he told her to leave then, got her to walk out of his life. It’s funny, looking back, how many things could be changed and caused by one wrong move, one word not said.
He never got the chance, however. Somebody grabbed his arm in a tight grip and yanked his attention back.
“Yo, bro, the birthday girl is MIA,” said Rick, slurring his way through a sentence that had Roarke’s mind reeling.
He looked around the bar. Her bright smile and pink cheeks were nowhere to be found.
“Where’d she go? Out back to sneak a smoke again?” he asked with a laugh.
“No idea. She’s just out of here.”
“She’s probably getting up to something I wouldn’t approve of in the bathroom,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll let it slide, it’s her birthday.”
That seemed to satisfy the crowd as he turned back to the mysterious girl standing in front of him.
“You have a name lady?” he asked, leaning against the bar and yawning. He was beginning to grow bored with her tale of turning coat. He only half believed her, really. If anything, she was a local girl in search of a cheap thrill by getting in the pants of a couple of Pharaoh guys. It wasn’t the first time.
“Hanna,” she said.
“Last name?”
“Isn’t that a little forward?”
“You know my last name.”
“Isaacs.”
He hummed. There was nothing interesting about the name. It didn’t ring any bells, which probably should have been a clue. He knew plenty of the girls who hung around the Caracals and that wasn’t one he knew. Still, he wouldn’t mind taking her into the bathroom for a few minutes. He was a man after all and her toned body was practically calling out to him from under her revealing shirt.
“So, what else do you have for me?” he asked with a quirked eyebrow. “Anything requiring some sort of bribery?”
“Not really,” she said with a slight cringe. “Just looking for a way out. And a way in.”
“I can show you at least one of those.”
She was resisting his bait. He could see it just behind the thin layer of irritation across her blue eyes. All it would take was a bit more prodding, maybe a shot or two, and those walls would come down. Who said he couldn’t have fun on his little sister’s birthday?
Speaking of which…
“Has my sister returned to grace us with her presence yet?” he called out.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“Wait. What?”
He turned around to look. She really was nowhere to be found. One of the girls came out of the women’s room shrugging and going back to her drink. He moved outside to see several men crowded around the ashtray in the night. They gave him a nod over their cigarettes. His sister was nowhere to be seen. His first thought was how rude it was to walk out of your own party. But something icy gripped him. She was never one for being rude.